‘Billboard banter’, a marketing trend amongst the Indian Brands has become viral phenomenon that posits a scholarly enquiry. To understand this, we are proposing a conceptual framework that have come out of three-pronged approach. Grounded in Intertextuality Theory, in first phase the billboards were deciphered on the basis of how brands appropriate and subvert visual and verbal messages to stage humour in eight purposively sampled campaigns. Second, using Coopetition Theory, we understand how brands join the bandwagon and cleverly reply to each other’s billboards, teaming up to grab attention and stay culturally relevant, while still trying to outshine one another in the race to go viral. Lastly, guided by Positive Communication Theory, we conduct a thematic analysis of top 200 comments per post on meme-sharing pages, marketing and advertising pages to understand how these banter wars are perceived by the audience. Our conceptual framework links semiotic construction (MDA + intertextuality) to strategic banter war (coopetition) and audience perception (positive communication), leading to enhanced brand advocacy. Preliminary findings of this study suggest intertextual puns from popular Indian movies, puns and visual callbacks not only increase recall but also fuel cooperative rivalries that resonate on social media and a popular viral content on social media. This research extends MDA to conversations between brand dialogues, adds to the coopetition literature with humour dynamics, and offers the media producers theory-driven guidelines for creating banter-friendly campaigns, eventually fostering brand collaborations and audience engagement.

Authors:
Dishha Medhavi, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, India
Anirban Ghosh, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, India

About the Presenter(s)
Dishha is pursuing a doctoral degree in the research area of sustainability advertising. She has published two Scopus-indexed papers and has won the IAMCR Urban Communication Research Grant Award in 2022.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dishha/

Connect on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dishha-Medhavi?ev=hdr_xprf

See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule

Bookmark