University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh TWITTER ADVERTISING BY COCA-COLA; THE MULTINATIONAL BRAND AND A LOCAL SUBSIDIARY BY SAMUEL RICHIE EKOW BOAKYE 10419954 THIS DISSERTATION IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MA COMMUNICATION STUDIES DEGREE JULY, 2020 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh i University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my mother Ellen. Thank you for being there. ii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to God for the strength to carry out this study towards my master’s degree. I am grateful to my supervisor, Rev. Fr Dominic Maximilian Ofori, for his time and effort in guiding me throughout the research. I appreciate each lecturer at the Department of Communication Studies, University of Ghana, for shaping me in an all new discipline. I am eternally grateful. I also want to thank my family for being supportive in this educational rollercoaster. I would choose you all over and again. Finally, to all my mates and teaching assistants from the Department of Communication Studies, thanks for being there. You have always proved some angels ‘charge’ the earth too. iii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ABSTRACT As businesses expand from their home country to other countries, communicating to the new markets is of utmost importance. Social media have over the years been useful in communicating to different markets in real time. Social media go beyond geographical boundaries, reaching everyone who has access. This research was done to study Twitter advertising by multinational brands and their local subsidiaries. Using Coca-Cola as a case study. The study is qualitative in nature, employing textual analysis. Based on Katz and Blumler's uses and gratifications theory, the study found how Coca-Cola gratified the needs of different markets, using Twitter. The findings showed that Coca-Cola, while advertising and communicating on Twitter, meet the needs of their audiences through pop culture, sports, festivities, promotions, and consumer interactivities. This study adds to African communication scholarship on multinational brand advertising. Further, it contributes to knowledge of local subsidiary advertising strategies on Twitter in the advertising literature. iv University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ..................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. DEDICATION .......................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... v CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Background to the Study ................................................................................................. 2 1.1.1 Social Media ............................................................................................................. 2 1.1.2 Twitter Advertising ................................................................................................... 4 1.1.3 Coca-Cola ................................................................................................................. 4 1.2 Statement of the Problem................................................................................................. 5 1.3 Research Objectives......................................................................................................... 7 1.4 Research Questions .......................................................................................................... 7 1.5 Organisation of Work ...................................................................................................... 8 1.6 Significance of Study ....................................................................................................... 8 1.7 Delimitations of Study ..................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER TWO ..................................................................................................................... 11 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................................ 11 v University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 2.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 11 2.2 Review of Related Literature ......................................................................................... 11 2.2.1 Multinational Brand Advertising ............................................................................ 11 2.2.2 Social Media in Multinational Brand Advertising .................................................. 13 2.2.3 Brand Engagement on Social Media ....................................................................... 16 2.3 Theoretical Framework .................................................................................................. 17 2.3.1 Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT)................................................................... 17 2.3.2 Uses and gratification in this study ......................................................................... 18 CHAPTER THREE ................................................................................................................. 21 METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................. 21 3.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 21 3.2 Research Design ............................................................................................................ 21 3.3 Setting and Population ................................................................................................... 22 3.4 Sampling ........................................................................................................................ 23 3.5 Data Collection .............................................................................................................. 23 3.6 Coding Technique .......................................................................................................... 24 3.6.1 Pop culture .............................................................................................................. 24 3.6.2 Sports ...................................................................................................................... 24 3.6.3 Festivities ................................................................................................................ 24 3.6.4 Consumer interactivity ............................................................................................ 25 3.6.5 Promotions and web traffic ..................................................................................... 25 vi University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3.7 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................. 25 3.8 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER FOUR ................................................................................................................... 26 PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION........................................................ 26 4.1 Overview........................................................................................................................ 26 4.2 Findings ......................................................................................................................... 27 4.2.1 Pop Culture ............................................................................................................. 27 4.2.2 Sports ...................................................................................................................... 28 4.2.3 Festivities ................................................................................................................ 29 4.2.4 Consumer interactivity ............................................................................................ 30 4.2.5 Promotions and Web traffic .................................................................................... 31 4.3 Discussion of Key Findings ........................................................................................... 32 4.3.1 How does Coca-Cola use Twitter for advertising and communication? ................ 32 4.3.2 What are the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca- Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited? ................................................ 33 4.3.3 In what ways do Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising affect the ads of their local subsidiaries? ..................................................................................................................... 34 4.3.4 How does Coca-Cola engage their consumers on Twitter? .................................... 35 4.4 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER FIVE ..................................................................................................................... 37 SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS............... 37 5.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 37 vii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 5.2 Summary of the Study ................................................................................................... 37 5.3 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 38 5.4 Limitations of the Study ................................................................................................ 39 5.5 Recommendations.......................................................................................................... 39 5.6 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................................... 40 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 42 APPENDICES ......................................................................................................................... 49 viii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Multinational brands are corporations that engage in commercial activities in and outside their country of origin. Mayrhofer and Prange (2015) define such companies by how the company effectively controls or influences the decision-making process of the foreign wing of the business. These corporations, in effect, operate in several regions and will have to advertise to consumers in all the regions in which the corporations operate. Hence, multinational brands have taken advantage of social media like Twitter to reach audiences. A study by Barnes, Lescault, and Andonian (2012) found that as of the year 2011, 73 per cent of top 500 multinational brands had Twitter accounts, arguing that social media have become important to multinational brands. This study looked at the advertising of multinational brand, Coca-Cola on Twitter. Coca-Cola Company is a soft drink company that started in 1886, with their flagship drink Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola Company exists in over 200 countries producing over 500 different beverages. In March 2009, the multinational brand, Coca-Cola signed on to Twitter and posted its first tweet. Subsequently, the Ghanaian subsidiary created a Twitter account in March 2015, beginning Coca-Cola communications on Twitter. This chapter talks about background to the study, which gives an insight into Twitter advertising and Coca-Cola. The problem of the research is stated as well as the research objectives and the research questions to guide the study. Also, the chapter shows the importance of the study to scholars, researchers and industry players as well as the delimitation of the research. 1 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1.1 Background to the Study Since the inception of new technology, such as new media, many companies have shifted from traditional ways of operating. For instance, the use of paper-based recordkeeping, messaging by postal services and print advertising, among others, has decreased because of new methods of operating with the internet. Now, companies have access to digital database management, e-mailing and social media advertising. The advent of the internet has developed businesses and has triggered an increase in innovation at workplaces (Ciobanu & Neamtu, 2017). Subsequently, social media have become popular among business corporations, because some targets of the businesses can be found on social media. 1.1.1 Social Media Social media, according to Merriam-Webster (2019) “are forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).” These electronic communication use internet applications that make it possible to create and transmit content in the form of words, pictures, videos, and audios with ease. Social media sites have been categorised into groups namely, microblogging sites, media sharing sites, bookmarking sites, social networks, blog comments and forums, social news sites, and finally, social gaming and virtual worlds. Microblogging sites allow users to put up short posts on feeds for other users to see (Java, Song, Finin & Tsen, 2007). Twitter and Facebook are examples in the microblogging category. Media sharing sites are sites where people create profiles to share and manage media in the form of photos, audio and videos (Safko & Brake, 2009, pp. 27-28). Media sharing sites include Vimeo, Rhapsody and YouTube. Bookmarking sites are sites that allow users to tag sites that other users can also access. Social bookmarking sites allow annotation, editing, and sharing of such tags (Khan & Sharma, 2017). 2 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Pinterest and Flipboard are examples of such bookmarking sites. Social networks are sites where people create profiles and are allowed to connect with other people of similar interest (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Examples of social networks include Facebook and LinkedIn. Blog comments and forums are forums that allow users to comment on topics posted on the online communities (Bach, Hai & Phuong, 2016). Quora and Nairaland are examples in this category. Social news sites give users access to news and links to other articles where users vote on their prominence (Weninger, Zhu & Han, 2013). Sites like Reddit and Digg fall within the social news category. Social gaming and virtual worlds are sites allow users to create or join immersive settings, which are enabled by a network of computers for real time interaction (Girvan, 2013). Immersive settings of these virtual worlds are used for educational, gaming and other recreational purposes. Examples include Second Life and World of Warcraft. The ability of social media to accommodate convergence in communication and take feedback has presented brands the ability to be advertised with vast options. Social media, with an effective strategy can increase return on investments (Kumar & Mirchandani, 2012). In 2019, a world- wide statistics portal, Statista ranked the top 10 social media apps, based their popularity and user base. They were Facebook, Whatsapp, QQ, WeChat, QZone, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and Baidu (Clement, 2019). According to a 2018 Statista report, in the year 2010, 9.7 million people were on social media globally but the number was expected to reach 2.77 billion by the end of 2019 (Clement, 2019). Inherent in this is the revelation that social media offer a good medium for reaching out to a large number of audiences. These audiences can be reached, regardless of geographical barriers, thereby making it possible for companies to build global presence, which is vital to multinational brands. This study focuses on Twitter advertising by multinational brands and their local subsidiaries, using Coca-Cola in the study. 3 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1.1.2 Twitter Advertising Twitter is described by Kwak, Lee, Park, and Moon (2010) as a microblogging site, which uses posts, known as tweets, to communicate. Tweets originally only had a 140character limit. In November 2017, Twitter doubled the number of characters per tweet to 280 for most languages. Twitter is a new form of RSS (aggregated feeds), Instant Messenger, and a Short Message Service. Twitter is a place where business is conducted as it enables advertisers to post links to direct consumers to website of businesses (Suster, 2010). Twitter (2019) categorises some Twitter advertising into cards. These cards are tweets, which have been put in a package with web links that lead one to the website of the brand, or to a webpage where the software application of the brand can be downloaded. These cards can be promoted advertisements, which are not necessarily sent to only followers of the brand’s Twitter account. The cards could also be targeted advertisements, which are sent to specific audiences based on their recent activities. Though promoted advertisements work well to reach target audiences, multinational brands like Coca-Cola still go a step further create multiple accounts, which are operated by their local subsidiaries in order to communicate with audiences in those localities. Here, Coca-Cola uses a simpler form of advertising by posting tweets. Advertisers hereby use Twitter as an attempt at “starting the conversation rather than concluding it” as argued by Murthy (2013). 1.1.3 Coca-Cola Coca-Cola is a soft drink which is produced by the Coca-Cola Company, headquartered in Georgia, USA. The drink was invented in 1886 by John Stith Pemberton (later sold to Asa Griggs Candler) as an alcohol free drink and intended as a patent medicine (Eschner, 2017). Coca-Cola has since its commercialisation, has been a top brand worldwide. 4 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Coca-Cola in Africa started in 1989 with the franchise of Coca-Cola Company for Equatorial Guinea, expanding to Guinea, Mauritania, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and The Gambia then finally to Ghana, Morocco and Algeria (Daurella, 2017). In Ghana, the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Ghana Limited was formed by a divestiture in March 1995 of Ghana National Trading Corporation's Bottling Division. The Company produces and markets Coca-Cola and its affiliate drinks such as Fanta and Sprite, nationwide (GNPC 2010). Coca-Cola over the years has market its products in Ghana through outdoor advertisements such as billboards, branded bus stops, coke kiosks and activation events. Coca-Cola Ghana, also engages in electronic media advertisements on radio and television, as well as print media advertisements. As new media gained prominence in Ghana, Coca-Cola has taken advantage of the internet to reach audiences on social media. In March 2015, a Twitter account was created for Coca-Cola Ghana to communicate to the Ghanaian audience. 1.2 Statement of the Problem The advancement in internet technology has brought with it many improvements to the business climate such as ease of operation and effectiveness. These improvements in internet technology will be adopted by a number of people. Target consumers of advertisers may be in this group of adopters and as such advertisers will have to keep up with the pace in order to reach such clients. Exponential growth in new technology such as social media have gained interest among business advertisers. As businesses expand out of their home regions, the number of people businesses have to reach increases. Such expansion calls for communication media that reach all targets of the business. Social media present a form of omnipresence such brands seek. Ayivor (2015) and Zhang and Mao (2016) noted that social media have become popular among businesses, and as such, businesses have been experimenting the prospects social media. 5 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Some of these businesses which are multinational such as Coca-Cola have added social media to their means of communication and even created social media accounts for their local subsidiaries around the world. The Coca-Cola Company over the years has a good track of integrated market communications (Stringer, 2015). Since the year 2014, Coca-Cola has won World Branding Awards for the beverage – soft drink category (World Branding Forum, 2019). At the local level, Coca Cola’s outstanding performance in social media was rewarded in Ghana’s 7th National PR and Communication Excellence Awards. This award was picked up by Coca- Cola’s advertising agency, Ogilvy Ghana (Tetteh, 2019). Though both levels (global and local) of the company are being lauded at their respective levels, there is hardly any scholarship on how the brands use social media for advertising and communication. Studies such as Whitelock, Cadogan and Ogasaki (2013), and Alalwan, Rana, Dwivedi, and Algharabat (2017) have researched three “key theoretical approaches” which, enable a better knowledge of social media to advertisers. There is, however, limited scholarship on how local subsidiaries of multinational brands can leverage social media. There are two main schools of thought for local subsidiaries in brand communication. The first school of thought recommends the local subsidiary stick to the standard messaging strategy set by the global level; then, the second school of thought recommends the messaging strategy must be adapted to the local market (Leonidou, Katsikeas & Coudounaris, 2010). Research that examines both multinational brands and their local subsidiaries on Twitter advertising is scarce. Although Samiee, Jeong, Pae and Tai (2003) researched the advertising standards of multinationals and their subsidiaries, the use of Twitter as a platform for advertising was not investigated in their study. There is therefore a need for research to compare the strategy at a global and local level as well as how their messaging affects each other. Scholarship on multinational brand advertising has become more important because brands keep expanding out of their home regions and therefore in-depth research from scholars will 6 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh give a better understanding of global standardisation of advertisements and localisation of advertisements. The study hopes to find out which strategy a successful company like Coca- Cola works with for the benefit of researchers, scholars, and organizations. The study brings to light what will be best practice on Twitter advertising for a multinational. In scholarship, the study looks at the conversation of standardisation and localisation of advertisements in the African landscape. In practice, players in industry can determine efficiency of advertisements using reviewed models in this study. Ultimately, this study is looking at Twitter advertising by multinational brands and their local subsidiaries with a focus on Coca-Cola. 1.3 Research Objectives The overarching objective of this study is to investigate Twitter advertising of CocaCola and its local subsidiary in Ghana. The following research objectives will guide the study: i. To investigate how Coca-Cola use Twitter for advertising and communication; ii. To analyse the similarities and differences between Twitter advertising of Coca-Cola Company limited and Coca-Cola Ghana limited. iii. To investigate how Twitter advertising by Coca-Cola affect their local subsidiaries. The objectives set above will reveal how social media, such as Twitter works to help in advertising multinational brands. 1.4 Research Questions The following research questions seek to meet the objectives of the study: i. How does Coca-Cola use Twitter for advertising and communication? ii. What are the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca-Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited? iii. In what ways do Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising affect the ads of their local subsidiaries? 7 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh By answering the research questions above, this study will expose the relevance of social media, such as Twitter to multinational brands. The responses will add to scholarship on how multinational brands when faced with the multiple routes of advertising can select the route which works well, using recommendations from this study that address their specific situations. 1.5 Organisation of Work This work comprises five chapters. The first chapter gives a perspective and background to the study, states the problem of the study, and articulates the research objectives and research questions. The chapter also gives the significance of the study as well as the delimitations of the study. In the second chapter, related literature reviewed and articulates the theoretical framework. The third chapter introduces the methodology and how data were collected for the research. The data collected are analysed in the fourth chapter, with chapter five presenting a summary of findings, conclusions, limitations of the study, and recommendations for future study. 1.6 Significance of Study This study, which sought to explore multinational and local brand advertising on social media, is of importance to scholars, researchers, and industry players. Ayivor (2015) argues that research on brand advertising on social media should be expanded to create a well-rounded perspective on how brands use social media. Thus, the study adds to research on the analysis of Twitter advertisements by multinational brands and their Ghanaian subsidiary. This research employs the uses and gratification theory, thereby contributing to the application of the theory for researchers. Twitter advertising is quite different from mainstream (traditional) advertising, due to Twitter’s bi-directional and interactive communication. The study therefore adds to communication scholarship by demonstrating that Twitter is an effective medium for advertisements, and Twitter advertisements in multinational branding requires a different 8 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh approach from single brand advertisements. Marketing or advertising units in multinational organisations may engage this work in decision-making for Twitter advertising for global brands and local subsidiaries. 1.7 Delimitations of Study This study is limited to Twitter as the medium for advertising by multinational brands and their local subsidiary because out of the top ten social media applications ranked by Statista in 2019, Facebook, Whatsapp, QQ, WeChat, QZone, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and Baidu, four of them (QQ, WeChat, QZone and Baidu) are widely used in China but hardly used outside China and as such, will not be useful for this study. Instagram and Tumblr are media sharing social media sites which are structured purposively for media sharing and captioning. Instagram and Tumblr are not ideal for this study because the advertisements may sometimes be text-based and not limited to media. Google+ and WhatsApp were eliminated from the study due to matters regarding accessibility. Without a Google account, it is impossible to get a Google+ account, and individuals cannot follow businesses on Google+. WhatsApp was ruled out since it is not a public social media application. WhatsApp is encrypted from user to user making it more convenient for conversation than advertising. Facebook, which is closest to Twitter was however ruled out from this study because Facebook has had security issues in recent times. In 2018 Cambridge Analytica illegally harvested Facebook users’ data for political advertising (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018), making Facebook a target for political attacks and data manipulation. Therefore, the research eliminates Facebook based on security interferences and privacy breech. Twitter however has verification devices, both text and multimedia messaging capacities, as well as user-friendly features, making it ideal for this study. 9 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The brand in focus for the study is Coca-Cola, from the Coca-Cola Company Limited and its Ghanaian subsidiary. The choice of Coca-Cola is due to its popular worldwide, as it is sold in every country but Cuba and North Korea making Coca-Cola an epitome of multinational brand. 10 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction This chapter reviews literature relevant to the study and the theory underpinning this study, the uses and gratification theory, will be examined. 2.2 Review of Related Literature This section reviews scholarly works concerning social media and multinational brands. The review has been organised under three themes, multinational brand advertising, social media in multinational brand advertising, and brand engagement on social media. 2.2.1 Multinational Brand Advertising For multinational brands, international advertising comes as a necessary consideration in decision-making as it holds the power to target audiences beyond one country (Athapaththu, 2015). Related studies (Schmid & Kotulla, 2011; Wang & Yang, 2011 Matricano & Vitagliano, 2018) reveal that when multinational brands decide to advertise, the brand may opt for either standardising the advertisements or adapting the advertisement to the local market. In standardising the advertisement, the advertising strategy used is the same globally; mostly through the same delivery routes and sometimes executed by the same advertising agency worldwide. Adapting the advertisement to suit local markets, gives each subsidiary of the multinational brand tailored advertising routes which suits the market situation of the given region. Kanso and Nelson (2019) revealed in a research about decision-making in international advertising that despite existing literature arguing that advertisements are gradually being localised rather than sticking to the multinational’s standards, the practise on the ground is different. Although localising advertisements give multinational brands the power of being 11 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh culturally sensitive, Kanso and Nelson (2019) discovered advertising practitioners are only influenced by culture when it comes to the creative message while other parts of the strategy are left to international standards. Then again, the creation of regional headquarters decentralises a number of decisions taken by multinational brands including advertising campaigns. This procedure puts in a bit of adaptation into the campaign because advertising directives may come from a much closer administrative level. Hatzithomas, Fotiadis, and Coudounaris (2016) in their study of Vodafone’s social media communication in the United Kingdom and Greece concluded that the decision of multinational brands to either standardise or localise their advertisements which has gone on for the past five decades can be resolved with four new strategies. The researchers posit that multinational brands must personalise their social media communication using “global, glocal, local, or single case strategy” (Hatzithomas et al., 2016, pp. 1104). The global strategy dates back to a 1983 Harvard Business Review article authored by Theodore Levitt entitled “Globalization of Markets.” In the article, Levitt (1983) introduces a market where there is uniformity in products and services worldwide, as consumers were moving to a “convergence of tastes.” However, globalisation did not address matters concerning economic differences, as well as the socio-cultural setting of the markets, leading to a shift from “global” to “glocal” (Grigorescu & Zaif, 2017). Grigorescu and Zaif (2017), assert “glocalisation” emerged from Japanese scholarship with import given to incorporation of both global and local market structures. “Glocalisation” encourages a global offering with consideration to local issues related to the offer. Dumitrescu and Vinerean (2010) define local strategy as “thinking locally, acting locally” (Dumitrescu and Vinerean, 2010, p. 149). This definition shows that the local strategy confines itself to existing protocols and culture of a specific market. Finally, single case strategy takes creativity at a local level while executing with international standards (Wei & Jiang, 2005; Hatzithomas et al., 2016). However, for social 12 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh media strategy, Berthon, Pitt, Plangger and Shapiro (2012) believe that power is transferred from multinational brands to the consumers’ hands, making standardisation hard. The literature reviewed in this section recommends classical four strategies for multinational brand advertising: global, ‘glocal’, local and single case. The reviewed also introduces as a fifth strategy which is personalising the four classical strategies. The gap in literature however, is how multinational brands and their local subsidiaries execute these strategies. Coca-Cola is a popular multinational brand and as such research should be done on how such powerful brands execute their advertising. The next section discusses how social media plays a role in multinational brand advertising. 2.2.2 Social Media in Multinational Brand Advertising Okazaki and Taylor (2013) in their study on social media and international advertising found three “key theoretical perspectives,” namely, “networking capability, image transferability, and personal extensibility” (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013, pp. 59-67) that give a relatively better understanding of social media as well as the potential of value creation with social media in the context of international advertising. Network capability, in creating value with social media, is the ability of social media to transfer information from one point to another, surpassing geographical and cultural limitations while maintaining its social networking (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013, pp. 59-61). The network capability perspective helps multinational brands implement standardization across all markets. Social media makes it ideal for multinational brands to implement network capability as a brand’s Twitter post sent from one country carries the same message to recipients globally in real time. Furthermore, the image transferability perspective, according to Okazaki and Taylor (2013), posits that through social media, advertisers can build their brand with a bigger market. 13 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The advertisers can reinforce the image of their brands globally with their customers, because social media allows mass communication from brand to consumers. Enforcement of brand image can be done through the use of famous celebrities who can advertise the brand to make the brand go viral. Finally, the personal extensibility perspective explains how social media has added flexibility to communication. Leveraging social media’s ability of feedback mechanism, Okazaki and Taylor (2013) suggest multinational brands can take advantage of consumers’ desire to interact with the brand to get feedback from the consumers through social media. Consumers are able to interact with brands at any time, or place regardless of their culture. The literature reviewed above shows how social media is useful to multinational brands, however the key theories reviewed are all biased towards standardisation of multinational brand advertisements. This reveals a gap for the need to expand the three theoretical perspectives to include localisation, glocalisation and single case strategizing of advertisements. However, other studies such as Kaur (2008) also encourage the use of social media in multinational brand literature. Kaur (2008) in studying why some brands use social media to advertise in the Irish footwear industry discovered that brands that do social media advertising mostly do it because target customers spend most of their time on social media. The study further revealed that social media is a cost effective platform for advertising. Related studies such as Ayivor (2015) asserts that social media helps brands to direct traffic to their actual websites. This attribute of social media makes it easier to bring the consumer directly to what the brands have to offer beyond what is seen on social media. Kaur (2008) also deduces that social media are user-friendly to brands; thus handlers of social media accounts for brands can easily navigate through, as compared to traditional advertising which requires some level of experience. According to Kaur (2008), social media are convenient and easier to make edits as compared to traditional media advertising. The study 14 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh found that more online advertising was done in the footwear industry than billboards however, Majeed and Sriram (2019) refuted the claim. Majeed and Sriram (2019) found in their research that Indian footwear companies still had majority of their ads on traditional media. Therefore, Majeed and Sriram (2019) rejected Kaur’s (2008) findings that suggested that the brands that do social media advertising mostly do it because target customers spend most of their time on social media. Majeed and Sriram (2019) argued that findings in Kaur (2008) may work for Ireland but cannot be generalised. Although Ireland may have a vibrant social media usage, India, according to Majeed and Sriram (2019), still has television as a dominant medium and is only gradually warming up to social media. For the purpose of this study, Twitter advertising by multinational brands and their local subsidiary: a study of Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Ghana, the reach of social media is on the high side, with the proliferation of mobile phone usage (Kemp, 2019). In the case of Ghana, a number of traditional media (television and radio stations) in addition to their conventional services have introduced online streaming of their content in order to reach their target who have moved away from traditional media to social media. Social media such as Facebook live, Instagram live, and Periscope/Twitter live video are engaged to broadcast traditional media content online. Kemp’s 2019 digital report revealed that, as of January 2019, the mobile phone usage in Ghana was 130% as juxtaposed to the total population of Ghana (Dubras, Nazir, & Oxford, 2019). Literature reviewed in this section gives a perspective on social media usage in multinational branding. Some researchers (Kaur, 2008; Okazaki & Taylor, 2013; Ayivor, 2015) proved social media’s utility to multinational branding with the tenets of convenience, user-friendliness, as well as popularity worldwide, nevertheless Majid and Sriram 2019 subjected popularity to differ from region to region. However, the reviewed literature in this section lacks instances of local subsidiaries. The next section discusses how brands like Coca- 15 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Cola engage on social media, taking a cue from Kaplan and Haelin (2010) challenges and opportunities social media present. 2.2.3 Brand Engagement on Social Media Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) recommend that if a brand still needs time to operate its core mandate, the business entity cannot participate in all social media because there are a whole lot of social media platforms, hence the need to carefully choose the specific media that suit advertising needs of a brand. A specific target will have a medium that gratifies that target’s communication needs, making it easy for brands to reach them. For instance, social media users who are interested in video contents may often visit YouTube and thus will be available to receive advertising that comes in video forms. In the same light, photo advertisements may be more suitable on social medial sites like Instagram for target audiences that pay attention to photo content on social media. Whiting and Williams (2013) in a study to understand uses and gratifications that consumers get from social media discovered ten themes that are uses and gratifications of social media, which had been articulated in earlier works by Palmgreen and Rayburm (1975), Korgaonkar and Wolin (1999), Papacharissi and Rubin (2000) and Ko, Cho and Roberts (2005). The themes found were, “social interaction, information seeking, pass time, entertainment, relaxation, communicatory utility, convenience utility, expression of opinion, information sharing, and surveillance or knowledge about others,” (Whiting & Williams 2013). Conversely, in a quantitative approach by Rohm, Kaltcheva, and Milne (2013) in finding which needs brands can gratify consumers, respondents revealed that consumers of brands go on social media to gratify the need for entertainment, engagement, information, and promotions and other incentives. The review of literature brought to light themes of multinational brand advertising, social media in multinational brand advertising and brand engagement on social media. Multinational brand advertising theme revealed that advertising for multinationals brands and 16 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh local subsidiaries open a discussion on whether multinational brands should stick to a standardised strategy or localise the strategy to suit the subsidiary. Secondly, the theme of social media in multinational brand advertising engaged literature that discovered merits of social media for multinational brands when advertising. Social media offers a new dimension to advertising due to features such as the ability to surpass geographical barriers while maintaining messaging strategy put in place by the brand. Social media further leverages human’s desire to communicate to thrive, thus consumers are able to give feedback to multinational brands through social media. Finally, on the theme of brand engagement on social media, literature articulates that social media gratifies consumers’ media needs. Therefore, multinational brands can engage consumers by satisfying the consumer’s needs. Based on this knowledge, brands understand what consumers use social media for, yet there is ample evidence that Coco-Cola Ghana, for example, uses Twitter to advertise and communicate with stakeholders. What we do not know is how the company’s communication behaviour meets the needs of its stakeholders. This study is being embarked upon to find an answer to this question. 2.3 Theoretical Framework This study is underpinned by the uses and gratifications theory propounded by Katz and Blumler in 1970s. The theory is audience-centered, as such, it can be used by brands to understand why audiences actively seek specific media to satisfy their exact needs. 2.3.1 Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT) Uses and gratifications theory (UGT) is an audience-centred theory propounded by Katz and Blumler in the 1970s. The theory focuses on what people do with media, rather than what media does to people. UGT seeks to understand why people seek out media and what they use them for. McQuail, Blumler, and Brown (1972) proposed four uses of media as “diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, and surveillance” (McQuail, Blumler, and Brown, 1972, pp. 512-513) 17 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The main tenets of the theory are, first, the audience are assumed to be active with a goal-oriented media use. Secondly, the initiative in linking need gratification to a specific medium choice rests with the audience member. Further, the media compete with other resources to satisfy needs. The theory posits that people have enough self-awareness of their media use, interests, and motives to help researchers get a vivid description of that use. Also, value judgments of media content can only be assessed by audiences. In addition, the media compete against each other as sources of gratification as well as satisfy the needs of the audiences (West & Turner, 2007). These needs that audiences use media to gratify include their quest to be informed or educated, entertained, interact, relate to characters of the situation in a media environment or escape from real life’s daily stresses (McQuail, 2010). UGT, according to David (2016), has more significance now more than ever, especially when it comes to explaining how consumers interact with technology, prominent of which is the internet. Studies into mobile phone usage regarding uses and gratifications theory have revealed that consumers seek gratifications from their mobile phones. Implicit in this finding is the assumption that social media usage can be motivated by such reasons as the need to vent feelings, the need for recognition and other cognitive needs (Leung, 2013). With such power in the hands of the consumer, this research seeks to find out how brands engage their consumers on Twitter to satisfy their needs. Multinational brands as consumers of social media in this research will be investigated to find how they use social media to gratify communications needs. 2.3.2 Uses and gratification in this study This study, which seeks to investigate Twitter advertising of Coca-Cola employs uses and gratification theory. Traditionally, the theory is viewed from the audiences’ point of view, however, content producers (in this case Coca-Cola) can take advantage of the existing knowledge of gratifications sought by audiences to satisfy the audiences. Leung (2013) puts 18 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh social media gratifications into five categories namely; social purposes and seeking affection, the need to vent feelings, the need to be recognised, to be entertained, and finally other cognitive uses. Isba, Woolfe, & Hanneman (2016) acknowledge humans as social beings with a motivation to belong, through establishing and keeping interpersonal relationships. As such, social media presents a front for audiences to relate to other users. The users here may be persons or brands providing social relations to other accounts. All accounts on social media form the ecosystem in which users can use to relate to each other. Multinational brands can take advantage of this ecosystem to provide social relations with clients, hence gratifying their existing need to socialise. Social media users according to Leung (2013) gratify their need to vent through social media. The feedback mechanism incorporated into most social media platforms makes it possible for multinational brands to gratify the audiences’ need to vent. To motivate the use of the brand, multinational brands gratify their audiences giving an attentive ear to the audiences. Using social media to gratify the need to be recognised, Gangi & Wasko (2016) acknowledge this need when some of the subjects in their study felt involved in the multinational brand Facebook’s processes. Facebook invited users to vote in polls to select a new look and feel of the social networking site. A number of participants felt important being recognised to take a decision on behalf of the brand. Facebook at that instant gratified the need of the users, assuring them of a level of loyalty. Multinational brands can also take advantage of social media to entertain audiences. Bartsch & Viehoff (2010) regard entertainment as essential motivation for media usage. Entertainment varies in forms, making convergent media such as social media suitable to host it. As an already existing hub for entertainment, multinational brands can put their content on social media to gratify their audiences. 19 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The internet over the years have proven itself as a body of knowledge through countless entries by diverse users. Social media allows users to upload content for other users to see, as such, cognitive needs are gratified. Maslow (1981) puts cognitive needs as knowledge and understanding, curiosity, exploration, need for meaning and predictability. Social media has become a one-stop shop for satisfying curiosity, users go on to various platforms online to explore and understand happenings. Multinational brands can take advantage of this need to gratify curious audiences with explanations and meanings. From the above, uses and gratification theory stands as a theory that can be used to predict what multinational brands can do on social media for their clientele. 2.4 Chapter Summary This chapter has reviewed literature and has identified the following as key themes that frame the scholarship, multinational brand advertising, social media in multinational brand advertising, and brand engagement on social media. These themes provided an understanding of what exists in literature, therefore, this research seeks to fill the gap of Twitter advertising by Coca-Cola, a multinational brand and its local subsidiary. Following the review of literature, the chapter examined the uses and gratifications theory as the theory that guided the study. The theory articulated how multinational brands can use social media to gratify the needs of consumers. The following chapter discusses the approaches and techniques used to conduct this study. 20 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction This chapter explains the methodology used in this study as well as how the population and sample were arrived at. As mentioned in previous chapters, the research is a study of the Twitter advertising of the multinational brand Coca-Cola and its Ghanaian subsidiary. It is underpinned by the uses and gratifications theory (Katz et al, 1974). The study employed a qualitative research approach to investigate how Coca-Cola uses Twitter for advertising. McKenna, Myers, and Newman (2017) recommend the use of qualitative method for studies that use social media as primary data. First, the structure of the research is explained in the research design subsection. The next subsection describes the population and setting of the study. The subsection following the population and setting discusses how the sample was arrived at, revealing the unit of analysis. Finally, the method of analysis is explained. 3.2 Research Design This study adopted the qualitative research approach, which is used for non-measurable data. In order to assess the use of Twitter as an advertising platform for multinational brands and to explain how Coca-Cola uses social media as an advertising medium, content were retrieved from the (relevant) Twitter pages and typed out into a text document. The tweets gathered this study were obtained from Twitter in June 2019 through the help of Hootsuite, a social media marketing and management service. The tweets were selected from the year 2009, the year Coca-Cola opened a Twitter account, to 2018, the year before this study begun. Twenty tweets were conveniently sampled from the multinational account of Coca-Cola (@cocacola) and the Ghanaian subsidiary (@cocacola_GH). This reason is due to 21 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh the readily available data on the Twitter pages. The tweets were written in text, defining emoji and describing media elements where available. The texts were put in a word processing document. 3.3 Setting and Population Coca-Cola’s popularity worldwide and its reputation as the world’s best soda make it an interesting brand to use for this research. Raj (2016) noted that as far back as 1985, CocaCola pulled a marketing wonder by being the first soda to be consumed outside the planet earth. Coca-Cola, using its messaging through integrated market communications, has been associated to gratify thirst (Dudovskiy, 2015). The setting for this study is the Twitter pages of Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Ghana. Compared to other social media platform Coca-Cola uses, Twitter has a media-sharing ability with restricted text input of 280 characters. The limited number of characters make Twitter an interesting choice to use for advertising, as it can limit free expression but at the same time is reliable for quick reads. Twitter posts by @cocacola and @cocacola_GH form the population of the study. @cocacola is the official Twitter handle of the multinational brand Coca-Cola. @cocacola_GH is the official Twitter handle for the Coca-Cola subsidiary in Ghana. This research uses Ghana as the local subsidiary because of proximity of the researcher. The choice of Ghana helps in the analyses of the contents in case there are cultural or linguistic expressions that require decoding, the researcher being a native of Ghana can note and decipher. This research takes a slightly different approach in studying Twitter advertising by Coca-Cola. Advertisements come in different forms on Twitter. Advertisements may be targeted adverts, which employ algorithms that monitor users’ demographics, psychographics, and online behaviour to advertise suitable products for the user (Jansen, Moore, & Carman, 2013). Advertisements may also come in the form of simple tweets that carry out the messaging the account owner wants to convey. For the purpose of this study, targeted adverts have been 22 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh eliminated to be able to look specifically at the offerings that Coca-Cola wants to position in the minds of the audience without the influence of the consumer’s bio data. This study is focused on posts generated on the pages of @cocacola and @cocacola_GH. 3.4 Sampling As a qualitative study, Babbie (2012) recommends a non-probability sampling approach. This sampling method fits the study because the study works with data that do not use statistics. The method for sampling used in the study is convenience sampling. Wimmer and Dominick (2011) recommend the use of convenience sampling where data is easily accessible. In this study, twenty posts on the pages of Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Ghana were conveniently sampled. This process was facilitated by recommendations from social media management site Hootsuite. Through Hootsuites, tweets from @cocacola and @cocacola_GH were derived from the first tweet each page posted to the last tweet of the year 2018. The units of analysis for the study are all the individual tweets from @cocacola and @cocacola_GH which have been converted to text format. 3.5 Data Collection The data used in this study are primary data derived from the Twitter pages of Coca- Cola and its Ghanaian subsidiary. Hsei and Shannon (2005) explain three approaches to content analysis namely, “conventional, directed, and summative content analyses.” Conventional content analysis allows the researchers to immerse themselves in the data allowing new insights to materialise from the data (Hsei & Shannon, 2005). The directed approach to content analysis allows researchers to use predetermined codes from existing theories or previous literature (Hsei and Shannon, 2005). Finally, summative content analysis identifies some words or a 23 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh specific content in text with the intention of understanding the context in which the word is used. For the purpose of this study, the conventional approach was used. The data was read through several times to highlight initial codes in the data. The initial codes which reflected similar concepts were put together to form themes. These themes were used to draw a coding guide where the themes were defined with subcategories stated. The themes observed were as followed: pop culture, sports, festivities, consumer interactivity, and promotions and web traffic. 3.6 Coding Technique The contents of tweets were categorised with a coding guide based on, pop culture, sports, festivities, consumer interactivity, and promotions and web traffic. With these categories, tweets were coded under a category definition that had been documented in the guide. 3.6.1 Pop culture Pop culture was defined with posts that denote germane concepts in society at the given time (Storey, 2015). Pop culture: television, film, radio, music, entertainment, celebrities, fashion, and art. 3.6.2 Sports Sports, in this study referred to sporting and allied activities. The codes that guided the theme were: football, games, quizzes, and matches. 3.6.3 Festivities Festivities as a theme was defined surrounding holidays and commemorative days, the codes were Christmas, Easter, Eid, Festivals, Independence Day, and weekend. 24 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3.6.4 Consumer interactivity Consumer interactivity was defined with consumers’ involvement in the brand’s conversation. Such data were coded with trivia, feedback, complains, enquiry, request, and polls. 3.6.5 Promotions and web traffic The theme of promotions and web traffic was defined with announcements, web links, promo, raffle, offerings presented to consumers including links leading to other platforms owned by the brand, and commercials. 3.7 Data Analysis The data collected in the study are analysed thematically. Thematic analysis is a method for systematically identifying, organising, and offering into patterns of themes across a data set (Braun and Clarke, 2012). Considering the nature of tweets and their ability to contain text, image, video, and web links, qualitative content analysis was ideal, because it seeks to derive meanings from posts. The analysed themes are presented in a narrative form with meanings drawn to answer the research questions of the study. 3.8 Chapter Summary The chapter explained why the research used Coca-Cola to study Twitter advertising. Coca-Cola was purposively chosen as the brand to study because it has stayed relevant for years with a good track record of marketing. Coca-Cola’s Twitter was also chosen as the social media for the study because Twitter allows quick reads for users. This research is qualitative in nature, using content analysis as its methodological approach and analysed thematically. 25 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER FOUR PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Overview This chapter presents findings from the research conducted on Twitter advertising by Coca-Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited from March 2009 to June 2018. While Twitter advertising has been researched by a number of scholars in Europe, Asia and the Americas, there is not much scholarship on the subject in the African context. The data for this study were obtained from Twitter pages of Coca-Cola Company Limited from March 2009 to June 2018 and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited from March 2015 to June 2018. This study answers the following research questions: how Coca-Cola uses social media for advertising and communications, the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements of Coca-Cola Company global and in Ghana, what ways Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising affect the advertisement of the local subsidiary, and how Coca-Cola engages consumers on Twitter. This chapter is divided into two major parts. The first part (4.2) describes the findings of the research, under which the findings in relation to the theory and literature reviewed in earlier Chapter two. The second part (4.3), discusses key findings from section 4.2. The discussions are based on the research questions of the study. The following section discusses the findings from the data collection and analyses carried out in chapter three. 26 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 4.2 Findings After analysing the twenty posts from @cocacola and @cocacola_GH within the five themes, it can be noted that both Coca-Cola Twitter accounts advertised and communicated in text and image formats like photos, gifs and videos. Nonetheless, format in which the tweets were posted, had text captions. The themes analysed: pop culture, sports, festivities, consumer interactivity, and promotions and web traffic will be discussed in subsequent sections. 4.2.1 Pop Culture Pop culture, or popular culture is defined by Storey (2018), as culture that is widely favoured. Pop culture influences the lives of people in a society. In this study, pop culture was observed through codes such as television, film, radio, music, art, celebrities, fashion and entertainment. Popular culture themes that reflected in the data analysed showed that CocaCola stayed up-to-date with trending pop culture. @cocacola tweeted a photo of a limited edition Coca-Cola drink named ‘New Coke’ which had previously been on sale in April 1985. ‘New Coke’ had been rejected by consumers in 1985, forcing the company to go back to the old formula within three months (Coca-Cola, 2019). To commemorate the supposedly failed project, Coca-Cola in 2019 gave consumers a chance to relive history. The Coca-Cola Company posted that the ‘New Coke’ will be launched again for a limited promotional period in the season three premiere of a television show set in the summer of 1985 entitled Stranger Things. This inclusion of television shows to market Coca-Cola is part of pop culture, as it greatly impacts the daily lives of people in a particular society. The tweet, posted on May 29, 2019 said, “#Enjoy the retro flavor formula in a #LimitedEdition can! #StrangerThings3 #GiftWithPurchase” Coca-Cola alongside other brands belonging to the Coca-Cola Company (such as Sprite and Dasani) also joined in celebrating pop culture by tweeting that limited bottles of the drinks had been customised for American movie franchise, Star Wars. 27 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Pop culture tweets posted by the Ghanaian subsidiary of CocaCola, @cocacola_GH which fell under the pop culture ranged from videos or photos of musical artistes performing to question and answer sessions with celebrities. Popular Ghanaian musician Stonebwoy was introduced on November 4, 2016 in a tweet as a celebrity guest to answer fans’ questions using the @cocacola_GH account the following day. Also, Coke Studio Africa, which is a music programme run by the Coca-Cola Company, was promoted via tweets. In a tweet posted by @cocacola_GH on December 19, 2016, there was a video of renowned Nigerian musician 2Baba. Both @cocacola and @cocacola_GH tweeted the phrase ‘share a coke’ a number of times. This viral phrase was to promote Coca-Cola by asking people to go out to buy CocaCola which had common first names printed on the bottles. The analysis of tweets under the pop culture theme revealed that both Coca-Cola and the Ghanaian subsidiary tailored tweets to fulfil the gratification consumers sought through pop culture. From the coding guide, entertainment is one of the anchor examples used to develop the theme of pop culture. The theme therefore shows a level of consistency with Rohm, Kaltcheva, and Milne’s (2013) as well as Whiting and Williams’ claim that one of the gratifications consumers seek on social media is entertainment. The next section discusses the second theme, sports, with regard to the findings of this study and the uses and gratifications theory. 4.2.2 Sports The theme of sports was read in the study through codes such as football, games, quizzes and trivia. In the years 2014 and 2018, the FIFA World Cup took place in Brazil and Russia respectively. The World Cup was touted in some tweets by @cocacola and @cocacola_GH. Photos and other graphics, which were tweeted to promote the World Cup usually had the Coca-Cola logo and tagline, Taste the Feeling’. A number of Ghanaian football fans are big supporters of the English Premier League. 28 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Coca-Cola Ghana leveraged that to engage football fans. Consumers were asked by @cocacola_GH to predict winners, answer trivia questions for Coca-Cola EPL branded souvenirs and partake in contests like looking out for prizes beneath the crown corks of Coca- Cola bottles. A sample tweet is @cocacola_GH ‘s post on May 22, 2019 that said: “How good is your math? First five people to solve this win awesome EPL branded items from Coca-Cola. Post your answer with the hashtag #MatchDeyCokeDey.” Winners of the grand prize were also announced through a tweet on June 7, 2019 accompanied with a photo of a list with the winners’ names. The tweet said: “Football never ends, but our EPL does! Thanks to everyone for enjoying the games with Coca-Cola! And cheers to the winners heading to the UK to watch next season's EPL with us.” The hashtags #matchdey #cokedey were also used to emphasise that the EPL games go hand in hand with drinking Coca-Cola. The sports themes in the study can be associated to McQuail’s (2010) assertion that audiences relate to characters of a situation in a media environment to escape from real life and stress (McQuail, 2010). In the case of this study, consumers immersed themselves in football banter with Coca-Cola, as well as battle against one another to win prices from CocaCola. Section 4.2.3 reveals the findings related to festivities, as well as the relation with uses and gratification theory. 4.2.3 Festivities The theme of festivities includes posts pertaining to holidays and commemorative days. The category had the following codes: Christmas, Easter, Eid, festivals, Independence Day, and weekends. Festivities such as Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Independence Day, among others are celebrated on the Twitter pages. @cocacola, being the account for Coca-Cola worldwide wished a number of countries including their headquarters the United States of America a happy Independence Day. Coca-Cola, towards the end of the year 2018, used tweets to outdoor its Christmas packaging with hashtags like #BeSanta to promote generosity in the season. This generosity was brand-specific; sharing Coca-Cola. On 29 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Valentine’s Day 2015, @cocacola tweeted about a discount using an Akan slang, dominantly heard in Ghana, where @cocacola_GH operates. The tweet read: “Guys 'Ya te so' so no swerving the ladies this Vals Day. Buy a bottle of Coke & say Happy Valentine Day with love.” The phrase “Ya te so” means prices have been reduced. This trend seems to be quite common as @cocacola also had some tweets in Arabic, Russian, Spanish and others. Festivities connotes feasting, happiness, relaxation, holidaying and joy among others which are feelings associated with Christmas, Easter, Eids, festivals, Independence Day, weekends and other festive days like Valentine’s. Therefore, Whiting and Williams’ (2013) themes from uses and gratification (pass time, relaxation, entertainment) fits in this category. From the tweets reviewed, Coca-Cola used consumers’ sentiments of festivities to gratify consumers through festive greetings and offerings. In the next section, consumer interactivity with Coca-Cola’s tweets will be discussed and linked to how uses and gratifications plays a role in the finding. 4.2.4 Consumer interactivity Consumer involvement in brand’s conversation had the following codes: trivia, feedback, query, polls. These codes formed the category consumer interactivity where @cocacola and @cocacola_GH tweeted questions and other statements that encouraged feedback from consumers including polls, trivia. Examples of such an enquiry include a time (August 3, 2018). @cocacola pitched a business idea to the public to vote on: “New business idea #TheGreatDebate #PeanutsandCocaCola Peanuts in Coke, awesome! Just Cherry or Vanilla Peanuts on the side! Ice-cold is all I need” This poll gave the audience a chance to vote on the new business idea, which resulted in “Ice-cold is all I need” option winning with 52% with “Just Cherry or Vanilla” following at 27%. “Peanuts in Coke, awesome!” and “Peanuts on the side!” followed with 11% and 9% respectively. Some other tweets gave followers tasks to fulfil after which winners were rewarded by Coca-Cola. Twitter accounts of both Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Ghana were used 30 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh to directly respond to Coca-Cola related inquiries. The data analysed revealed Coca-Cola responded to the complaints of consumers by treating the complaint in private (direct message). Twitter accounts therefore serve as customer service points. Leung (2013) asserts that people use social media to vent feelings. If a brand needs comments concerning operations, the brand may as well setup a feedback mechanism. CocaCola allows consumers to tweet at the company, thereby gratifying several needs. Some of the needs may be the need to vent, or the need to interact (Whiting and Williams, 2013). The final theme, promotions and web traffic will be discussed in the next section, with regard to uses and gratifications theory. 4.2.5 Promotions and Web traffic Promotions and web traffic theme emerged in this study after the preliminary test of the themes in the coding guide. Codes such as announcement, web links, promo, raffles, and commercials were observed. The theme of promotion and web traffic dealt with tweet which presented offerings to consumers and links leading to other platforms owned by the brand. Both Twitter accounts of Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola Ghana direct traffic to related pages or websites with web links in tweets. This ability gives network capability in creating the value with social media, as Okazaki and Taylor (2030), and Ayivor (2015) discussed. Ayivor (2015) noted in her study that social media helps brands to direct traffic to their actual websites where products and other services are promoted. An example is an April 11, 2016 tweet from @cocacola_GH, “Join @africashowboy and us put together all the great Ghanaian moments #TasteTheFeeling youtu.be/qJK_n0eypoI” This post has a link directed to Coca-Cola Company’s YouTube page to watch another advertisement. Coca-Cola uses Twitter to promote the brand. Announcements are made by CocaCola via Twitter, keeping the audiences informed. One notable theme that run through uses and 31 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh gratification literature engaged for this study was information. Scholarly works from far back as Katz and Blumler (1974) to date assert consumers seek media to gratify needs. The following section discusses the key findings paramount to the objectives of the study. 4.3 Discussion of Key Findings This section discusses key findings of this study. The discussions have been group based on the research questions of the study. 4.3.1 How does Coca-Cola use Twitter for advertising and communication? The first research question from the study sought to find out how Coca-Cola use Twitter for advertising and communication. From the findings of the research, it was revealed that Twitter helped Coca-Cola stay in touch with the target market. This form of contact works regardless of time and day, as consumers can engage Coca-Cola’s Twitter handles anytime and vice versa. Communication done through Twitter by Coca-Cola also reaches target wherever they are through a variety of device, be it mobile phones, tablets or computers, unlike traditional media which has a device for each medium. This form of connectivity is a practical example of Okasaki and Taylor’s (2013) network capability theory of social media. From the data analysed in this study, an example of number of tweets sent from @cocacola_GH were sent after regular working hours of the company. In answering the question of how Coca-Cola uses Twitter for advertising and communication, data from the study show a number of ways which have been put under two classes, delivery and purpose. In terms of delivery, Coca-Cola used Twitter with all of Twitter’s delivery routes, that is, text, graphic interchangeable format (GIF), hyperlinks, images, and videos to advertise and communicate with consumers. With these five formats, a matrix of combinations of how Coca-Cola use Twitter to advertise and communicate can be explored. 32 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The text-based messaging used text characters to communicate. These include letters, numbers, symbols and emoji. Text and media-based messaging had text supported with images, graphic interchangeable formats (GIFs) and videos. Text and hyperlink-based messaging employed the use of text and web links to send messages directing targets to external websites to access further information. Finally, text, media and hyperlink-based messaging combines all three formats to send a message. For instance, @cocacola’s tweet in the dataset from June 12, 2014, had text, an image and a link happinnesflag.com. Other examples from the sample contain text only, text and GIF, text and video. Under purpose, it can be deduced from the data analysed that Coca-Cola communicated by advertising the brand to consumers, responding to enquiries made by consumers and beginning a conversation. How Coca-Cola is able to use Twitter to communicate and advertise also stems from the use-friendliness of social media (Kaur, 1008; Okazaki and Taylor, 2013; Ayivor, 2015) and social media’s ability of feedback mechanism that Okazaki and Taylor, (2013) theorised as personal extensibility to suggest multinational brands can leverage consumers’ desire of interaction to interact with consumers. The next section deals with the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca-Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited. 4.3.2 What are the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca- Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited? The second research question from the study tried to find out the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca-Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited. From the data analysed, on one hand, Coca-Cola’s account @cocacola tweeted chiefly to the American market (where it is headquartered), but at the same time, crafted messages that that went out to the global market as well. Despite belonging to the bigger Coca- Cola brand, the Ghanaian (local) subsidiary, @cocacola_GH, on the other hand kept all its 33 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh messaging local. The farthest @cocacola_GH tweeted was for the African market which was usually about Coke Studio Africa. The data analysed show that both Twitter handles @cocacola and @cocacola_GH give priority to Coca-Cola as the brand being promoted. Both Twitter handles are used to announce messages, create brand awareness and perform online customer service functions. On the other hand, the local account @cocacola_GH distinctively posted Ghanaian content as opposed to the dominating global posts of @cocacola. These manifest similarities and differences in the Twitter posts give rise to the next question of how the scholarly debate of standardisation vs. localisation (Schmid & Kotulla, 2011; Wang & Yang, 2011; Hatzithomas et al., (2016); Matricano & Vitagliano, 2018 and can be practicalised with Coca-Cola. The gap in literature concerning how multinational brands and their local subsidiaries execute these strategies seeks to be resolved. 4.3.3 In what ways do Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising affect the ads of their local subsidiaries? Multinational brand advertising literature is split with the debate of on which strategy works for advertising multinational brands and their local subsidiaries. In other words, what the best choice is in terms of how the multinational brand affects the subsidiaries’ advertising. Using Coca-Cola to answer how multinational brands’ Twitter advertising affect the advertisement of their local subsidiaries, the findings of this study revealed that the tweets of @cocacola do not necessarily affect advertising and communication of @cocacola_GH. There was a low level of engagement when @cocacola tweeted in the Akan language with majority of the likes and retweet from non-Ghanaian Twitter accounts. As of the year data were collected for this study, which was four years after that particular tweet was posted, @cocacola_GH had neither liked nor retweeted the post. Other posts by @cocacola targeted at the Ghanaian market including share a coke bottle with Ghanaian names also saw very low engagements, some without Ghanaians engaging. 34 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Hatzithomas et al., (2016) presented a personalised paradigm which from analysing the data, Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising seems to practicalise. The Ghanaian subsidiary posted items that are relatable to Ghanaian context and from close reading of the data, Coca-Cola Ghana’s account was not obliged to engage with the multinational twitter account. The Ghanaian subsidiary can safely be said to have localised their advertisements on Twitter. This finding confirm Berthon, Pitt, Plangger and Shapiro’s (2012) assertion that multinational brands find it difficult to standardise social media strategy across. 4.3.4 How does Coca-Cola engage their consumers on Twitter? Evident from the themes discussed in section 4.2, Coca-Cola engaged its consumers by gratifying the consumers’ needs via Twitter. The various tweets had corresponded to at least one theme in the category on the coding guide. In an instance, a tweet from @cocacola that read, “@stonebwoyb takes over our account tomorrow. With just a tweet you can know all about his #CokeStudioGH experience. Join the fun!” the words “Stonebwoy,” “CokeStudioGH” were coded as celebrity, music and entertainment, which fell under the pop culture theme. “Join the fun,” was also coded as a request which fell under the theme consumer interactivity. By closely reading the above, it is evident that the post followed the themes of pop culture and consumer interactivity to gratify the entertainment and information needs of consumers. This reveals Bartsch & Viehoff (2010) assertion of entertainment being huge motivation for media usage and gratification true in practice. This finding is consistent with Okazaki and Taylor (2013) that social media gratifies consumers’ needs. 4.4 Chapter Summary The findings in this study informs that Coca-Cola engages consumers as well as gratify the needs of these consumers through Twitter. The outstanding similarity between the multinational account and the subsidiary account is how both accounts prioritise the brand 35 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Coca-Cola over the others (ie. Fanta, Sprite). The major differences between both accounts are firstly, the targets. The mother company targets the American audience and next global audience while the Ghanaian subsidiary advertised to mainly the local target. The findings move issues relating to Coca-Cola advertisements from anecdotal to research- backed. This chapter presented data obtained from a content analysis and thematic analysis of Coca-Cola’s worldwide and Ghana’s Twitter accounts. Data collected were grouped under themes of pop culture, sports, festivities, consumer interactivity, and promotion and web traffic. The next chapter takes a look at summary, conclusions, and recommendations of the study. 36 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER FIVE SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 Introduction The study set out to investigate Twitter advertising by multinational brands and their local subsidiaries, using Coca-Cola. The study content analysed tweets from Coca-Cola’s Twitter page and Coca-Cola Ghana’s Twitter page through a directed content analysis approach. Subsequently the study was analysed thematically. This final chapter begins with a summary of the study, concludes the discussion on the findings of the study. The subsequent sections focus on the limitations of this study and gives recommendations for further research. Finally, the chapter ends with a chapter summary. 5.2 Summary of the Study The study began by taking a look at how multinational brands have gained interest in new media. The phenomenon has sparked debates in scholars for a long period because of how local subsidiaries of these brands are affected by the advertisements multinational brands put on social media. The study used Coca-Cola and its Ghanaian subsidiary to investigate the matter, with Twitter as the social media to that respect. These research questions were asked to help meet the objectives of the study, how Coca-Cola uses social media for advertising and communications, the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements of Coca-Cola Company global and in Ghana, what ways Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising affect the advertisement of the local subsidiary, and how Coca-Cola engages consumers on Twitter. The study employed a qualitative approach, using directed qualitative content analysis as the method. A coding guide drawn from previous studies by Cox (2010); Pegoraro (2010) and Ayivor (2015) was used to generate codes and themes. 37 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The themes of pop culture, sports, festivities, consumer interactivity, promotions and web traffic. The frames under pop culture were television, film, radio, music, entertainment, celebrities, fashion and art. Under the theme of sports, the following frames were coded, football, games, quizzes and matches. For festivities, the codes were Christmas, Easter, Eid, Festivals, Independence Day and weekend. Consumer interactivity was coded with trivia, feedback, complains, enquiry, request and polls. Finally, promotions and web traffic had the codes of announcement, web links, promo, raffle and commercials. 5.3 Conclusions Pertaining to the objectives of this study, conclusions were drawn by analysing implications presented by the key findings of the study. The study revealed that Twitter performed an important role in advertising and communicating for Coca-Cola. First, the findings of the study revealed that Coca-Cola uses social media to reach out to their customers regardless of time of day and location. This implies that multinational brands that use the standardization strategy in advertising should use social media like Twitter to reach consumers worldwide. In addition, the finding of the study indicate Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising did not conform to standardisation nor localisation. Coca-Cola’s multinational Twitter account used a personalised strategy, combining global, local and ‘glocal’ strategies. On the other hand, the subsidiary account for Ghana used a strictly local approach. These advertising strategies put together by both parties show a glaring difference between the multinational’s advertising versus the subsidiary, thus resolving research objective three which looks at the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca-Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited. As such, the findings imply that for multinational brands to advertise well, the strategy should be personalised. What fits for one brand may not necessarily fit other brands (Hatzithomas et al., 2016, pp. 1104). Further, as Okazaki and Taylor (2015) indicated, social 38 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh media has the ability to gratify media needs of consumers. This study which was underpinned by the uses and gratifications theory, proved that multinational brands can use consumers’ needs to satisfy the consumer by using already determined needs from the uses and gratifications theory to satisfy the consumer. The next section discusses the limitations of the study. 5.4 Limitations of the Study The research was limited to a single brand in the soft drink industry. As such, findings and conclusions are based on the brand Coca-Cola. Therefore, the results of this study are neither representative of the soft drinks industry nor multinational brands. The study is qualitative; therefore, findings cannot be generalized. Furthermore, despite having vibrant public communication on Twitter, there was a lack of views from the Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola to help understand their communicative behaviours. The direct messaging buttons on both @cocacola and @cocacola_GH were not responsive enough for interviews on the matter. At the time when interviews were needed, @cocacola’s DM was closed. The closest account, @CocaColaCo referred questions to the Africa branch in Nairobi, Kenya. The next section makes recommendations for future studies. 5.5 Recommendations Based on findings of this study, it is recommended that multinationals consider social media as part of their advertising strategy. From the first finding of this study, Coca-Cola use Twitter to advertise without regard for format. The content by virtue of being on social media is retrievable at any point in time regardless of geographical boundaries. Moreover, the second finding revealed Coca-Cola as a multinational brand personalised its advertising strategy on Twitter and has worked well as Coca-Cola stands with a huge following on Twitter. Multinational brands are as a form of recommendation advised to draw 39 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh personalised advertising strategy on Twitter, because a standard or local strategy may not fit perfectly. The theory of underpinning the study, uses and gratification, offers a number of reasons for which consumers use social media. The reasons or needs are social purposes and seeking affection, the need to vent feelings, the need to be recognised, to be entertained, and other cognitive uses. It is hereby recommended from this study that should a brand need to gratify media needs of their consumers, social media is a safe bet. Future studies should look beyond Coca-Cola; other brands can be used to replicate the study. Better still, multinational brands in Africa could be examined in this light. Studying African multinational brands would expand literature on African multinational branding. Future research can be conducted using different methods. The emphasis could be on one-on-one interviews if there are means to connect with both the multinational brand and their local subsidiary. A qualitative study can be conducted altogether to bring different perspectives to the study. Other social media platforms can be used in subsequent studies. Media sharing platforms such as Instagram can be used to explore the intricacies of media usage in multinational and local brand advertising. The next section concludes the study with a summary. 5.6 Chapter Summary Innovation brought by Twitter to multinational brands has revolutionised market communications. Due to this revolution, more multinational brands are creating accounts for their local subsidiaries. As the brand tries to appeal to its local market, there are a number of factors the brand must look out for; the nature of engagements of the targets as well the targets’ responsiveness to messaging are all factors to be considered. This research is to begin the 40 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh conversation on social media usage for market communications of multinational branding in the global south as the dawn of ‘glocalisation’ advances. 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Psychology & Marketing, 33, 155-164. doi:10.1002/mar.20862 48 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh APPENDICES APPENDIX A: CODING GUIDE FOR TWEETS Table 1 Coca-Cola on Twitter: Category Definitions CATEGORY DEFINITION Pop Culture Posts that refer to popular culture; relevant concepts in society at the given time: ● television ● film ● radio ● music ● entertainment ● celebrities ● fashion ● art Festivities Posts surrounding holidays and commemorative days ● Christmas ● Easter ● Eid ● festivals ● independence day ● weekend Sports Posts that refer to sporting and allied activities: ● football ● games ● quizzes 49 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ● matches Consumer Interactivity Consumer involvement in brand’s conversation: ● trivia ● feedback ● complains ● enquiry ● request ● polls Promotions and Web Posts which presents offerings to consumers including Traffic links leading to other platforms owned by the brand: ● announcement ● web links ● promo ● raffle ● commercials 50