Homework answers / question archive / Literature Review As the aim of this dissertation is to analyse how the craft beer brand Wurenbacher uses product placement and influencer marketing to increase brand awareness, the research will involve knowledge about industry marketing, brand awareness and a discussion of how two specific marketing approaches, product placement and influencer marketing, have an effect on increasing brand awareness

Literature Review As the aim of this dissertation is to analyse how the craft beer brand Wurenbacher uses product placement and influencer marketing to increase brand awareness, the research will involve knowledge about industry marketing, brand awareness and a discussion of how two specific marketing approaches, product placement and influencer marketing, have an effect on increasing brand awareness

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Literature Review As the aim of this dissertation is to analyse how the craft beer brand Wurenbacher uses product placement and influencer marketing to increase brand awareness, the research will involve knowledge about industry marketing, brand awareness and a discussion of how two specific marketing approaches, product placement and influencer marketing, have an effect on increasing brand awareness. The literature review content is going to be shown in themes to help with developing a recognition of the industry marketing environment as well as building a clear understanding of the terms brand recognition, product placement and influencer marketing through relevant literature, moreover, by examining the existing research on product placement and influencer marketing, figure out the relationships between these two marketing approaches and brand recognition. Alcohol Industry Marketing Jernigan (2009) has stated in his overview of the global alcohol industry that the world's top 10 alcoholic beverage sellers account for approximately 48% of global brand sales, of which are all beer companies. The highly concentrated market makes brands more dependent on marketing. These large-scale members and producers are often multinational companies that rely on marketing to survive. Their marketing departments have invested considerably in marketing consisting of music, television, film, and sports and entertainment industries. Nicholls (2012) claimed that along with the development of the Internet and social media, the scope and forms of alcohol industry marketing activities have become broader. Furthermore, as Porter (2008) stressed, the roles of giant advertisers enable alcohol brands to gain higher international recognition, thus contributing to stronger bargaining power and profitability and consolidating their position in the highly competitive alcohol market. Additionally, the launch of alcohol advertising has been shown by a survey conducted by Shin and Kim (2011) and demonstrated in the article of Zwanka (2020) as being positively associated with the increase in alcohol consumption and the shift in drinking preferences of young consumers significantly. Hence although many countries such as Korea, China and the U.S. have set restrictions on the advertisement launching of alcohol product, alcohol companies still continuously increase investment in marketing. Much of the recent research related to local alcohol industry marketing has been carried out and focused on the United States and Korea, while there are far fewer published studies focusing on this area in developing markets such as China. Despite lacking the specific China market perspective, recent research in other countries can also be relatively relevant to the dissertation. Therefore overall, as scholars above discovered and Jernigan (2010) restated, marketing embeds brands in the life and lifestyle of their target users, distinguishing themselves from competitors and in turn powering product success. The alcohol industry cannot stand without marketing. Brand Recognition Despite of the reasons mentioned above, Gerber, Terblanche-Smit and Crommelin (2014) also noted that one of the main objectives of conducting industry marketing is to build and maintain brand recognition, which is also known in research as brand awareness. Brand recognition refers to the strength of a brand's presence in consumers' minds and is proven to have an impact on consumer decisions (Chi, Yeh, & Yang, 2009; Aaker, 2012). Once consumers perceive the brand as familiar, it means that it is to some extent accepted on the market and has an affinity to customers. Brands can improve their perception by increasing the events that draw the attention of consumers, as well as offering good experiences and services when consumers encounter the brand (Jillian C. Sweeney, 2002; Gelder, 2004; Pina & Dias, 2020). However, as consumers may not recall all brands frequently from memory, Guinn, Allen, Semenik and Scheinbaum (2014) suggested that advertising can help in the process of guiding consumers to identify specific brands. Many studies have confirmed that maintaining brand awareness is crucial for companies developing in a competitive market. Product Placement Advertisement Product placement is one of the most rapidly growing marketing forms in recent years and is appreciated in integrated marketing for its significant role in enhancing brand awareness (Soba & Aydin, 2013; Boerman, Tessitore, & Müller, 2021). Many brands experiment with this method by paying for the placement of brand marks or products in various musical productions, TV shows or films directly or indirectly, to have a subtle impact on consumers (Balasubramanian, Karrh, & Patwardhan, 2006; Evans, Phua, Lim, & Jun, 2017). However, product placement did not start as a profitable business the beginning. Studies by researchers such as Kretchmer (2004) and Newell, Salmon, and Chang (2006) suggest that in the early decades of television and film production, producers voluntarily placed products from common real-life brands as objects in media productions to bridge the gap between the virtual and the real. After the recession, entertainment and media industries were severely hit and product placement evolved as a way of raising investment. Many scholars have also pointed out that the widespread use of product placement in brands began after the proliferation of mass media and consumer boycotts after becoming tired of traditional advertising. Product placement can flexibly adapt to media fragmentation and help brands to impress consumers and evoke memories of some former consumers. Hong, Wang and Santos (2008) and Chae and Sun (2013) identified the role of product placement in maintaining brand presence and enhancing brand effectiveness. Herd (2005) also suggested that the mention of alcoholic beverages for commercial reasons in rap songs can bring a positive effect. Although there is still debate as to whether media productions should explicitly inform people of the presence of advertising, which is in the form of product placement, in the content they are watching, and the researchers regard this method as imperfect, it is still considered to be one of the most effective marketing tools available today for enhancing brand awareness and influencing the minds of consumers. Influencer Marketing Influencer marketing is also a widely used advertising method by brands, accelerated by the social media boom (Evans, Phua, Lim, & Jun, 2017; Jin, Muqaddam, & Ryu, 2019). The real value of influencers lies in the number and relevance of the connections they can reach or indirectly influence, and influencers are spread across almost every areas of discussion (Booth & Matic, 2011). Kiss and Bichler (2008) suggested that brands can increase positive brand attitudes and purchase intentions by paying for specific opinion leaders that are influential to potential purchasers, to mention their product in posts or videos and to give favorable comments. Even specific to the alcohol industry, influencer marketing has been shown to play a significant role in increasing brand recognition and purchase intent (Moreno, D’Angelo, & Whitehill, 2016). Lou and Yuan's (2019) test of a social media influencer value model also identified the existence of this positive influence. On the contrary, Johansen and Guldvik (2017) disputed that through online experiments, they did not find that influencer marketing was able to directly influence consumers' purchase intentions and therefore influencer marketing was not more efficient than traditional marketing. While there are number of research scholars who have analysed the effectiveness of influencer marketing and offered different statements, it is generally believed that selecting the right influencers to deliver quality content is able to achieve the desired positive impact. Evans, Phua, Lim and Jun (2013) said that influencer marketing is less costly and more responsive than traditional marketing activities, and it can be effective in positively influencing brand perceptions; however, they also pointed out through experiments that the impact of marketing may be negative if the content posted by influencers is revealed to be marketing. In contrast, Stubb, Nyström and Colliander (2019) took a different view, stated that disclosing sponsorship had not influenced the marketing results and noted the effects depended a lot on the quality of the content posted by influencers - whether the sponsorship existent of content was disclosed beforehand or afterwards, it would have little impact on brand recognition. Conclusion In conclusion, there are many pieces of research that have been conducted on several topics in which this dissertation may cover. Topics relating to the two specific marketing approaches of product placement and influencer marketing in the alcohol industry marketing have also been studied in detail by scholars from countries such as Korea and the United States. But there is still a gap in the literature. While there has been much research on investigating and confirming the marketing effectiveness from consumers' perspectives, few researchers have taken the role of companies during marketing into consideration. There is little research that explored how companies can dynamically utilize the marketing practices in the process of specific marketing to achieve effectiveness. In addition, there is also a lack of detailed analysis of influencer marketing and product placement for alcohol products in the China market. Consequently, this work intends to use the product placement and influencer marketing already undertaken by Wurenbacher in the Chinese market to investigate how the company performed while implementing these two marketing techniques, to fill the gaps in the existing studies and to provide operational insights into the marketing of Chinese alcohol industry. Methodology In the previous section, research publications related to marketing in the alcohol industry were systematically reviewed and the concepts of brand recognition, product placement and influencer marketing were explored. It could be found that both influencer marketing and product placement are relevant to increasing brand recognition to some extent. After completing many studies on topics related to the research field of this dissertation, focus on the research question, analysis and discussion of marketing practices of the specific brand Wurenbacher should be developed. However, due to there is not enough knowledge and systematic research structures in place to investigate the specific practices of marketing in the alcohol industry in China, the research methodology was designed with reference to some similar case study research formats and theoretical papers. Methodology Approach Perry (1998) evinced the suitability of the case study genre for research into relationships where there is an external reality in a field where no accepted research paradigm has been established, regarded case studies as good solutions to the research questions that are about the 'how'. Hence the research design of this dissertation, based on Wurenbacher's industry marketing practices, also used the type of case study. There are only a few publications of case study methodology in marketing research (Dul & Hak, 2008) and similar papers by Rowley and Williams (2008) and Tsimonis and Dimitriadis (2014) both involved the use of data provided by direct stakeholders, so this research adopted a qualitative method to gather some information directly related to the marketing activities already practised by Wurenbacher, and such word information was expected to contribute to an in-depth understanding of how the brand had increased brand awareness through these two marketing methods, in order to facilitate researchers in the field of marketing to develop future research on marketing in China alcohol industry. Data Collection and Analysis As Wurenbacher is not a well-known beer brand in the market, but a subsidiary brand of Pinlive, a newly listed imported food company in China market (Pinlive, n.d.; CKN, 2020), and the company has not yet published its annual report or other detailed information about operations, very little data and analysis about its marketing can be found on the Internet. Primary data collection is required for the study. Given Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation (Newcomer, Hatry, & Wholey, 2015) stated that qualitative analysis is a method that collects relevant data from interviews, documents and observation and responsibly reveals the content of data, the main method of data collection was taking interviews with marketing participants of Wurenbacher. The interviews were designed with semi-structured questions and answers. According to Londhe's (2014) 4 Value’s Marketing Mix Model and the model in terms of sponsorship and product placement (O'Reilly & Madill, 2012), key indicators that guide the marketing process and influence the marketing outcome, such as reflecting the role of the marketer, increasing brand awareness and prestige, and acquiring target customers, were extracted before designing the questions. The final interview question list (Appendix C) was designed and adjusted based on these criteria. Moreover, to increase the relevance of interviews and the credibility of data collection, a total of seven participant invitation letters (in Appendix A format) were emailed to employees of Pinlive marketing department and relevant staff at their marketing agency Social Touch who had been involved in Wurenbacher marketing in recent years, after researching the people and agencies involved in Wurenbacher marketing activities based on personal networks, and finally, four agency participants indicated their willingness to be interviewed. To ensure ethical compliance with the data collection for this study, all four interviewees voluntarily signed a consent form (in Appendix B format) before being interviewed. Interviews were conducted in a one-to-one interview format, except for one interviewee who was unable to be interviewed offline due to being on a business trip, and the other three interviewees were interviewed in a quiet cafe not far from Social Touch. Each interview lasted about 30 minutes and took notes with the permission of the interviewees. Written notes of four interviewees were collated into interview transcripts for processing and analysis. Some of the nouns and words that were repeated in the transcripts of the four interviewees were ringed and annotated. The words were sorted and discussed, all data was coded, and the themes were identified in order to better understand the perspectives and angles of the interviewees. The details of these work were shown in finding and analysis parts. Evaluation on Methodological Choices Whether for the reasons mentioned above or for the fact that researchers have advocated case study research as a valid research strategy (Bonoma, 1985), the choice of organising this dissertation with a case study type of qualitative interview helped answer the research question. Although there were some limitations, such as the small sample size of interviewees, the choice of case study allowed the content of this research to be based upon real situations to the maximum extent possible, with the interview sample designed based on the actual staff involved in brand marketing activities. As the researcher had also served the brand as a practitioner in the advertising industry, contacting the interviewees became achievable, and eventually, invitation emails were sent to all the staff involved in the marketing (seven in total) for the study. Although Pinlive staff did not reply to the invitation, the final response rate was four out of seven. Interviews with staff from Social Touch's media and business departments provided various perspectives from within the marketing industry and profile accounts of Pinlive's performance in marketing practice, gathering valuable data. Therefore, the approach was effective overall. Findings Since the twelve questions for the interviews were designed from an overall consideration of six themes that were relevant to the research and needed to be examined, a classification of the interview responses was undertaken first through the themes to state the findings of interviews. Words recurred in the same type of question response and relationships that were mentioned in different types of question responses were elucidated separately. Question Number Related Theme Impact of implementing such marketing methods General 1 Specific on Wurenbacher 8 Marketing decision process (Specific on Wurenbacher) 2, 9 Marketing process (Specific on Wurenbacher) 2, 3, 4, 12 Performance of Brands during marketing General 5 Specific on Wurenbacher 5, 6, 7 Marketing performance evaluation 8, 10 The relationship between marketing and brand recognition 11 When asked the impact product placement and influencer marketing could have, interviewees tended to acknowledge their roles in increasing brand exposure and producing spreadable brand-related content. Julia and Lucas highlighted that one of the unique roles of product placement is to leave memorable points that contribute to impressing consumers with a particular brand. Julia said: “influencer marketing can be a communication bridge for brands to get closer to consumers and become more youthful and social.” But Lucas made some comments about Wurenbacher's implementation of influencer marketing, saying that the strong-sell role that influencer marketing is supposed to play is limited by the product, as beer is not a premium consumer product and influencer marketing can only advertise it in taste and drinking scenarios, rather than inviting expert influencers for tastings to expand the product's visibility among alcohol lovers, as is the case with wine or foreign spirits. The interviewee, Yoyo preferred that product placement and influencer marketing are soft-sell marketing, ‘which does not convey brand information as rigidly as traditional advertising’. It is clear from the responses to question 8 that interviewees believed the brand Wurenbacher already got expected exposure of its communication purposes but making distinct impact on recognition and consumer preferences would be a relative long-term process. Responses to the questions designed to dig into the marketing decision making process and implementing process also showed some recurring consensus. From the answers, it was clear that respondents perceived traditional advertising approaches had become unpopular due to consumer boredom, but that product placement and influencer marketing were marketing approaches that met consumers' social media preferences and more effective in reaching a wide range of potential consumers. Furthermore, all respondents except Amber highlighted the noteworthy point of Wurenbacher's current phase, noting that it was a beer brand "still in the growth stage" and had not established a clear brand image among consumers yet. As a result, the need to expand its recognition in a short term had greatly influenced the brand's marketing decisions, leading to its decision to use influencer marketing and product placement. Despite this, the respondents all agreed that the marketing process was overall well done. Julia indicated in her response that although the communication process was time-consuming due to the lack of knowledge of marketing expertise among Wurenbacher's staff responsible for marketing, she also felt that Wurenbacher was a brand that was receptive to new ideas, not obstinate, so the consistency in the perception of marketing objectives led to a good performance in the end. Other interviewees also commented on Wurenbacher in their answers to the question about the brand's performance in marketing. Yoyo said, "This brand is relatively quick to make marketing decisions, and can respond in a timely manner, but it needs to be more accurate in grasping the overall market trend.” Wurenbacher regularly monitored the comments received during its marketing campaigns to ensure the communication was going in the direction envisaged. Amber pointed out that "bad reviews can be fatal to brand perception". Interviewees also figured out some shortcomings in the brand's marketing process - Julia felt that Wurenbacher needed to clarify what it wanted to communicate through marketing, and Lucas told its communication lacked a core communication point. Besides, both Yoyo and Lucas reported that Wurenbacher was not sensitive to market trends and marketing timing, and Lucas added that Wurenbacher's sales only offered simple promotions and did not offer a variety of activities in conjunction with online shopping activities. The brand had also given the agency little authority while cooperating, which let he feel regretful and think Wurenbacher still needs to be open to more new marketing techniques. The mainly used indicators to evaluate the marketing performance of Wurenbacher were interactions on the social media platforms and overall exposure, which could show the communication developing status. While efforts were made to help with the brand recognition, interviewees gave different opinions on the relationship between marketing and brand recognition. Yoyo and Julia agreed that these two marketing approaches could help Wurenbacher to increase brand awareness, but it would be difficult to achieve a significant increase just once or twice. Julia suggested an increase in recognition within a short term could be achieved through product placement combined with pop-up ads of the episodes. Lucas agreed to an extent that these marketing practices had increased brand recognition but opined it might be counterproductive for a growing brand like Wurenbacher if the product placement marketing was aggressive. Amber strongly agreed that both types of marketing have had a positive effect on brand awareness and believed Wurenbacher's product placement and influencer marketing had led to a greater recognition of the product and that the communications generated could be used as promotional content in the future. Appendix. Structured Question List of Interview 1. What kind of impact do you think product placement and influencer marketing can bring to companies and brands? Tell me about your opinion on the effectiveness, which may be based on your experience with other brands. 2. How did you plan for the promoting case of Wurenbacher? Tell me the process and the guideline that drove you to help the brand choose various influencers and select the media product to place products. 3. When you were carrying on the projects for Wurenbacher, did everything go as arranged? Was there anything wrong happening? 4. When the unexpected situation happened, what did you do to handle this? Did the company Wurenbacher do anything to fix the question? 5. What kind of role do you think a company should be in during the marketing period, so do you think Wurenbacher had played an active role? 6. Tell me about your opinion on Wurenbacher's actions when carried out the marketing activities. 7. Did Wurenbacher keep monitoring the comments or the influencers' performance when doing product placement and influencer marketing? 8. So, do you think these two methods help with Wurenbacher? What did the brand get from doing product placement and influencer marketing? 9. Tell me the reason you think that drove Wurenbacher to choose product placement and influencers instead of traditional marketing methods. 10. Tell me something about how you examine the results of marketing activities, whether there are some KPIs that evaluate whether a promoting case is successful? 11. Do you think these promoting activities help improve brand recognition? - If the answer is YES, can you explain more on how? - If the answer is NO, please tell me about the reason you think that lead to the result. 12. Whether there is anything valuable that you learn from this case? Do you think it may be useful if you work for a beer brand next time? Appendix. Interviews Transcriptions [Transcription 1] Interviewer: RZ Interviewee: Y, Senior Vice President of Social Touch (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. Date: April 22nd, 2021 RZ: Hello, Yoyo! Thank you very much for accepting my interview. Before starting the interview, I would like to confirm again whether you understand that the content of this interview will be used for the purpose of my dissertation research and are willing to share this interview content as part of the research object? Y: Yes, I already knew the purpose of this interview and agree to leave the content of this conversation to be used for your dissertation research. RZ: What kind of impact do you think product placement and influencer marketing can bring to companies and brands? Tell me about your opinion on the effectiveness, which may be based on your experience with other brands. Y: Product placement and influencer marketing are actually soft-sell advertising, which does not convey brand information as rigidly as traditional advertising. The appeal of soft-sell advertising is the ability to combine different scenes to convey brand information in a more life-like manner. For consumers who are tired of traditional advertising nowadays, it is undoubtedly a more ingenious method, which has a role in enhancing brand awareness and quietly occupying the minds of users. RZ: How did you plan for the promoting case of Wurenbacher? Tell me the process and the guideline that drove you to help the brand choose various influencers and select the media product to place products. Y: Regarding Wurenbacher, first of all, we evaluated the current pain points of the brand although this brand is an imported brand and has products of excellent flavour, we have to honestly say it entered the China market relatively late. In the beer category, Wurenbacher's products still have a certain gap in brand recognition from competitors. In response to this main problem, the brand hopes to increase brand awareness in a short period of time and attract the attention of young people. I think that as the social media is flooding, one of the most effective ways is to use entertainment related marketing methods to take advantage of the traffic of influencers, film and television works, to increase the brand’s popularity and let more consumers remember the brand first. RZ: When you were carrying on the projects for Wurenbacher, did everything go as arranged? Was there anything wrong happening? Y: Yes, I think everything went well. RZ: What kind of role do you think a company should be in during the marketing period, so do you think Wurenbacher had played an active role? Y: Brands should have clear goals and formulate tactics at each stage so that they can quickly stand out in the category. Managers of Wurenbacher still need to be more bold and more open to accept new marketing methods. RZ: Tell me about your opinion on Wurenbacher's actions when carried out the marketing activities. Y: This brand is relatively quick to make marketing decisions, and can respond in a timely manner, but it needs to be more accurate in grasping the overall market trend. RZ: Did Wurenbacher keep monitoring the comments or the influencers' performance when doing product placement and influencer marketing? Y: Yes. Brand regularly monitored comments of its target customers for timely review, which also helped it to better formulate the next tactics with us. RZ: So, do you think these two methods help with Wurenbacher? What did the brand get from doing product placement and influencer marketing? Y: Of course! Wurenbacher has obtained effective brand exposure. In addition, in soft-sell placement ads, seeding through different scene is more possible to conduct healthy and good sales conversion. RZ: Tell me the reason you think that drove Wurenbacher to choose product placement and influencers instead of traditional marketing methods. Y: I think the most direct reason is that people are tired of traditional advertising, lol. The effect of traditional advertising is not as good as before. RZ: Tell me something about how you examine the results of marketing activities, whether there are some KPIs that evaluate whether a promoting case is successful? Y: How much exposure the brand gets, how much interaction with consumers increases and whether it contributes to the increase in sales are indicators for judging the success of the campaign. RZ: Do you think these promoting activities help improve brand recognition? Y: Yes, absolutely. RZ: Could you please explain more on how? Y: First of all, influencer marketing can allow a brand to reach more target audiences, because we always choose the influencers, key opinion leaders or bloggers according to the needs of the brand. Product placement can increase brand exposure and enhance the familiarity of a brand's products in consumers' hearts. However, as you also know, achieving communication and leaving an impression is a long-term thing - once or twice influencer marketing is difficult to immediately bring a vivid increase in brand awareness. But I think the placement of television drama and the marketing activities based on the drama are able to quickly increase brand awareness. RZ: Whether there is anything valuable that you learn from this case? Do you think it may be useful if you work for a beer brand next time? Y: I think this case proves the effectiveness of entertainment marketing. Although different brands have their own different problems, and the problems that each brand needs to solve in different life cycles are also different, but through the means of entertainment related marketing to speak for the brand, let more young users pay attention to the brand, and enhance brand awareness is not bad. It may be one of the more effective methods nowadays. [Transcription 2] Interviewer: RZ Interviewee: L, Media Director of Social Touch (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. Date: April 24th, 2021 RZ: Hi, Lucas! Thank you very much for accepting my interview. Before starting the interview, I would like to confirm again whether you understand that the content of this interview will be used for the purpose of my dissertation research and are willing to share this interview content as part of the research object? L: Yes, I already knew the purpose of this interview and agree to let the content of this conversation to be used for your dissertation research. And I hope you can get a good grade! RZ: Thank you very much. Let’s start now. RZ: What kind of impact do you think product placement and influencer marketing can bring to companies and brands? Tell me about your opinion on the effectiveness, which may be based on your experience with other brands. L: I think the most intuitive impact that product placement and influencer marketing can bring is improving user experience and perception. These two methods can also output some brand-related content to the brand. Simply put, product placement often mentions the taste of the product or presents corresponding usage scenarios. These contents can strongly associate one brand's specific product with some labels to establish memory points. The strong-sell role of influencer marketing guidance is limited as beer is not a high-end consumer product compared to wine and foreign alcohol, so even if you choose alcohol expert influencers for promotion, there are fewer points for evaluating and analysis, but influencer marketing still can play a good role at promoting products through communicating the taste and drinking scene. RZ: How did you plan for the promoting case of Wurenbacher? Tell me the process and the guideline that drove you to help the brand choose various influencers and select the media product to place products. L: Considering that Wurenbacher is not yet a well-known brand, it is still at a stage where needs to establish a brand image in the minds of consumers through marketing. When designing the promotion plan, we considered choosing influencers who can help the brand close the distance with consumers, because the beer product itself has fewer points to attract consumers; we also considered which media works are more suitable. Ideally, these works should have enough existing heat to be borrowed by the product, so as to produce several topics with communication value for the brand and promote the interaction between the brand and consumers. But I think that this cooperation with Wurenbacher is a pity to some extent because it gives us advertisers limited permissions, our overall presentation form is subject to the restrictions-for example, we cannot do some creative design on the product packaging this time. Match some interesting activities with the content released by influencers can attract more attention to the product itself. RZ: When you were carrying on the projects for Wurenbacher, did everything go as arranged? Was there anything wrong happening? L: Almost everything went well. The final content was released and met the satisfaction of the customers. RZ: What kind of role do you think a company should be in during the marketing period, so do you think Wurenbacher had played an active role? L: First of all, brands should have a clear understanding of the characteristics of their products and have a unified internal cognition of the content they want to output, so that they can communicate with us more efficiently. In addition, brands are encouraged to do some new marketing attempts, should not be too conservative. Wurenbacher accepted our suggestion of using rapper influencer this time, which finally brought good results; but its managers lack a unified understanding of the core selling point of products, which made it difficult for us to focus on a distinguished selling point for in-depth communication in marketing. RZ: Tell me about your opinion on Wurenbacher's actions when carried out the marketing activities. L: Wurenbacher is not sensitive to the timing of marketing. The brand does not pay much attention to the promotion of specific activities on online shopping platforms but just provides a few simple promotional activities and methods that it is difficult to attract consumers. Besides, Wurenbacher lacks a core output point for the product, and the direction of spreading is relatively scattered. RZ: Did Wurenbacher keep monitoring the comments or the influencers' performance when doing product placement and influencer marketing? L: Yes, brand reviewed monitor and influencer performance to ensure that the output is in the right direction. RZ: So, do you think these two methods help with Wurenbacher? What did the brand get from doing product placement and influencer marketing? L: I think it has helped to increase Wurenbacher's industry search volume and social media platform's comments, likes, reposts and overall exposure. RZ: Tell me the reason you think that drove Wurenbacher to choose product placement and influencers instead of traditional marketing methods. L: It may be because traditional advertising is not as effective as new ones. Product placement and influencer marketing are more in line with consumers' social media usage and communication habits. RZ: Tell me something about how you examine the results of marketing activities, whether there are some KPIs that evaluate whether a promoting case is successful? L: We mainly measure the success of the marketing campaign from the exposure value of interactive forwarding of Wurenbacher on social media accounts. At present, considering the current stage of Wurenbacher, it is difficult to achieve a significant conversion in sales directly through marketing campaigns like Heineken and Budweiser, which are already higher reputation beer brands. RZ: So, did the brand agree to evaluate from these angles? I remembered they also mentioned the expectation that they can increase sales... L: The marketing has a subtle effect on the perception of the brand, and the marketing that has been implemented allow Wurenbacher to strengthen its familiarity with consumers little by little, but it will hardly be reflected in an increase in sales overnight, as the managers of Wurenbacher also agree. RZ: Do you think these promoting activities help improve brand recognition? L: To a certain extent, it maybe improves. However, to be honest, I think maybe it would be better to do product placement marketing when the brand has a certain level of awareness, as it is riskier for brands that are still in the growth stage to do implantation and influencer marketing. Because consumers are now quite sensitive to the experience of ad placement, too strong a placement may be counterproductive. RZ: Whether there is anything valuable that you learn from this case? Do you think it may be useful if you work for a beer brand next time? L: Marketing campaigns for non-essential consumer products like beer should be accompanied by consumer education and differentiation in order for consumers to remember the brand, and only then can they remember the specific brand. I have learnt this. [Transcription 3] Interviewer: RZ Interviewee: J, Account Director of Social Touch (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. Date: April 24th, 2021 RZ: Happy to see you again, Julia! Thank you very much for accepting my interview. Before starting the interview, I would like to confirm again whether you understand that the content of this interview will be used for the purpose of my dissertation research and are willing to share this interview content as part of the research object? J: Yes, I already knew the purpose of this interview and agree to allow the content of this conversation to be used for your dissertation research, happy to help you. RZ: I feel so appreciate for your help. RZ: What kind of impact do you think product placement and influencer marketing can bring to companies and brands? Tell me about your opinion on the effectiveness, which may be based on your experience with other brands. J: The primary effect of product placement is positive exposure, which has a beneficial effect on brand awareness. The presence of appropriate product placement in film and television productions can create a memory point for the product itself, leaving an impression on the consumer's mind. Influencer marketing is another effective means of raising brand awareness. On the one hand, influencers already have a certain following on various social media platforms, they help brands to reach more potential customers easier and on the other hand, as brands, after all, represent the image of the company and are not allowed to communicate on the same level as consumers, influencer marketing can be a communication bridge for brands to get closer to consumers and become more youthful and social. RZ: How did you plan for the promoting case of Wurenbacher? Tell me the process and the guideline that drove you to help the brand choose various influencers and select the media product to place products. J: Considering that Wurenbacher is a beer product, we were careful in the influencer selection in terms of type and in product placement selection in terms of genre labels in response to the needs of our customers. In terms of age, adult influencers had to be chosen, not underage influencers. Also, when selecting influencers, some influencers will refuse to promote beer products because they have established a healthy lifestyle image on social media platforms. However, I think it is essential to invest time in the selection process. It's also necessary to have some background on the production first when choosing a carrier (whether it's a show or an episode). Take Diors Man, a product placement that Wurenbacher has carried out before for example, the overall young and upbeat pace of Diors Man and the fact that it is a sitcom that is close to the details of life and fits in with the scenario and atmosphere of beer drinking, the audience is generally more focused during the viewing process and can easily be brought into the plot to remember the product. The story we chose for Wurenbacher about Bei Zhe Nan Yuan is set in a restaurant, and the genre of women starting up a business can reach a wide range of ages and provide a wide range of scenarios for placement. This is why we chose this TV series for the placement after reading many presentations on attracting investment of dramas. RZ: When you were carrying on the projects for Wurenbacher, did everything go as arranged? Was there anything wrong happening? Did the company Wurenbacher do anything to fix the question? J: There were some unexpected situations in the implementation. Because customers of Wurenbacher knew little about marketing, they sometimes put forward some unreasonable requirements, but in fact, whether it is the influencer or the creation of film and television works, as sponsors, we only have limited rights to make adjustments to some extent. The brand side blindly hoped to output as much publicity content as possible, without considering whether it would disgust consumers, whether it would not conform to the consistent image of the influencer, and whether it would affect the final overall presentation effect of the film and television works, which required us to spend more time on communication and explaining to the brand, but luckily, customers were still nice to communicate, as our overall goal is the same - to help Wurenbacher achieve better exposure and interaction. RZ: What kind of role do you think a company should be in during the marketing period, so do you think Wurenbacher had played an active role? J: I think the client needs to be clear about the focus of the communication themselves before they decide to go ahead with the marketing. Also, during the execution process, it is advisable for the client to meet the needs of the influencers who understand what content the public would like to see and welcome. RZ: Tell me about your opinion on Wurenbacher's actions when carried out the marketing activities. J: I think Wurenbacher is a good client, not stubborn. Although we had different views when executing marketing, we could still reach agreement through communication. RZ: Did Wurenbacher keep monitoring the comments or the influencers' performance when doing product placement and influencer marketing? J: The customer monitored the data and the amount of interaction by themselves, so that they could analyse the reasons for not reaching the standard together with us and make timely adjustment. But because Wurenbacher is not a very famous brand, the conversion rate of investment is limited, and the growth of these quantities is a long-term process. RZ: So, do you think these two methods help with Wurenbacher? What did the brand get from doing product placement and influencer marketing? J: I think it does. Influencers mainly work on enhancing brand familiarity and generating content that helps brands raise brand recognition. However, the effect of product placement may not be particularly noticeable on its own and will probably have a memory-reminding effect on about half of the audience. That's why we suggested to Wurenbacher a complementary and ongoing marketing campaign after the episode goes live, using a similar approach to pop-ups to let consumers know that its products are of sponsor and not just props that appear in the drama. RZ: Tell me the reason you think that drove Wurenbacher to choose product placement and influencers instead of traditional marketing methods. J: The traditional methods of advertising are not so popular with consumers now. I think Wurenbacher's choice of product placement may be due to the high-cost performance of this method after the overall evaluation, because multiple artists can be used in an implantable play to amplify celebrity benefits, which is more cost-effective than finding a brand ambassador. It's also normal to choose influencer marketing, because everyone is doing it now. If they don't do it, they will fall behind. Influencers’ delivery on various types of media platforms is more accurate and disseminative than other means, and the information transmitted by the content is more visualized and active. RZ: Tell me something about how you examine the results of marketing activities, whether there are some KPIs that evaluate whether a promoting case is successful? J: Generally, the influencers are assessed for the incremental interaction they bring; for product placement we evaluate the traffic to brand's official social accounts, official shop on Taobao or WeChat which can bring in new and increased sales. However, as Wurenbacher is a brand that has not yet established its reputation in the market, the main objective of our product placement is also to make the brand known and understood by more potential consumers, and the client will not evaluate sales too much at this stage. RZ: Whether there is anything valuable that you learn from this case? Do you think it may be useful if you work for a beer brand next time? J: Carefully select qualified and excellent influencers, which to a great extent determines the marketing results. Influencers with a personal touch usually deliver a higher ROI, but also mean that they are more independent while organising the post content. Consideration also needs to be given to the influencer's city and region to understand the ease of delivering the product and the possibility of attending subsequent offline events. The process of product placement requires careful communication and confirmation of details. Although the final presentation will be based on the actual scenario and filming, and may not all be idealised and executable, this preparation can help us to adjust more quickly in the event of unforeseen circumstances. What's more, the cooperation of stars and artists is quite limited, so product placement in scenes involving their presence is more restricted and requires real-time followup and coordination to ensure that the final result meets the client's requirements. [Transcription 4] Interviewer: RZ Interviewee: A, Account Executive of Social Touch (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. Date: April 26th, 2021 RZ: What kind of impact do you think product placement and influencer marketing can bring to companies and brands? Tell me about your opinion on the effectiveness, which may be based on your experience with other brands. A: Influencer marketing and product placement can broaden the exposure channels of enterprises and brands, make brand products reach more audiences, and enhance the popularity of enterprises. I think influencer marketing and product placement with the integrated marketing mix can achieve the effect of 1 + 1 > 2. RZ: How did you plan for the promoting case of Wurenbacher? Tell me the process and the guideline that drove you to help the brand choose various influencers and select the media product to place products. A: The choice of Wurenbacher's promotional programme was based on the way other beer products in the market and their similar competitors were promoted, as well as on the characteristics of Valentine's audience. We ultimately specified the promotion based on the interests of consumers and their social media preferences. RZ: When you were carrying on the projects for Wurenbacher, did everything go as arranged? Was there anything wrong happening? A: I think almost everything went well, except the hesitation of customers while choosing influencers, lol. We provided the list of candidates for them more than 7 times before the final influencers were chosen. RZ: What kind of role do you think a company should be in during the marketing period, so do you think Wurenbacher had played an active role? A: The brand should play a leading role in marketing. It can integrate its own product resources and existing strengths of the brand through a range of services provided by the agency, and conduct consumer insights. I think Wurenbacher had played an active role. The brand played a similar role as the commander in the marketing process, even though the client was not as well informed about the specific marketing strategy. We therefore usually made recommendations and implement them after we have agreed with the client. RZ: Tell me about your opinion on Wurenbacher's actions when carried out the marketing activities. A: No many comments, but I think they are not bad. RZ: Did Wurenbacher keep monitoring the comments or the influencers' performance when doing product placement and influencer marketing? A: Yes, the client did. I believe that continuous monitoring of comments and marketer performance is necessary as the process and resulting outcomes of product placement and influencer marketing are not entirely controllable and the results have the potential to have a negative brand communication effect. For brands like Wurenbacher, bad reviews can be fatal to brand perception and since that they should be monitored in real-time. RZ: So, do you think these two methods help with Wurenbacher? What did the brand get from doing product placement and influencer marketing? A: Yes, of course! The brand got strong exposure and enhanced communication, which in turn improved the brand value. RZ: Tell me the reason you think that drove Wurenbacher to choose product placement and influencers instead of traditional marketing methods. A: I think Wurenbacher chose these two marketing methods not only because they were more popular than traditional marketing methods, but also because the response was faster. The brand was desperate to increase brand awareness. Influencer marketing helps Wurenbacher to reach the exact people it wants to reach, as influencers each have their own areas of expertise. TV series can reach a wide audience. After Wurenbacher used a drama for its product placement, it can run a campaign to promote the product in line with the corresponding topic, using the hit series to generate continued buzz and increase brand recognition. RZ: Tell me something about how you examine the results of marketing activities, whether there are some KPIs that evaluate whether a promoting case is successful? A: Checking the results of the marketing can be analysed through the data in the back office of each social media outlet, as well as through multi-dimensional data such as discussions on brand-related topics and popularity among the public. RZ: Do you think these promoting activities help improve brand recognition? A: Yes, I think these activities are very helpful. RZ: Could you please explain more on how? A: Through influencer marketing and product placement, brand let more people know their products, and produced some communicable content related to brand products, which can also be used to improve brand recognition in the future. That's what they're marketing for. RZ: Whether there is anything valuable that you learn from this case? Do you think it may be useful if you work for a beer brand next time? A: In terms of my previous competitor research and analysis, from the existing beer competitor marketing cases, I found that some brands target their marketing according to demographic characteristics, such as Hoegaarden targeting the young female demographic, while some brands have in-depth insights into demand according to their life and work characteristics, such as Kronenbourg 1664 with the hashtag #drink after work to attract whitecollar workers, so beer marketing insights do not necessarily need to follow the traditional sense of demographic needs, but can create new concepts to match the target group through our marketing.