Effect of Language in Social Media Advertising on Consumers

The effect of the language used in social media advertising on consumer decisions.Research question: How does the language used in the twitter accounts of Wendy’s and McDonald’s affect a millennial’s consumer decisions when it comes to choosing which brand to support?INTRODUCTIONMcDonald’s, founded in 1940, is an Americanfast food franchise and, by revenue, the world’s largest restaurant chain.[1]Their net income is estimated to be around $5.19B. As of 2016, it serves over69 million customers daily in more than 100 countries across nearly 36,900 chains.[2]Wendy’s is an American international fast foodrestaurant chain founded on November 15, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio. In 2016,Wendy’s had more than 6,500 locations and was the world’s third largesthamburger fast food chain, following Burger King and McDonald’s.[3]Their net income is estimated to be around $194.03M. 77% of their franchises arelocated in North America, which means that they do not reach the same number ofinternational consumers as McDonald’s.[4]Wendy’s is renowned for its “fresh-never frozen” square hamburger patties; thismotto is an integral part of their slogan.[5]Millennials, people reaching young adulthood inthe early 21st century and are most known as “those born between the years 1982and 2004”,[6]are the new “adults” of our generation, who see an increasing number of fastfood chains seeking more creative ways to advertise their products. Today, thisinfers using some social media platform. A plethora of advertisements targetconsumers daily from these companies on social media, be it via Instagram,Facebook, Snapchat or Twitter. The main target audience of McDonald’s andWendy’s’ advertisements are Millennials in the United States of America, and internationalones who speak English and might want to try either brand. They will bereferred to as the “audience” in this essay.Twitter marketing allows companies to reach their followers internationally therefore further extending their international reach. According to a survey conducted by Constant Contact, 60% of a brand’s followers are more likely to purchase or recommend products after following the brand on Twitter. [7] Moreover, 50% of brand followers are more likely to buy or sign up for services from the brands they follow.  For example, brand followers sign up for promotions, which increase sales. Both McDonald’s and Wendy’s employ common marketing strategies on Twitter to appeal to their audience, including vivid imagery and article references. However, Wendy’s also compares itself to competitors by using an “attacking” technique, where it undermines their values by using powerful diction, personification and similes to capture and retain audiences as they focus on repeating negative experiences one might have had at the competitor’s place.This essay will focus on how the language usedin the tweets of McDonald’s and Wendy’s affect millennial consumer decisionsregarding which brand to support. Other factors influencing millennials’decisions regarding which of the two brands to support will also be explored asthese factors could be seen as a limitation to the research question. Why theresearch question has merit is because it delves into how stylistic devicessuch as those used in structure and language, and technology and advertisingtechniques on Twitter help shape and revolutionize the advertising industry toindoctrinate millennials today. It is also worthy of investigation because itevaluates the differences of the methods McDonald’s and Wendy’s use toadvertise in their tweets by comparing the use of devices to deduce which oneis the most effective. I also do not believe that the question has been coveredor investigated before because of its very specific topic. Specific screenshotsof tweets will support the essence of the arguments that will be made andanalyzed. I narrowed my focus to advertising on Twitterbecause tweets are easily accessible and the effect of the specificadvertisement on the target audience can be seen by looking at the number oflikes, retweets and comments the tweet has received and comparing these toprevious tweets.Moreover, as part of the target audience who isinfluenced by what is advocated on Twitter, the choice of analyzing tweetsmakes sense. Rather than being subjective, the essay will objectively determinethe effectiveness of the language used on the target audience, as I playdevil’s advocate. My personal opinion will be included because it is relevantto the discussion of the target audience for the text, and not as unsupportedassertion.McDonald’s Entry to TwitterThe language used in the tweets of McDonald’shas been effective to a large extent to the target audience when it comes toconsumer decisions. One of the main reasons for this can be because McDonald’sspends approximately 2 billion dollars in advertising – targeting differentgroups including millennials.[8]There are three objectives McDonald’s has for advertising: make people aware ofthe item, feel positive about the item, and remember the item.[9]McDonald’s created their account in September2009. Their tweets mostly related to customer service, but also included a lotof advertising – and the literary techniques in these tweets are clearly evident.When comparing McDonald’s’ and Wendy’s’ first tweets, we can see that they didhave some similarities to begin with, such as that they were both helpingcustomers and making humorous puns. However, Wendy’s was very clever in the waythey followed trends and that caused their popularity to flourish. McDonald’stried to appeal more to a “family” audience while still trying to attract millennials,however, Wendy’s focused more on millennials as time passed as that was thegroup they saw generated them the most revenue.Wendy’s’ Entry to TwitterWendy’s, although less popular than McDonald’sand unknown to many, has been extremely clever in the way it presents itsbrand. It chooses to focus on a specific target audience (millennials) insteadof being broad and general, and this in turn generates unprecedented revenue forwhich evidence is provided throughout this essay. Wendy’s entered Twitter in July of 2009.Although they joined in the same year as McDonald’s, they had a significantlylower number of followers as they were less popular. The burger joint’s Twitteraccount, however, has gone viral over the last two years for their ruthlesscomebacks and rivalries with other restaurants.Figure 1,a screenshot from Social Blade representing the growth of the Twitter accountsof Wendy’s and McDonald’s, shows how Wendy’s’ follower count started booming inJanuary 2017, when they first tweeted a jab against McDonald’s. This shows thatwhat they did really did attract millennials, as upon further analysis, the agegroups of the Twitter accounts had a staggering 79% of users aged 13-18,compared to McDonald’s who only had 45%. Also, their average daily followersincreased to 919 whilst McDonald’s only had an average of 289 daily followers.It all started back in January 2017 when AmyBrown, social media manager for Wendy’s, was going through recent user commentson the company’s Twitter, and came across a jab against their ‘fresh, neverfrozen’ meat policy. Her response went viral, and people found the sassy breakfrom corporate automated replies both hilarious and refreshing, causing anincrease in sales. These set of tweets were what started makingWendy’s’ twitter account more popular and increased their sales. The evidencefor that can be seen in Figure 3.Figure 3 shows a picture of a receipt acustomer took of his purchase at Wendy’s because of Wendy’s’ tweet. He is alsopart of the target audience, as his age was 19 at the time this tweet wasposted. This proves that Wendy’s’ tweet did have a powerful impact on thetarget audience and this led to an increase in followers which can be seen inthe spike in Figure 1 in January of 2017, as well as sales. A more detailedgraph can be seen in Figure 4 showing that the percent growth neared 40% of theWendy’s twitter account after posting this tweet.Twitter Marketing Techniques and Target AudienceIt has been proventhat millennials spend more time online than they do face to face with theirfriends. In relation to advertising, the main factor which should be consideredis that if it can be accessed from a phone, there will be a Millennial marketfor it online. If companies are lacking an online presence, they will struggleto hold the interest of this audience.[10] Thereare plenty of statistics to show how Millennials interact with companiesthrough social media and how this links to a brand’s growth:84% report that user generated content (tweets) influences what they buy86% believe that user generated content is a good indicator of a brand orproduct’s quality.[11]A strategy repeatedlyused by Wendy’s to engage Millennials with social and user generated content ishaving tweets go “viral”, entertaining the Millennial to entice them to lateron purchase a product.  By communicatingthrough tweets, the specific message is being communicated to the targetaudience with the intention of a customer making a purchase. The way in which thelanguage is used in both accounts has changed over time in order to keep up todate with the target audience’s preferences and developing social tendencieswill be discussed in this essay.The results of asurvey conducted in 2017 showed that Millennials are more impressed byengagement than promotion. 62% percent of this group states that they are morelikely to become brand loyal if a company engages with them, sincerely, onsocial media.[12]When analyzing thetweets from the accounts of Wendy’s and McDonald’s, I will first start byanalyzing their first tweets, and then jump to 2016 as it is impossible to findaccount statistics for 10 years ago – the furthest that can be gone back is 2years. I will be using the following figures for references later on:It is also importantto note the limitation of Twitter as an advertising tool because of the limitednumber of characters (280) one can type in a tweet. This means that thelanguage the brand wishes to express is limited, meaning they cannot expressthemselves freely. However, for the target audience, this might be seen as arelief as the tweets will most likely be short and concise.Audience AppealMcDonald’sThis is one of McDonalds’ first tweets. It canbe seen that they are trying to relate to the target audience by abbreviatingMcDonalds to “McD”. The number of characters is really small and so they dothis to try and relate to millennials and also because of the trend in the riseof texting language and abbreviations at the time. Acronyms became increasinglypopular in the 20th century in order to facilitate typing speed, andpeople who mostly benefit for this are the tech-savvy, such as millennials.[13] They also adopt an informal speakingtone, using ellipses, onomatopoeia “mmmmmm” and are also using all caps to putemphasis on a specific type of food which has universal appeal. Who does notlike fries? The effect on millennials is that they feel that they have a sincererconnection with the brand. This links to the survey statistics found in theprevious paragraph, where millennials are more likely to become brand loyalthrough engagement rather than promotion. Here, McDonald’s are doing both. Thetweet also makes the reader hungrier and want to buy the promoted item.Looking at another tweet from 2009, we can seethe repeated use of abbreviation, “McD” and “JP”. McDonalds also reaches out tomillennials by adding a relatable food experience when eating with other teens.This is implicitly implied as an adult might consider dipping fries into a hotfudge sundae inappropriate, but a teenager would most probably have tried it,or upon reading this tweet, have now been prompted to try it. By gettingapproval from the brand, the audience are more likely to experiment with the waythey interact with the brand’s products.In 2012, positive responses to the onlineMcDonald’s Tweets were received from millennials on twitter as can be seen inthe reply to the tweet above. Normally, a fast-food restaurant would not askits customers whether they were going to a haunted house or not for Halloween.However, McDonald’s reachedout totheir consumers by including what is a popular cultural celebration– a funevening dressing up for Halloween. A sub-tweet from a millennial shows amillennial making a joke about Burger King – thus achieving McDonalds’ aim,which is to deter millennials from other competitor food outlets and to attractthem to McDonald’s. The language here is used in order to evoke a response fromthe target audience and to establish a closer connection. It’s as if you aretalking to a friend when reading this tweet. Halloween invokes feelings ofcelebration and spookiness, and McDonald’s is trying to be a part of that inorder to relate to the target audience and to make them feel that McDonald’s isnot old fashioned and likes trick-or-treating as well.Wendy’sOne of Wendy’s’ first tweets uses a celebrity to appeal to the audience. In this specific tweet, this is done by mentioning Seth Green, known for voicing a character in Family Guy. By mentioning his name, this possibly makes the audience want to buy a frosty as it is a psychological marketing scheme. Presenting a familiar face is one of the fastest and easiest ways for companies to create brand associations in the minds of consumers. When a celebrity endorses a product, that product gains immediate credibility.[14]  A Taiwanese study shows that consumers remember products that have been endorsed by celebrities more than products that haven’t – regardless of whether they are fans or not. The brain recognizes celebrities similarly to how it recognizes people we actually know. The effect is that, if the consumers happen to be fans, they place a higher value on products that celebrities are endorsing – it is as if they are receiving advice from a valued friend.[15]Subconsciously, people believe that purchasing aproduct that’s been promoted by a celebrity they admire, will allow them toemulate the celebrity’s desired traits or attract similar people into theirlives. They will associate the celebrities’ success, beauty, athletic skilletc. with a particular product.[16]By using this specific celebrity, Wendy’s are able to connect with themillennial audience. Furthermore, the phrase “coffee toffee twisted frosty” isan example of assonance and alliteration. These together with the stressedsyllables create a joyous rhyme that resonates with the millennials and bringsfeeling of happiness, and they would possibly go and tell their friends whatthey read on Twitter.This tweet shows thatWendy’s is trying to relate to their target audience by looking at the specificdiction they use to grab the attention of the target audience: Combos, Prize,Gift Card, Water Gun. These are all things that hold less appeal to middle-agedadults than to millennials. These things are valuable to most millennials,creates a sense of excitement and make them want to eat Wendy’s even more – andbecause of the competition, there is an increased likelihood that they wouldtell their friends, which could increase Wendy’s’ customer base. There is alsothe use of a rhetorical question shows how generous Wendy’s are being byoffering not one but two prizes which increases the level of excitement in thecustomer. This tweet had a positive impact on Wendy’s’ customer base as it increasedtheir sales accordingly: “Second quarter 2009adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization(“EBITDA”)1, excluding pre-tax integration-related costs of $7.3million, was $117.2 million, and increased 13.2% as compared to pro-forma 2008 second quarteradjusted EBITDA of $103.5 million.”[17]In the above tweet,Wendy’s reference an iconic song at the time called “Swagga Like Us”. Releasedin 2008, the song by Jay-Z, who is most popular with millennials as he is a rapartist, was popular at the time. By making their own version of the song andincluding a menu item, Wendy’s can easily get the “Wendified” version of thesong stuck in the target audience’s minds, therefore making them want to buywings, tell their friends, and share the tweet. Also, repetition and a cleverplay on words are used here which further increase the likelihood of this tweetattracting the target audience and having it resonate in their minds.HumorThe type of humorused by both brands is different. McDonald’s’ humor is lighter and subtler,whilst Wendy’s’ is blatant – they are not afraid to argue with their criticalconsumers and with competitors. McDonald’s, however, does not have one rudetweet.McDonald’sIn 2013, McDonalds started using humor as astylistic device in its Tweets. Above, we can see the personification of theirproduct by humorously calling their coffee “gorgeous”. By placing their productin front of a bunch of yellow flowers, yellow signifying friendship, itindicates that McDonald’s’ customers are a family. We give flowers and say theword “gorgeous” to people we love. This makes the audience feel like they areall one as the “McFamily”. It also makes the target audience feel closer toMcDonald’s and establishes a relationship between them. This was tweeted onOctober 11th 2013, sometime around autumn and close to Halloween.McDonald’s is very clever in including fall colors such as yellow and orange,as this further gets the audience in the mood to want to buy a coffee. The word“McCafé” shows that even though McDonald’s is a fast food company, it can alsoappeal to coffee-lover millennials.Below, we can see a millennial’s (aged 20 atthe time) positive response to the tweet:This response shows how much of an impact theprevious tweet had on this McDonalds customer. The “they have it so I want ittoo” factor played a role in the decision the consumer made to buy the coffee –to be just like McDonalds, justified by the mentioning of “twinsies”.In 2016, McDonald’stackles a problematic area: a broken ice-cream machine, by addressing theirpoor service through humor. By acknowledging they are human, McDonald’s is ableto be funny, relatable and frank at the same time. Their frankness instills afeeling of empathy in the target audience, putting them in a time where theytoo did not feel like doing a tiring task in the night. As millennials tend tovalue engagement over promotion as shown by a survey conducted in 2017, theyare encouraged to remain true to McDonald’s because statistically, 62% percentof this group states that they are more likely to become brand loyal if acompany engages with them, sincerely, on social media.[18]Wendy’sHumor is what madeWendy’s’ account boom in the first place (evidence in figure 5 page 11 with thespike in follower count in January 2017); they only started using it at the endof 2016/beginning 2017, before that, their tweets were only about promotionsand customer service. The focus of Wendy’s humor is virtually bashingcompetitor food outlets and responding to criticism in a funny manner.In 2017, Wendy’splays along with the “Fairytale” story that Burger King are having with a millennial.However, there is a twist – Wendy’s says that they do not want to be part ofthe “frozen beef kingdom”, which is an insult towards Burger King. By theclever use of fairytale diction such as “princess, frozen beef kingdom” and areference to the movie “Frozen” by mentioning a lead song “Let it Go”, powerfulimagery is humorously created to paint an image of not-so-fresh beef into thetarget audience’s mind, thus making them dislike Burger King and like Wendy’seven more. The audience response can also be seen on the tweet’s metrics:Burger King’s tweet had 764 likes, whilst Wendy’s’ had 27,898. This shows thattheir aim of getting a positive reaction from their target audience worked.In this tweet,Wendy’s use both all caps and spaces between characters to make the word “Refrigerators”pop out. Millennials respond to sarcasm as they have been statistically provento use it at least five times a week[19], andthe implication that “Patrick” is stupid would appeal to their sense of humor.Wendy’s are emphasizing how beef is not difficult to be kept fresh withoutbeing frozen, proving that they know what they are doing, hinting at expertisein the field which makes proves to the audience the brand’s authenticity andcredibility.Wendy’s, as we cansee responds to tweets of consumers. The next tweet from 2018 shows themfocusing on sensory appeal as their main way to attract the target audience.The picture they’re replying to tweeted by a millennial born in 1997 (shown inhis username) is a child using a fake Play-Doh ice-cream machine. They humorouslysay that inedible Play-Doh “probably” tastes better than McDonald’s’ ice-cream,which implies that their ingredients are not fresh. This appeals to theaudience’s sense of taste by linking something with an unpleasant taste tosomething that they would otherwise enjoy, achieving Wendy’s’ goal of deterringmillennials from consuming/interacting with McDonald’s’ products.763,273 consumersliked this Wendy’s tweet. It targeted McDonald’s. Here, McDonald’s hadaccidentally added a PR link to their tweet. Wendy’s quickly saw theopportunity to mock McDonald’s because of their mistake, by saying that their“tweets are as broken as the ice cream machine”. According to statisticalevidence (Johnson 2017), McDonald’s’ ice-cream sales decreased by approximately48% in the “millennial group” after this tweet was tweeted. Wendy’s are alsotrying to relate to millennials by mentioning a relatable experience one mighthave when visiting McDonald’s, which is facing, to their dismay, a brokenice-cream machine. Reminiscing might sound positive at first, however, they arewittingly linking it to a negative experience, which makes the target audience doubtMcDonald’s’ product.TrendsMcDonald’s andWendy’s follow similar trends on twitter. They both have a “freshness” vision,use abbreviations in their tweets, and reference services such as Uber, ofwhich 37% (highest % age group) of users are aged 16-24 and are in the targetaudience.[20]McDonald’sIn 2015, McDonalds began to increasinglycounter more health-conscious tweets by providing statistics. This tweet aimsto show that McDonalds’ beef does not include any preservatives. However, animplication is that it does not mention that they’re fresh, just that they’represervative free. Various stylistic devices are used, such as the repetitionof “No”, the abbreviation “B.S”. An authority figure is used by mentioning the“USDA” and a statistic is provided by the use of “100%”. The effect on the millennialsis to simply bring reassurance and to prove that McDonald’s do care aboutquality and freshness.The above screenshot shows another health-conscioustweet by McDonalds. The diction used: “today, mid-2018, all, majority, fresh”stand out in this tweet and captivate the target audience. This is because theyare making this “event” seem like a milestone for McDonald’s; millennials careabout quality and freshness, and to have McDonald’s recognize that is veryimportant to the millennials, because they feel as if their complaints arebeing heard. Millennials in particular are leading the charge by makinghealth-promoting diet and lifestyle choices a priority, as recent studiesindicate. Millennials feel they have more at stake than any other generationwhen it comes to matters of health and the environment.1 In our survey, more ofthem were concerned about various aspects of the environment than any other agegroup. They are more apt to look for products that are both eco-friendly andhealthy.[21]The appeals to millennials here specifically includeusing capitalization to grab the audience’s attention, abbreviations, and theuse of promotion codes and hashtags as a trend. The words “unlimited” and“free” stand out, and this gives the effect of endless freebies for a limitedamount of time, making the audience want to order even more at the comfort oftheir home, as it has been studied that 74% of millennials would rather deliverthan pick-up food.[22]“Deets” is an abbreviation for “details” and this gives the effect that“McDonald’s” are cool and modern by abbreviating such words. This relates themeven more to the millennials. The #McDelivery trended on twitter the week thiswas tweeted, with over 21000 mentions in a day, of which the largest group weremillennials (86%). Also, by mentioning @UberEats of which 37% (highest % age group) of users are aged16-24, [23] this further creates anappeal by linking something they are already familiar with.Wendy’sIn this tweet, aspecific trend is used in order to attract the target audience: “roasting”. Roastingis a technique used to be tactfully mean (snarky) without being mean-spiritedin poking fun at someone, teasing, ruthlessly ridiculing, trash talking, andeven mocking them.[24] Thisis the main way Wendy’s attract their audience in their tweets as can be seenhow the dates of the tweets correlate to the specific spikes in follower countin Figure 5 of Page 11. By attempting to “roast” a random Twitter user, theeffect is that they attract their target audience because millennials areinterested and entertained by watching big companies that otherwise seemserious show a sense of non-seriousness.[25]Another example of “roasting” can be seen in theabove tweet. Here, McDonald’s added a GIF of fries growing, as if they’reflowers. Wendy’s reply by insinuating that McDonald’s froze the fries in orderto keep them fresh for the photo. They use the abbreviation of you-all “y’all”,in accordance to the rise in internet slang, in which the word y’all is usedmost commonly in typing by 16-24 year olds.[26] Theeffect given by Wendy’s mimicking the texting slang of modern-day millennialsis that the target audience feels that their texting slang is “accepted” andthis gives the brand more authority.Another example offollowing trends is shown in the above tweet. In this tweet, the trend ofmentioning Uber returns. As Uber’s largest demographic age-group is that ofmillennials, [27] it is evident that thistweet is targeted towards them. There is also humor here, however, the focus inthis tweet is on the trend which makes the target audience want to leave thecompetitor’s restaurant and to join Wendy’s.ConclusionBased on the criticalresearch, analysis, and evidence, it can be confirmed that the language used inWendy’s’ tweets and their methodological approaches have had a positive,rippling and major effect on their target audience, marketing strategies, theirreputation and their sales. This can be proven through their Consolidated NetIncome which increased from $129.62M in 2016 to $194.03M in 2017, 72% thatcontributed to this were millennials.[28]The rippling effectcan be witnessed here, as Wendy’s will always have a steady increase in searchengine searches and popularity, all because of the language used in theirtweets and how effective the language was to the target audience in terms ofthe feelings it evoked in them and what it pushed them to do. If it were adifferent target audience, it can be deduced that there would certainly nothave been the same outcome as compared to the target audience being Millennials.As for McDonald’s,the language used in the tweets did affect the audience’s consumer decisionspositively because statistically, the promotion codes that McDonald’s tweetedand the language incorporated into those tweets increased their sales by 6%,84% were millennials.[29]This confirms thatlanguage used in the tweets has a very important effect on a millennial’sconsumer decisions when it comes to choosing which brand to support.It is important tonote that a limitation in this essay is that McDonald’s will always reignsupreme as the most popular fast food chain, and because of that they willalways have a significantly higher revenue than Wendy’s. 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