Response strategies to maintain emotional resonant brand reputations when targeted by user-generated brand parodies

Abstract

Mostly satirising top-of-mind brands, user-generated parody accounts are a phenomenon mostlyassociated with Twitter. As an emerging trend in South Africa, parody accounts using cleverlywrittensatire attract a large and loyal following as social media communities enjoy the sharedpleasure of sharing funny content and the intense positive emotions felt when making fun ofbrands that they care about. Of particular concern is when audiences find parody accounts morehonest, entertaining and authentic compared to the official social media brand account. Moreover,user-generated parody accounts often misappropriate brand identities, thereby not only confusingunsuspecting social media communities but also satirising brand meanings. Correspondingly,social media management teams are faced with a reputational risk or paracrisis, since theemotional resonance of brand reputations are being hijacked. Too often, official responses toparody accounts are knee-jerk responses to take back control, such as aggressive threats andlitigation, easily escalating into angry viral social media backlashes. The purpose of the study wasto establish suitable paracrisis response strategies for parodied brands to maintain emotionallyresonant reputations. Using a synergistic approach to mixed methods in a triangulation design,this study collected and analysed data from a purposive and snowball sample of 207 social mediaexperts. Findings suggested that humorous, tongue-in-cheek banter with user-generated parodyaccounts intended for harmless fun optimise emotionally resonant brand reputations in the ageof parody.