Consumer Culture and Political Ideology Plots in Social Media Campaigns

A number of studies are devoted to explicating global consumer culture and political ideology plots in traditional advertising. Nevertheless, studies of these plots in social media campaigns are scarce. In order to fill this gap, our study examines consumer culture and political ideology plots utilized by global brands in social media advertisements targeted to US Millennials. Employing semiotic analysis, a series of advertisements from automotive, food and beverage, electronics, personal care products, fast food, athletics and financial sectors were evaluated and interpreted. Our findings uncovered one unique main plot labeled “identity-of-self” and three subplots: 1) successful and young living, 2) Peter Pan syndrome, and 3) purposeful connectedness. Implications for practice and directions for future work are suggested.