English
Chinese
A Comparison of Social Media between Chinese and Hollywood Films
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my tutor, Mr. Uche who has offered great autonomy to do this research. I really appreciate his trust and have knew him for a long time. When I worked on my dissertation for my Bachelor degree, he offered many helps. In this year, I am honour that he has become my tutor again. Only this time, he guided my dissertation for my Master degree. He has witnessed my growth and helped it.
Abstract
This research aims at the comparison of social media marketing of Chinese and Hollywood films in China. The purpose of the research is to use the comparison to gain insights and identify effective social media marketing for Chinese audiences to improve Hollywood films’ revenue in the country. The comparison concentrates on two case studies: ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series and MCU films to gain insights for Hollywood films. The expected results can help Hollywood studios to facilitate the effectiveness of their social media marketing and their relationship with Chinese audiences and thus revenue in the country.
This research adopted realism philosophy to conduct a qualitative research, used deductive approach to generate reliable findings, and implemented interviews and questionnaires as data collection method. Furthermore, the research used cross-sectional time horizon, which means that it has only collected primary data for once. This research adopted qualitative analysis to discover the insights of social media marketing in Chinese film industry.
Both Chinese and Hollywood films have recognised the importance of social media marketing in China. Both of them focus on WOM, trustworthiness and KOLs. Nevertheless, there are many differences in social media marketing between Chinese and Hollywood films. Hollywood films face the difficulties in cross-cultural communication even though they work closely with Chinese partners. They have to pay more attention to customer relationship development in China because Chinese audiences are sensitive. This research makes the following recommendations for Hollywood films to develop social media marketing in China. Developing localisation is critical for Hollywood studios to have effective social media marketing. They firstly need to develop their network and partnership with Chinese companies to gain market knowledge. Secondly, they need to develop great relationship with Chinese government, which means that they have to comply with censorship. Thirdly, they should develop good relationship with Chinese audiences by using proper communication. More importantly, Hollywood studios have to shape WOM, develop trustworthiness and effectively use KOLs. They should take lessons from MCU.
1.1.1 Social media marketing of Hollywood and Chinese Films
1.1.2 Hollywood Films in China
1.1.3 Censorship in China and Localisation of Hollywood Films
1.3 Research Aim, Purpose, Objectives and Questions
2.1.3 Key Opinion Leader (KOLs)
2.1.4 Customer Relationship Marketing
2.2 Hollywood’s Marketing Strategies
2.3 Cross-Cultural Communication
2.3.2 Hofstede’s National Culture Dimensions
2.4.1 The importance of Localisation
2.4.3 Uppsala’s learning model
2.5.2 Nationalism and Ethnocentrism
2.5.3 The Importance of Relationship with Chinese Audiences
2.5.4 The Importance of Chinese Government
3.5 Cross-Sectional Time Horizon
3.9 Validity, Reliability and Limitations
4.2 Analysis of the Interviews
4.2.1 Demographics of Research Respondents
4.2.2 Four Pillars of Social Media Marketing
4.2.3 External Environmental Factors
6.2 Recommendations for Further Research
1.1 Background
1.1.1 Social media marketing of Hollywood and Chinese Films
With the rise of Chinese economy, Hollywood films have realised the growing Chinese film market and been taking advantage of social media marketing to explore the market. Marvel Studio has been using social media marketing to improve its influence in China. Social media marketing has become an important part of film marketing. Both Hollywood and Chinese films make efforts to generate great influence in social media. They arouse online discussion to attract consumers and thus increase their box office. Song (2018) find that Hollywood studios have great involvement in Chinese social media to promote their films and they are actively engaging in Weibo, WeChat, Douban and Zhihu. These social networks are four of the most popular platforms for Chinese people. Since 2016, social media marketing for film promotion has become increasingly more important, with the increasing penetration rate of social media (Marketing Research in China, 2016).
Meanwhile, Chinese local film studios also have realised the importance of social media marketing. With deep understanding of Chinese culture, they have proficiency in guiding and shaping Word of Mouth (WOM) toward their films. For example, ‘Wolf Warrior’ series aroused a wide and long discussion about nationalism and patriotism in social networks. By engaging social media marketing, ‘Wolf Warrior II’ developed the brand image and personality closely associated with national pride and patriotism. Through continuously arousing online discussion and guiding WOM, the film attracted a large number of audiences. As a film with only US$ 30.1 million budget, it gained US$ 874 million box office in 2017 (Rodriguez, 2017),
‘Wolf Warrior Series’
The series described the stories of a Chinese special troop against foreign enemy. By 2020, the series only have two films: ‘Wolf Warrior I’ and ‘Wolf Warrior II’. The first film presented the story that the wolf warrior defeated foreign mercenary hired by a drug cartel. The second film focused on the story in an African country. When the country bursts a civil war and a group of Chinese expatriates and workers were in danger, the wolf warrior saved them and an American female doctor. Both two films advocated nationalism, ethnocentrism and patriotism. By contrast to traditional Chinese films focusing on collectivism, the two films are more related with individualistic heroism which are close to that in Hollywood. The wolf warrior is called jokingly as captain China by netizens. He disobeys his order from his supervisors for good purpose and fights with foreign mercenaries or a large number of enemies alone. More importantly, ‘Wolf Warrior II’ focuses more on national pride and Chinese dream, which is consistent with argument of China’s President Xi (Shi and Liu, 2019). According to BBC (2017), ‘Wolf Warrior II’ promoted the value that ‘anyone who offends China will be punished regardless of how far the one is’.
Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Series
MCU film are the one of the most successful Hollywood film series including a variety of unique and heroic characters such as Ironman, Captain America, Thor, Spiderman, Hulk, and so on. Most of MCU films gained great financial success and good reputation in China. To be specific, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ as the most important film of Marvel Studio realised USD 629 million gross profits from China (Mendelson, 2019). MCU films are developed based on comics and featuring individualistic heroism. More importantly, they represent both universal and American value including equality, justices, diversity, humanism and individualism.
Marvel Studio realises the culture differences between China and the US. Especially, individualism in MCU films conflicts with the collectivism in Chinese traditional value. Meanwhile, the equality advocated by MCU is inconsistent with high power distance in Chinese films. Therefore, it focused on localisation in its Chinese promotion activities especially for social media marketing.
1.1.2 Hollywood Films in China
Hollywood is increasingly more dependent on international market. As figure 1 shows, the international box office of Hollywood films shows a generally growing trend. The international box office accounted for about 55% of total their income in 2017, whereas the figure was only about 27% in 1990 (World 101, 2019). Meanwhile, Chinese market has become the most oversea market of Hollywood.
Figure 1: Box Office Income for Big Six Hollywood Studios
Chinese box office revenue has been continuously growing since 2012, as figure 2 shows. The revenue increased from 17.07 billion yuan in 2012 to 64.27 billion yuan (Thomala, 2020). In 2019, the revenue of domestic films accounted for 64.1% of the total revenue while that of imported film held 35.9% (Prnewswire, 2020). There is the estimation that China will become the largest cinema market by 2020 and it will realise US $15.5 billion box revenue by 2023 (Saiidi, 2019). According to PWC (2019), China’s cinema market was expected to grow with a CAGR of 9.4% between 2019 and 2023 and then reach US $15.5 billion revenue in 2023.
Figure 2: Box Office Revenue in China between 2012 and 2019
With the motivation of seeking profits, Hollywood studios have been growing their concerns to Chinese market. The growing Chinese cinema market also encourages Hollywood films to continuously increase their marketing activities in China. Nevertheless, the market share of Hollywood films in China shows a decline trend. In 2018, the market share decreased to 24% (Brzeski, 2018).
Developing social media marketing requires deep understanding of Chinese culture and audiences. Nationalism, patriotism and ethnocentrism have been rising in the country (Johnston, 2016). Even worse, the burst of COVID-19 and the US-China trade war have been deteriorating the relationship between China and the US. Anti-American sentiment is rising in the country, which tends to Hollywood films’ revenue in China.
1.1.3 Censorship in China and Localisation of Hollywood Films
Film censorship has been strict in China under the one-party ruled regime. With high level of paternalism, Chinese government pays heavy attention to guiding mainstream ideology and cultural value in the society. According to Lawrence and Martin (2013), Chinese Communist Party (CCP) directly controls all political institutions of the country and most media. The State Administration of Press (SAP) directly determine the importing of films. It has strict but ambiguous rules to censor films (Priest, 2015). Because the rules of the SAP are ambiguous, film studios have to perceive those rules and the SAP can ban a film without rules. CCP expects to take advantage of the strict censorship to safeguard its own ideology and some Chinese traditional ideologies to support its regime (Bai, 2013).
Furthermore, by the censorship, it resists cultural westernisation which could threat its regime. Chinese government launched the program that encourages national pride and Chinese dream. CCP has committed to an ideological competition confronting with the US (Whitehouse, 2020). The program has the purpose of improve the image of China in the mind of people around the world and Chinese people. Therefore, those films that contain plots related with negative side of China are restricted by the SAP. On the other hand, those films in flavour of Chinese image are encouraged by the censorship.
Under such rigor censorship, Hollywood studios pay heavy attention to localisation especially in the process of marketing in China. For example, ‘Doctor Strange’ as one of MCU films made proper adaptation to pass Chinese censorship and maintain good relationship with CCP. In the original comics, Doctor Strange learned from his master who was a male Tibetan. However, because CCP has been sensitive to the issues of Tibetan independence, the film replaced the male Tibetan by a Caucasian female (Hollings, 2020). Marvel Studio has been using censoring diplomacy strategy to pass the censorship.
The censorship has strong impact on Hollywood studios’ social media marketing in China. They tend to show more respects to Chinese audiences and Chinese culture. In marketing communication, Marvel Studio focused on localised social media marketing activities to arouse online discussion. It used local platforms such as Weibo and WeChat and hired local Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) to shape WOM (CGTV, 2017). More importantly, it facilitates its relationship with Chinese audiences. It uses relationship marketing to push its revenue and cultivate loyal customers (fans).
Moreover, cultural differences have strong impacts on Hollywood studio’s social media marketing. Due to cultural differences, Chinese and American audiences tend to have different perception, attitude and opinion toward a same film. Therefore, they can have different WOM toward one film. Therefore, Hollywood studios pay attention to shaping WOM and thus public opinion in their social media marketing.
1.2 Research Significance
This research is significant because it attempts to make great managerial and academic contributions to Hollywood’s performance in China. To begin with managerial contribution, the research’s results can help Hollywood studios to solve some problems including cross-cultural communication, the intensive relationship between the US and China, and the need for developing relationship with Chinese audiences by making recommendations on effective social media marketing. Firstly, Hollywood studios from the US face significant cultural differences in social media communication. Cultural differences can compromise effectiveness of marketing communication and cause misunderstanding and even conflicts (Hutzschenreuter et al., 2011 and Jawal, 2014). Therefore, it is necessary for these studios to acquire the market knowledge for effective communication with Chinese people. Secondly, Chinese people are arousing anti-American sentiment due to political issues related with Hong Kong and Taiwan, the burst of COVID-19 as well as the US-China trade war. Meanwhile, the anti-American sentiment is highly likely to arouse Chinese audiences’ negative attitude toward Hollywood films because most of them represent American culture. Thirdly, Hollywood films have to develop proper relationship with Chinese audiences to boost their box office especially when anti-American sentiment is growing. Moreover, Hollywood needs to confront with the rise of Chinese local films which have richer and deeper market knowledge to conduct more effective social media marketing. In the perspective of internationalisation, developing localisation to improve responsiveness to local demands and competitions are necessary for all MNCs (Melewar and Vemmervik, 2004 and Peprah et al., 2017). Moreover, the market share of Hollywood films in China shows a declining trend and Chinese cinema market are fast growing. Under such market context, it is prominent for Hollywood studios to identify effective social media marketing strategies to improve its performance.
Meanwhile, the results of this research have academic contributions. There are many previous studies investigating social media marketing (Damásio, 2012; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; and Mittal, 2003). However, none of these studies focus on the impact of social media marketing in cinema industry especially in China. The research attempts to fulfil this research gap by comparing social media marketing of Chinese and Hollywood films. Moreover, many previous studies on social media marketing were conducted in the age of 3G and 4G (Chan and Yazdanifard, 2014; Hanna et al., 2011; and Otugo et al., 2015). Social media itself has been fast evolving toward short videos and live streaming. Therefore, it is prominent to restudy social media marketing. Furthermore, this dissertation finds no previous research comparing social media marketing between Chinese and Hollywood films in Chinese market. Therefore, it plans to cover this research gap.
1.3 Research Aim, Purpose, Objectives and Questions
This research aims at the comparison of social media marketing of Chinese and Hollywood films in China. The purpose of the research is to use the comparison to gain insights and identify effective social media marketing for Chinese audiences to improve Hollywood films’ revenue in the country. The comparison concentrates on two case studies: ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series and MCU films to gain insights for Hollywood films. The expected results can help Hollywood studios to facilitate the effectiveness of their social media marketing and their relationship with Chinese audiences and thus revenue in the country.
Based on the research purpose, this research has the following objectives.
· To critically review existing literature about social media marketing, cross-cultural communication, localisation and cinema industry
· To identify the effective social media marketing from two case studies
· To discuss the finding from these case studies with the literature review to make recommendations
The research questions are designed based on the research purpose.
1) What are the differences and commonalities in social media marketing between Chinese and Hollywood films in China?
2) How should Hollywood films conduct social media marketing?
1.4 Research Structure
This research describes background, justifies its significance and clarifies its purpose, objectives and questions in this chapter. Then, it built a literature review covering cross-cultural communication, social media marketing and localisation in Chapter Two. In Chapter Three, this research explained the methodologies adopted to collect and analyse data. The Chapter Four analysed primary and secondary data for two case studies. Next, the research discussed the finding from these case studies with the literature review to generate conclusions. Additionally, all results of the research are summarised and all research questions were answered in the last chapter – Conclusions. Meanwhile, this chapter made recommendations for further research.
This chapter critically reviewed the previous knowledge and theories related with social media marketing, cross cultural communication and Chinese film industry. To be specific, it started with the knowledge related with social media marketing and then discussed Hollywood’s marketing strategies in China. Next, this chapter considered cross-cultural communication including national culture, Hofstede’s national culture dimensions, and challenges of such communication. Furthermore, the chapter discussed the localisation theories including localised promotion and Uppsala’s internationalisation theory because the expansion of Hollywood films can be viewed as internationalisation activities. In addition, this research discussed Chinese film industry including censorship, nationalism and ethnocentrism as well as the importance of government relations and customer relationship.
2.1 Social Media Marketing
Social media currently is the most important, effective and influential platform for marketers because of its immense popularity and prevalence (Dryer, 2010). By social media, marketers can directly have two-way communications with target audience and exchange information with them (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). With the rise of social media penetrate rate, consumers have changed their consumption behaviour (Dunne et al., 2010). At present, they spend a large amount of time in social media to gain information (Dryer, 2010). More importantly, consumers use social media to meet their demand for maintaining and developing their social connections (Damásio, 2012). Users engage in social media to fulfil their need for belongings, social connections and communication with others (Mittal, 2003). Therefore, in some degree, they consider other users of social media as friends or friendly people. Therefore, brands and companies are allowed to develop customer relationship in social media. They can exchange information and marketers can directly response customers and collect their feedbacks (Fazal et al., 2014).
Social network enables companies to directly communicate with potential consumers, improve intimacy sense with them as well as establish and maintain customer relationships (Mersey et al.,2010). Also, social network allows users to create own content about a product, a company or a brand (Chan and Yazdanifard, 2014). In return, companies can collect customer feedback and responses to learn customer insights including their needs and wants and market knowledge (Hanna et al., 2011). Social media therefore helps companies to effectively collect customer information (Otugo et al., 2015).
Many researches provide empirical evidences demonstrating the connections between social media and consumer buying behaviour (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Hanna et al., 2011; Hayta, 2013). In other words, social media has impacts on consumer buying behaviour. It has influences on consumers’ perceptions, attitudes, purchase intention and purchase decisions (Kolter and Armstrong, 2012). Social media is related with all processes of consumer buying decisions including need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, buying decision and post-buying behaviour (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). To begin with need recognition, the content in social media can arouse the demand of users. For example, the content of their friends can make them recognise their demands. Secondly, consumers tend to collect purchase information after the need recognition, and they are more willing to collect the information from those who they trusted and/or are familiar with, such as friends, co-workers and family (Otugo et al., 2015). Many social media users tend to believe the content of other users because they view others as friends who spread information not for commercial purposes (Hanna et al., 2011). Meanwhile, consumers nowadays spend a large amount of time in social media, so they have the habit of collecting purchase information from social media (Hayta, 2013). Furthermore, the content in social media can affect consumers’ process of alternatives evaluation (Otugo et al., 2015). During the process of buying decisions, consumers can be affected by two factors: 1) attitude of those who are important to them such as their child, spouse and parents; and 2) unexpected change in external environment such as the outbreaking of COVID-19 and economic recession. In social media, the attitude of other users also can affect a consumer’s buying decision and intention (Otugo et al., 2015). Additionally, social media is related with post-buying behaviour which is a complicated psychological process (Shin, 2008). After their purchase, they compare their perceived experience with their expected services. If the perceived service is lower than their expectation, they are unsatisfied and then inclined to generate negative Word of Mouth (WOM) about their purchase, the brand and the product (Shin, 2008). Otherwise, consumers are satisfied and create positive WOM about their purchase, the brand and product thus contributing to a company’s reputation and brand equity if the perceived service matches or exceeds expected service (Ioanăs and Stoica, 2014).
This dissertation finds that four pillars of social media marketing include WOM, trustworthiness, KOLs and customer relationship marketing. Many scholars argue that WOM and trustworthiness are two vital variables of social media affecting consumers (Hayta et al., 2013; and Kim and Srivastava, 2007). Hayta et al. (2013) argue that Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in social media can strongly affect consumer buying decisions. KOLs have great influence and strong capability to shape consumers’ opinions and attitude (Jansen and Chowdhury, 2011). Additionally, social media is used as an important platform to develop customer relationship (Chan and Yazdanifard, 2014).
2.1.1 Word of Mouth (WOM)
WOM refers to the informal communication among people who know each other (Solomon et al., 2010). It has strong impact on consumer buying decisions and even change those decisions which have been made (Hanna et al., 2011). WOM is regarded as an important form of communication in social media (Evans et al., 2009). It can shape social media users’ opinion, attitude and behaviour (Huang et al., 2011). Buyers collect and evaluate WOM as they are willing to trust it. WOM generally comes from other social media users who share their opinions and needs for their needs for expression and social belongings rather than for commercial purposes (Dellarcoas, 2003). Therefore, users are more willing to trust WOM than advertisements.
In consumer buying decision process, WOM can arouse consumers’ purchase intention and make them realis their need for purchase (Hanna et al., 2011). Meanwhile, WOM is regarded as reliable source for purchase information by buyers and they pay attention to it when they make purchase decisions (Hennig-Thurau and Walsh, 2003). WOM can shape consumers’ attitude toward a product after they purchased (Trusov et al., 2009).
2.1.2 Trustworthiness
Trust is critical for all relationship especially on the internet because net citizens are unable to meet face-to-face in real world (Liu et al., 2008). Trust has strong impacts on consumer buying behaviour and can strongly shape experience of consumers (Liu et al., 2008). In social media, trust is prerequisite to develop any relationship (Dina et al. 2004). Dellarcoas (2003) illustrate that consumers are willing to purchase from those marketers who are trustful. Meanwhile, they tend to acquire information from those parties who are trustful and take more considerations when they make purchase decisions (Dellarcoas, 2003).
It is necessary for social media marketers to develop their trustworthiness in order to affect consumer behaviour (Liu et al., 2008). Dina et al. (2004) argue that high trustworthiness of a brand brings greater competitiveness in social media. Trustworthiness is an important determinant of a company’s competitive advantage in social media (Dina et al., 2004). Furthermore, trustworthiness is a mediator of the relationship between WOM and consumer buying decisions (Hanna et al., 2011). WOM can affect consumer buying decisions because they trust it (Hanna et al., 2011). Therefore, trustworthiness is an important variable in this dissertation.
2.1.3 Key Opinion Leader (KOLs)
Opinion leaders refers to those who have opinion seekers (Nair et al., 2006). They have followers who seek their opinions. In social media, they tend to have expertise, unique experience and the capability to guide others’ opinions (Jansen and Chowdhury, 2011). At present, many consumers seek the advises of KOLs and consider the content of KOLs as important guidance for opinion generation and buying decisions (Biswas et al., 2009). KOLs have influence on consumers’ buying decisions in China (Li, 2018). They also can affect the whole process of consumer buying decision process (Li, 2018). To be noticed, KOLs also rely on trustworthiness to affect buying decisions. With greater trustworthiness, they tend to have greater influence on consumer buying decisions (Biswas et al., 2009). KOLs have become a phenomenon in Chinese social media. Chinese consumers are willing to take advises from KOLs before they make purchase decisions (Li, 2018).
2.1.4 Customer Relationship Marketing
Many companies realise the benefits of using social media to develop customer relationship marketing (Akroush et al., 2011). By social media, companies can directly communicate with customers and response them thus facilitating relationship with them (Hanna et al., 2011). Companies use social media to develop a sort of ‘friendship’ with consumers (Hanna et al., 2011).
Moreover, relationship marketing has many positive impacts (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004). Firstly, relationship marketing contributes to customer satisfaction (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004). Consumers are more likely to be satisfied and less likely to be unsatisfied if they have a good relationship with a company (Akroush et al., 2011). Relationship marketing also facilitates customer retention and loyalty because it helps a company to build a long-term relationship with customers (Abdullateef et al., 2010). Even though most films seek short-term relationship, many film series have been paying attention to customer relationship in social media such as MCU (Abdullateef et al., 2010).
Figure 3: Four Pillars of Social Media Marketing
2.2 Hollywood’s Marketing Strategies
Hollywood studios pay attention to relationship marketing strategies and social media marketing in China. Song (2018) finds that most of them have the commitment to cultivate good relationship with Chinese audiences. Beaty (2016) illustrates that Hollywood studios build fan-based community for facilitating customer relationship and their reputation (Song, 2018). Some Hollywood studios understand Chinese audiences’ demand for their nationalism and national pride and desire to see the compliment in films (Curtin, 2012). For example, ‘Transformation: Age of Extinction’ described positive Chinese characters and greatness of Chinese cities.
Song (2018) reveals that Hollywood films use social media to develop fan-based community. Also, Hollywood studios take advantage of the influences of local celebrities and online KOLs to expand their films’ influences. They pay attention to relationship marketing with Chinese audiences in social media to build friendly relationship for their franchises (Song, 2018).
Garcia et al. (2019) find that MCU focuses on social media marketing and digital marketing to boost revenue of its box office. It takes advantage of online celebrities to arouse online discussion. Its social media marketing aligns with its other marketing programs including mobile marketing, direct marketing, personal selling, public relations, sales promotion and motive advertising (Garcia et al., 2019). Marvel Studio adopts these marketing tools as an integrated marketing campaign to maximise its influences and sales revenue.
Francis et al. (2019) illustrate that Marvel Studio uses WOM and shape it to develop its brand image and awareness in social media. It strongly affects User-Generated-Content (UGC) to improve its brand awareness and build its heroic characters off the screen (Francis et al., 2019). To study social media marketing of MCU, Francis et al. (2019) focused on Iron Man series by a case study. Meanwhile, Garcia et al. (2019) also adopted a case study focusing on ‘Black Panther’. Both two studies agree that MCU pays heavy attention to its social media marketing and relationship marketing. Its social media accounts continuously update the latest information about its films to maintain relationship with customers especially loyal customers (fans).
2.3 Cross-Cultural Communication
2.3.1 National culture
Culture refers to a group of people’s collective programming of thinking (Hofstede, 1991). It also can be viewed as a series of collective thinking among people in a society (Baack et al., 2011). Keesing (1974) defines culture as a group of values and beliefs or a group of things that can be learned by people. Hofstede (2001) illustrates that culture is unique and distinctive and there is no right and wrong in a culture. A culture has its own their characteristics. It is strongly related with economy, politics, social institutions, languages, history, geographic factors, values, education and norms (Czinkota and Kanen, 1993). These variables have direct relationship with a culture. Meanwhile, culture shapes people’s values, perceptions, attitudes and opinions (Gaygisiz, 2013). Therefore, cultural differences can cause divergences in people’s values, perceptions, attitudes and opinions. These divergences bring challenges to international marketing.
2.3.2 Hofstede’s National Culture Dimensions
Hofstede (2011) revisits six dimensions to measure characteristics of a national culture, including power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, long-term orientation and indulgence. The culture differences between China and the US can be measured by the six dimensions. As figure 4 shows, the major differences between Chinese and American culture include power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation and indulgence. Two cultures only are converged in masculinity. Therefore, it is safe to say that the cultural differences between two countries are large.
Figure 4: Hofstede’s National Culture Dimensions
(Source from: Hofstede-Insights, 2020)
Power distance
Power distance measures people’s tolerance to unequal distribution of power (Hofstede et al., 2010). With higher power distance, Chinese people have more tolerances to those people with greater power and privileges than Americans (House et al., 2004). Under the strong influence of Confucianism, Chinese society is highly layered. Chinese people still comply with family hierarchy system. People who are older can gain more respects and government officers enjoy a higher hierarchy, which means that they can have more respects (Javidan and House, 2001). Social hierarchy in China was developed for the benefits of people with greater power. With higher power distance, Chinese government has great involvement in paternalism. Chinese people prefer specific orders from their supervisors. In education, Chinese teachers have higher hierarchy than students and the education is teacher oriented. These teachers tend to offer the only answers while debating with teacher is regarded as disrespectful.
On the other hand, American people with lower power distance have more expectations on equality. They pay more attention to equality and diversity. Americans seek more autonomy in their work.
Individualism
Individualism measures how much members of a society are involved into a larger group (Hofstede et al., 2010). In the low individualism culture (China), the tie between people is very close. Chinese people rely on relationship rather than rules to solve issues and reduce uncertainties. Guanxi (social connections) is critical to solve problems in work and life (Schneider and Barsoux, 2002). Meanwhile, to reserve and develop relationship, Chinese people attach importance to face-saving. In communication, Chinese prefer to avoid direct communication to avoid direct rejection and conflicts so as to save face (Khairullah and Khairullah, 2013). They use intermediates to send ambiguous messages to save face and reserve relationship. In communication including market communication, Chinese people are less willing to hear criticism and sarcasm than American people (Askgunes and Culpepper, 2012). They easily perceive a marketing message as an insult of all Chinese people (Zhang, 2008). Given that Chinese people are very involved into a larger group, it is easy for them to have the same opinion. Harmony is advocated, and to safeguard harmony, Chinese people prefer to do same thing and have same opinion (Schneider and Barsoux, 2002). However, difference is viewed as a threat to harmony (Schneider and Barsoux, 2002).
On the other hand, American people have a very high score on individualism. In communication, they prefer direct, clear and effective messages. They consider less face-saving in communication. Aggressive languages are more acceptable in the US than China. On the contrary to Chinese people, American people do not aggressive languages view as the signal of ending a relationship (Xu and Mocarski, 2014).
Uncertainty avoidance
Uncertainty avoidance measures the extent to which people accept or tolerate ambiguities and unknown things (Hofstede et al., 2010). Chinese people are much more wiling to accept uncertainties. There are many ambiguities in Chinese language, communication and laws, which allow them to have flexibility (Xu and Mocarski, 2014). Compliance to law and rule is flexible and dependent on situations. Chinese people are very pragmatistic and adaptable.
However, American people have less tolerance to uncertainties. They have stronger demand for rules to reduce uncertainties and ambiguities. Nevertheless, they have great openness to innovation and new technologies (Zhang, 2008).
Masculinity
Masculinity measures the extent to which a society is pushed by material rewards, achievement, success and competition. Both Chinese and American have high a score on this dimension.
Long-term orientation
With long-term orientation, Chinese people pay much more attention to long-term interests. They believe that trust depends on situation, context and time. They are very pragmatic and strong capability to adapt traditions to dynamic contexts. They have great preference to save and invest. Thriftiness is viewed as a virtue and long-term perseverance for a goal is advanced in the country. Nevertheless, American people focus much more on short-term results who pursue quick results and high efficiency.
Indulgence
Indulgence measures the extent to which members of a society attempt to control their desires and impulses (Hofstede et al., 2011). Chinese culture has a low score on indulgence, which means that Chinese people tend to press their desires and control their impulses. As a result, Chinese people are inclined to cynicism and pessimism (Hofstede et al., 2011). They have less leisure time and considering indulging themselves as wrong behaviour due to social norms (Hofstede et al., 2011). Chinese people tend to consume more and release themselves in special occasions such as festival. However, American people have a higher score on indulgence, who believe in the value of ‘working hard and playing hard’.
2.3.3 Cross-cultural Issues
Due to cultural differences, cross-border communication is challenging for all MNCs. Cultural differences cause divergences in perception of receivers and then result in misunderstanding and conflicts (Hutzschenreuter et al., 2011). Furthermore, Jawal (2014) argues that culture differences lead to receiver’s misinterpretations and then arouse confrontations. Culture differences have strong impacts on marketing activities. Due to these differences, using standardised strategies is less effective in foreign markets. Culture can significantly affect an MNC’s marketing strategy in different countries (Pookulangara and Koesler, 2011). Culture differences results in divergences in consumers’ demands, needs, lifestyle, behaviour and belief (Jawal, 2014). Thus, selling standardised products and using the same marketing strategies tend to be less effective in a foreign market. Therefore, localisation in marketing activities are prominent for MNCs to develop effective marketing strategies.
2.4 Localisation
2.4.1 The importance of Localisation
Localisation strategy is effective for MNCs to overcome the problems caused by cultural differences. It largely improves the effectiveness of marketing activities (Melewar and Vemmervik, 2004). By this strategy, MNCs can have strong responsiveness to local demands and competitors thus increasing their local competitiveness (Peprah et al., 2017). Given that competitors in developing countries are rising, it is necessary for MNCs to adopt localisation to reinforce their local competitiveness. MNCs must have culture knowledge to form marketing strategies for a certain market, otherwise their marketing strategies tend to be less effective (Kaur and Chawla, 2016). Rao-Nicholson and Khan (2016) also highlight that it is critical to learn culture and cultivate culture competencies for MNCs to conduct their internationalisation.
2.4.2 Localised Promotion
Localised promotion is to develop marketing strategies and plans for a certain host country, with the purpose of meeting demands of local customers (Douglas and Craige, 1995). Localised promotion develops marketing communication in accordance with local culture and market knowledge, thus improving effectiveness of marketing activities (Douglas and Craige, 1995).
2.4.3 Uppsala’s learning model
The precondition of developing effective localisation is to understand a host country’s culture, culture insights and market (Ciszewska-Mlinaric and Trapczyn´ ski, 2019). This is related with Uppsala’s learning model. Uppsala model considers internationalisation as a learning process when MNCs gradually learn internationalisation knowledge and grow relevant capabilities (Johanson and Vahllne, 2009). Uppsala model helps MNCs to develop localisation. According to Johanson and Vahllne (2009), business network in a foreign country is critical for a MNC to learn local market knowledge thus implementing effective localisation. Business network and relationship with local partners help MNCs to acquire local market knowledge thus improving their performance. As figure 5 shows, positive relationship commitment decisions facilitate a MNC’s learning and trustful relationships with partners, which helps the MNC to expand its network. With larger networks in a host country, the MNC can access more knowledge opportunities.
Figure 5: Uppsala Learning Model
(Source from: Johanson and Vahlne, 2009)
2.5 Chinese Film Industry
2.5.1 Censorship
China has a rigour censorship imposed on films especially imported films. Before 2010, the major task of Chinese film industry is to advocate the ideology of CCP and the industry was highly centralised (Yang, 2016). In other words, CCP directly and strictly controlled the industry to serve its purposes. In 2011, Chinese government launched the plan of developing Chinese film industry to output Chinese culture to overseas. The industry became hybrid that started to fulfil the tasks of advocating CCP’s ideology and meeting market demands (Yang, 2016). CCP has the purpose to reinforce the competitiveness of Chinese films and reverse its strong control over culture and the industry. It has been using the engineer approach that precisely controls the growth of the industry by its flexible censorship (Curtin, 2012). Yang (2016) highlights that CCP uses Chinese film industry as a tool to create and spread its political propaganda and realise its political agenda. SOEs still play the dominant role in the industry and other private players have to comply with strict but ambiguous rules of the SAP.
2.5.2 Nationalism and Ethnocentrism
CCP has the plan to improve national pride, nationalism and patriotism by focusing on film industry. It has the goal of making Chinese pound of being a Chinese (Curtin, 2012). It intentionally protects Chinese culture and resist western culture. To develop national pride, it bans some films which involve negative image of China (Johnston, 2017). It encourages those films to spread positive image about China, CCP and the government (Gao, 2009). Gao (2009) highlight that films are not legally allowed to involve the plot which jeopardises national security, state sovereignty and territorial integrity and incites anti-state and anti-government sentiment. However, these rules are highly ambiguous and without specific definitions of terms. Generally, all films including imported films are not allowed to include the plot related with negative side of Chinese government. Furthermore, CCP has the ambiguous plan known as ‘Going-Out’ which outputs Chinese culture by Chinese films (Yang, 2016). The plan has the goal of affecting foreign cultures.
2.5.3 The Importance of Relationship with Chinese Audiences
Song (2018) find that many Hollywood studios have realised the importance of developing relationship with Chinese audiences. They built online fan community allowing fans to discuss films and create their own content about these films. Fan communities provide platforms for fans to communication and enable Hollywood studios to develop long-term relationship with Chinese audiences. Sussan and Chinta (2016) illustrate that fan community is an effective platform to promote film franchise because it positively affects customer loyalty and commitment. Furthermore, Song (2018) finds that Hollywood studios take advantage of Chinese celebrities to improve their films’ influence and gain fans.
2.5.4 The Importance of Chinese Government
Song (2018) highlights the importance of developing government relationship in China due to the strict censorship. More importantly, Chinese government uses paternalism to address the issues in film industry and has the purpose of resisting Western value and advocating national pride. It uses large and influential state-owned media to affect public opinion toward a film (Qin et al., 2016). All state-owned media companies such as People’s daily and many Chinese government organisations have strong presence and influence in Chinese social media. By directly controlling these parties, CCP can strongly shape WOM and public opinion in social media (Qin et al., 2016). Willnat et al. (2015) agree that CCP has strong influences on social media by controlling influential accounts.
2.6 Conceptual Framework
Based on above discussion, this dissertation designed the following conceptual framework (Figure 6). It studies four pillars of social media marketing, including WOM, KOLs, trustworthiness and customer relationship. Then, it also investigates the external environmental factors including Chinese culture (culture differences), censorship and government relationship. The dissertation considers these factors as mediating factors affecting the relationship social media marketing and consumer buying decisions.
Figure 6: Conceptual Framework
2.7 Research Gap
Song (2018) studies the marketing strategy of Hollywood studios in China and considers fan-based community, audience relationship and government relationship. However, the study has less involvement in the analysis of these studios’ social media marketing.
Francis et al. (2019) investigate the branding activities of MCU by analysing case studies of Iron Man series, Thor series and The Avengers series and using Keller’s brand resonance pyramid. This study considers WOM and social media marketing, whereas it focused more on branding of MCU and has no consideration of Chinese market.
Garcia et al. (2019) study MCU’s ethnic marketing strategy and its impact on ethnic consumer behaviour by focusing on the film known as ‘Black Panther’. This study concentrates on how MCU strongly and positively affected African Americans to purchase tickets of the film and motivated other ethnical groups to learn African culture. The study considers social media marketing, public relations, mobile marketing and direct marketing of MCU. However, it concentrates on ethnic marketing particularly in the US and has no consideration of Chinese market.
This dissertation finds no previous research comparing social media marketing between Chinese and Hollywood films in Chinese market. Therefore, it plans to cover this research gap.
This chapter justified the research methodologies have been used in this dissertation. The dissertation designed its research methodologies in accordance with the research onion proposed by Saunders et al. (2009). Based on the research onion (Figure 1), this research adopted realism philosophy to conduct a qualitative research, used deductive approach to generate reliable findings, and implemented interviews and questionnaires as data collection method. Furthermore, the research used cross-sectional time horizon, which means that it has only collected primary data for once. This research adopted qualitative analysis to discover the insights of social media marketing in Chinese film industry.
Figure 7: Research Onion
(Source: Saunders et al., 2012)
This dissertation used realism as its research philosophy to support a qualitative analysis. Realism is suitable for this research due to a series of reasons. Realism philosophy is built based on the assumption that the idea is independent from reality from the human mind (Saunders et al., 2012). More importantly, it uses scientific approach to develop knowledge. Realism can be categorised into direct and critical realism. Direct realism holds the assumption that human senses can directly describe the world, which is consistent with qualitative approach (Sobh and Perry, 2006). Direct realists highlight that the world is relatively stable who focus only on one level. On the other hand, critical realism believes that sensations and perception of human cannot describe the real world (Sobh and Perry, 2006). Critical realists conduct multi-level studies.
This dissertation adopted direct realism to conduct qualitative approach. The realism allowed the research to conduct a qualitative research and thus analyse social media marketing of both Chinese and Hollywood films in China in a full angle. By realism philosophy, the dissertation can integrate the results of qualitative analysis to generate reliable and valid findings.
In the perspective of ontology, reality is real however has imperfections, so triangulation from multiple sources is necessary (Sobh and Perry, 2006). Based on realism, this research analysed data from multiple sources including both secondary and primary data.
Nevertheless, both positivism and interpretivism are not suitable for this dissertation. Positivism uses scientific approach to use a research phenomenon and mostly is used in laboratory experiments (Bryman and Bell, 2007). It prevents inquirers to affect their researches by using a rigorous research structure which however hinders them to find out insights and those variables related with their research phenomenon (Carson et al., 2001). Furthermore, interpretivists argue that positivism is less appreciated to study social phenomenon because it is less effective to quantify human feelings and behaviours (Carson et al., 2001). Not all feelings and behaviour cannot be effectively transferred into quantitative form, so positivism tends to neglect important human behaviour (Carson et al., 2001).
Meanwhile, interpretivism also is not proper for this dissertation. It is criticised for overly relying on perceptions and feelings of researchers (Saunders et al., 2012). In interpretivism, researchers perceive a research phenomenon and then generate findings. However, perception can be varied among different researchers. Therefore, the results of interpretivism based research are arguable. Generally, it is hard to adopt interpretivism to generate convincing and less arguable findings.
No research philosophy is perfect, whereas realism is more suitable for the purpose of this dissertation. Thus, this dissertation adopted realism as its research philosophy.
Deductive approach is used to study social media marketing of Chinese and Hollywood films in China. By deductive approach, the research uses existing theory to make explanation of their social media marketing. With valid data and analysis, deductive approach certainly can generate reliable findings (Jackson, 2011). To ensure the reliability and validity of findings, this research adopts deductive approach because it uses existing theories to make explanation. The approach enables the researcher to have abundant literature to build firm theoretical base. Deductive approach enables the researcher to have the opportunity to make explanation of the relationship between concepts and variables.
In accordance with deductive approach, this dissertation has the following processes: 1) to critically review literature about existing theories and knowledge and then narrow down them to social media marketing of films; 2) to conduct observation; 3) to analyse the data; 4) to discuss the findings from the data analysis with the literature review; and 5) to generate conclusions.
On the other hand, inductive approach should not be applied because of its limitations. Firstly, it is hard for researchers to ensure the validity and reliability of the findings of inductive researches (Jackson, 2011). Even though these researches have valid data and analysis, they with inductive approach may not be able to generate reliable findings. Without theoretical supports, the results of inductive research tend to be arguable. Secondly, inductive approach requires researchers to collect data and then design research questions. The research question and topic can be repeatedly changed. Nevertheless, this research already designed research questions and phenomenon. Thus, inductive approach is improper for this research to study social media marketing of Chinese and Hollywood films. In comparison, deductive approach is more straightforward than inductive approach as researchers can use deductive approach to directly address research questions. Furthermore, this dissertation has no plan to discover new theory.
This research strategy adopted case study to compare the social media marketing of Hollywood and Chinese films and then make recommendations. Case study is effective to explore out insights because it allows researchers to analyse a variety of data including qualitative and quantitative data from both secondary and primary sources (Creswell, 2007). Therefore, case study allows a research to cover a variety of analysis to generate reliable findings. This research can analyse both primary and secondary data to study the social media marketing. Meanwhile, researchers can use case study to have a full picture of a research phenomenon and study the phenomenon from different angle.
Moreover, case study is effective too address those research phenomena which integrates into their context because it allows researchers to consider contextual factors when they are studying these phenomena (Creswell, 2007). The social media marketing of Chinese and Hollywood films in this country are strongly related with the context of the country. Therefore, it is important for this dissertation to consider contextual factors by case study.
This research adopted ‘Wolf Warrior Series’ to study Chinese films’ social media marketing strategy and uses Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films to investigate social media marketing of Hollywood films. ‘Wolf Warrior Series’ has two films including Wolf Warrior I and II, which collected a large amount of box office. ‘Wolf Warrior II’ had US$ 30.1 million budget but gained US$ 874 million box office in 2017 (Rodriguez, 2017), which aroused a phenomenon in China especially in social media. The film series have been representing patriotism and nationalism. Meanwhile, MCU films have been successful in China. China has been regarded as the largest single foreign market of Marvel Studio. It gained $629 million gross profit in China by ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (Mendelson, 2019). Meanwhile, MCU films also aroused wide discussion in Chinese social media. Therefore, both MCU films series and Wolf Warrior Series are successful and representative.
On the other hand, survey and focused group are not proper for this dissertation to study social media marketing of Chinese and Hollywood films. Firstly, survey as a research survey is more effective to collect quantitative data (Kervin, 1999). Secondly, it cannot analyse secondary and primary data, simultaneously (Kervin, 1999). Focused group requires researchers to design an experiment and design all variables. It is challenging for the researcher of this dissertation to carry and manage focused group because this dissertation as independent research only has one researcher. Also, it is highly likely that the experiment neglects important variables.
This research adopts mono method concentrating on qualitative research based on realism. Qualitative research is effective to grasp dynamic and flexible variables such as behaviours and feelings of human beings (Rahman, 2017). It is effective to study social phenomenon. Furthermore, Perry et al. (1999) highlight that realism qualitative methods including case studies and interviews.
There are many advantages of qualitative research (Rahman, 2017). It generates specific description of participants’ feelings, opinions and experiences and explains their actions’ meanings. It helps researchers to dig out insights related with research phenomenon. By qualitative research, researchers can understand participants’ opinions and feelings thus exploring out insights (Rahman, 2017). Qualitative research is suitable to study those research phenomena related with culture (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). Qualitative research supports participant-observation allowing researchers to gain insights by interpreting the responses of researchers (Maxwell, 2012).
Moreover, qualitative research has a flexible structure because the design can be structured or less structured (Maxwell, 2012). On the contrast to quantitative research based on positivism, qualitative research has a loosen research structure enabling researchers to explore out variables related with research phenomenon (Flick, 2011). It has a flexible structure to adapt to research questions and phenomenon.
3.5 Cross-Sectional Time Horizon
This research adopted cross-sectional time horizon, which means that it only collected primary data for once. The research has the following time schedule for data collection. This research focuses on the contemporary issue of social media marketing in Chinese film industry. Hence, it is not necessary for this research to collect historical data or have twice data collection for comparison.
|
Tasks |
Time |
|
Collecting data for literature review |
10th May to 30th May |
|
Collecting secondary data for the research objectives and questions |
5th June to 15th June |
|
Collecting primary data |
16th June to 16th July |
Table 1: Time schedule
This research collected secondary data for the case study from reliable sources including news, social media platforms and other documents. The secondary data allowed the researcher to analyse the case study in a full-scale manner. The researcher collected the secondary data describing the social media marketing and performance of ‘Wolf Warrior’ series and MCU films. This secondary data includes numbers which can show the performance of the social media marketing in an objective way.
The research adopted interviews to gather primary data from 14 respondents. Interview is an effective data collection approach to gather qualitative data and find insights from respondents (Neuman, 2000). By interviews, researchers can have a two-way communication with respondents to exchange information (Neuman, 2000). Thus, they can explain research questions to respondents and then ask further questions based on the reactions of these respondents (Neuman, 2000). They also can observe the non-verbal language of respondents, such as facial expression and body language. Based on the observation, researchers can make interpretation and ask further questions to gain in-depth findings. Respondents are unlikely to offer primary data in an irresponsible way when they have a face-to-face interview.
Sample Size
This research has 14 respondents including 7 respondents for ‘Warrior Wolf’ series and other 7 respondents for MCU films. The researcher did not know anyone of respondent before the interview.
Research Populations
This research collected data from Chinese respondents based on the following criteria. It finds at least one respondent for each standard. In other word, there was at least one respondent who has been living in Tier I city.
|
Segmentations |
Standards |
|
|
Demographic |
Region |
Tier I city Tier II city Tier III city Rural areas |
|
Income (Annual) |
Below CNY 60,000 CNY 60,001 to 120,001 CNY 120,001 to 500,000 Above CNY 500,000 |
|
|
Education Level |
Technical secondary school College Bachelor and above |
|
|
Age |
20 to 24 25 to 29 30 to 34 35 to 39 40 to 44 Above 44 |
|
|
Behavioural |
Frequency of going to cinema |
Twice a month and above Once a month Once in two months |
|
Experience |
Have watched ‘Wolf Warrior’ or MCU films |
|
|
Usage of social media |
Hours spending in social media in a day Less than 1 hour 1 – 2 hours 2 – 4 hours Over 4 hours |
|
Table 2
The Design of Interview Questions
This research adopted semi-structured interview to collect qualitative data from 14 respondents. The interview questions were designed based on the literature review to answer those research questions. During these semi-structure interview, the researcher of this dissertation asked personalised and further questions based on each respondent’s reaction, which allowed the researcher to dig out insights.
Voluntary sampling technique was used by this research. By this technique, those respondents of this research voluntarily offered primary data. Saunders, et al. (2009) illustrate that respondents are likely to offer data in a responsible way in voluntary sampling technique because they are not motivated by financial rewards but their own willingness. This technique allows researchers to build a large sample size in an effective way.
By voluntary sampling, the researcher advertised the interview on her social media accounts including WeChat, Weibo and Instagram to find respondents. The researcher used her social connections to find those who she had not knew and then invite them to the interview.
On the other hand, probability sampling techniques are not proper for this research. Using these techniques require researchers to ensure that each of respondents has the same opportunity to be selected (Saunders et al., 2009). However, it was impossible for the researcher to reach all audiences of ‘Wolf Warrior’ series and MCU films. Therefore, using non-probability sampling techniques are workable for this dissertation.
3.8 Data Analysis
3.8.1 Narrative Analysis
This research used narrative analysis in accordance with realism and case study. By narrative analysis, it adopted an analytic frame to make explanation of stories associated with research context and spread it in day-to-day life. It is effective to work with case study to analyse those phenomena strongly related with their context (Saunders et al., 2009). By narrative analysis, this research analysed the whole ‘story’ of social media marketing of MCU series and ‘Wolf Warrior’ series. In other words, it considers full picture of their social media marketing.
3.8.2 Thematic Coding
Thematic coding also was applied to address the qualitative data in this research. It found themes in text through analysing the meaning of words and sentence structure. This research adopted deductive code, which used concept and theories from previous researches to make predefined codes and then assign those codes to the new qualitative data. Deductive coding analyses qualitative data based on theoretical foundations. More importantly, deductive approach can save time and ensure the reliability of coding.
3.9 Validity, Reliability and Limitations
However, this research has limitations. Firstly, the results of realism are not perfect and likely to neglect some variables related with reality (Richie et al., 2013). Secondly, qualitative research tends to generate arguable findings because it involves the feeing and perception of researchers and is inclined to subjectivity of the researchers. Thirdly, it does not offer any empirical evidence (Richie et al., 2013). Sallee and Flood (2012) highlight that the sample size of qualitative researches especially for case study tends to be small, resulting in a low generalisation of the results. Furthermore, the case study of this research only covers two series of film, secondary data and primary data from 14 respondents. The sample size is relatively small, which also constricts the generalisation and representation of the results. Moreover, this research used voluntary sampling technique to collect primary data, which tends to result in a low generalisation.
This research has some countermeasures to relieve limitations of research methodologies. To ensure the high validity of its results, this research collected secondary data from reliable sources. By using deductive approach, it can explore out its findings based on existing theories thus improving validity of findings. In other words, the findings of this research are supported by theoretical foundations. Furthermore, this research adopted case study to analyse a variety of data in different perspectives thus enhancing the validity and reliability of the findings. Also, it collected a relatively big sample size including 14 respondents to increase the generalisation of findings from the case study and relieve the low representation caused by the voluntary sampling technique. This research analysed secondary and primary data in an objective way to ensure validity and reliability of its findings.
This research strictly complied with the ethical standards of the University. Firstly, it was honest to its respondents about the purpose of the research, which means that it involved no deception. It used the consent letter to inform the respondents about what was the purpose of this research, what kind of questions they would be asked and what rights they would have. By the consent letter, these respondents had been clear about the research and their rights before they decided to offer data. They had the right of quitting from this research or withdrawing their data without any reason.
Moreover, the research has been paying heavy attention to data protection. It is a confidential research, which means that only the university and the researcher can access the data. The data will be destroyed before 15 December 2020. Moreover, the data has been locked by the researcher’s working laptop. This research has no involvement in debriefing in order to neglect any ethical problems. It does not gather private information related with any respondent’s identity, including name, contacts, etc. Meanwhile, the researcher avoided all offensive and sensitive questions to those respondents and did not interview any vulnerable and mentally ill respondent. Due to the impact of COVID-19, the researcher used online video to have virtual face-to-face interviews by the internet.
This chapter analysed both secondary and primary data in accordance with the conceptual framework of the research to answer those research questions. It started with secondary data analysis and then moved to primary data analysis.
4.1.1 Wolf Warrior Series
The producer and investor of Wolf Warrior is the leading actor of the film, Wu Jing. Therefore, Wu Jing has been using its social connections to promote his film franchise. This film was supported by many Chinese celebrities in social media. They can work as KOLs.
4.1.2 MCU Series
Marvel Studio pays heavy attention to develop its network in China. It has partnership with all major Chinese social media including Weibo, WeChat, Tik Tok, Douban and Zhihu (CGTV, 2018). It has long-term collaborative partnership with Netease which is the parent company of Weibo (CGTV, 2018). By this partnership, Marvel Studio can enjoy the large business network of Netease. Furthermore, it has collaboration with Tencent which is the owner of WeChat (Daxue, 2019). By developing business network in China, Marvel Studio can effectively gain market knowledge to overcome cultural differences.
In social media marketing, Marvel Studio works with Chinese celebrities to take advantage of their influences. These online celebrities post positive content about Marvel Studio to guide WOM.
4.1.3 Comparison
Both Wolf Warrior and Marvel Studio have recognised the importance of social media marketing. Wu Jing himself made efforts to arouse online discussion about his film, who also is the producer and leading actor. Therefore, he understands his own film and can directly represent his film. However, the casts and directors of MCU are far from China. Therefore, Marvel Studio does not rely on actors and other workers to promote its films in Chinese social media. Instead, it works with local celebrities and media.
4.2 Analysis of the Interviews
This section started with demographics analysis and then addressed each variable in the research conceptual framework by analysing every question in the interview.
4.2.1 Demographics of Research Respondents
The demographics of these respondents were analysed in this section, including gender, age, income, education and frequency of going to cinema. The analysis shows that demographics of these respondents meet the standards of the interview (Table 2).
There are totally 8 female respondents and 6 male respondents who participated this research. The gender distribution is basically equal, so the results of this research would not be overly inclined to either male or female perspective.
Figure 8: Gender Distribution
In each film franchise, there are 3 female and 4 male respondents. ‘Wolf Warrior’ and MCU have the same gender distribution, which is conductive to make reliable comparison of these films.
Figure 9: Gender Distribution of Each Film Franchise
As figure 10 shows, two respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ series are between 25 and 29 years old. However, two respondents of MCU are 20-to-24-year-olds. Then, there is one respondent for each age group in each film franchise.
Figure 10: Age Distribution of Respondents
As Figure 11 shows, MCU and Wolf Warrior have a similar distribution of living area of these respondents. However, one more respondent of Wolf Warrior live in rural area and one fewer respondent of that live in Tier I city.
Figure 11: Where do these respondents live
Four respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ have the annual income below 60,000 (CNY), which was one more than MCU. However, two respondents of MCU have 60,000-120,001 annually income while there is only one respondent of ‘Wolf Warrior’ having the same income level. In the income group of ‘above 500,000’ and ‘120,001 to 500,000’, the two film franchises have the same distribution.
Figure 12: Income Distribution of These Respondents
Both two film franchises have two respondents who graduated from college (totally four). Three respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ were graduated for technical secondary school. However, the figure is two for MCU. Two respondents of MCU have a bachelor or above degree, whereas the figure of ‘Wolf Warrior’ is one.
Figure 13: Education Background of These Respondents
The frequency of going to cinema for two film franchises is same. Among seven respondents, two respondents visit cinemas twice a month or above. Three respondents watch film in a cinema once a month and two respondents do this once in two months.
Figure 14: Frequency of going to cinema
In the group of 1 to 2 hours, there are three MCU respondents and three Wolf Warrior respondents.
Figure 15
Additionally, all respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ have seen this film franchise and all those of MCU have seen over 15 films in MCU. Therefore, they have the knowledge and experience to offer valid data.
The demographics of two groups of respondents (‘Wolf Warrior’ and MCU) are close, which is beneficial to make comparison.
4.2.2 Four Pillars of Social Media Marketing
WOM
How do you describe the general WOM toward ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU?
To begin with ‘Wolf Warrior’, all respondents highlight that there is more WOM toward this film franchise than negative WOM. Two respondents mentioned there was negative WOM toward it.
‘Most of Chinese have a positive opinion and view about ‘Wolf Warrior’, said a respondent.
‘There are some negative views about this film franchise and these views were satiric’, according to a respondent.
These respondents view that the negative WOM generally criticising the storyline and acting performance of the film franchise. However, some negative WOM criticises the over expressed nationalism and ethnocentrism in these films.
‘…online views are unsatisfied with the story of these films…’, said a respondent.
‘…bad acting…’, according to a respondent.
‘Some plots designed for patriotism make no sense, illogical’, said a respondent.
More importantly, five respondents recognised that the film studio intentionally guide WOM by conducting marketing activities in social media including Weibo and WeChat.
‘This is obvious that the film studio spent money in guiding WOM’, said a respondent.
For MCU, all respondents agreed that almost of all WOM about MCU films is positive. There is no respondent mentioned negative WOM toward MCU. They all agree that MCU has budget in shaping WOM in social media. Some respondents perceive that MCU has proficiency in shaping WOM in social media.
‘Marvel has proficiency in shaping public opinion’, according to a respondent.
‘The studio definitely has large budget for affecting WOM’, according to a respondent.
How much do you agree with the general WOM toward ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU?
Five respondents agreed with the general WOM toward ‘Wolf Warrior’. However, the figure of MCU was seven.
For ‘Wolf Warrior’, five respondents agreed with the WOM that the film franchise advocated nationalism and patriotism. However, two respondents disagreed with the WOM that praised the acting and story of these films.
One respondent highlight ‘some user-generated-content was obviously sponsored by the film studio, so they praised these films.’
All respondents showed that their opinion and toward MCU are close or consistent with the general WOM. This means that the WOM is more inclined to truth and more representative to the real opinion of audiences or it successfully shaped audiences’ opinions and attitudes.
‘The WOM can reflect my opinion’, said a respondent.
‘Some WOM said exactly what I wanted to say about MCU’, according to a respondent.
How do you comment that argument that WOM about ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU was overwhelming pre and during their release?
All respondents agree that WOM about two film franchises was overwhelming pre and during their release. For ‘Wolf Warrior’, these respondents view that much news, UGC and friends’ posts were about this film franchise. In social media, they received information about the film franchise from different sources including advertising, KOLs, official accounts, discussion topics, and friends.
‘…it was totally overwhelming’, said a respondent.
‘It appears that all accounts in social media were discussing Wolf Warrior’, according to a respondent.
In terms of MCU, its respondents had the similar answers with those Wolf Warrior respondents. Information about MCU came from multiple sources and discussed those films in different perspectives. The information was overwhelming, and it was impossible to avoid the information in social media.
‘…it was like Chinese New Year, everyone was talking about MCU’, said a respondent.
How did the WOM of ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU affect you, including your intention to watch these films, your attitude toward them and any relevant issue?
In terms of ‘Wolf Warrior’, its WOM changed two respondents’ purchase intention. They did not want to see Wolf Warrior II in the first place. However, the overwhelming messages about the film changed their mind.
‘…I did not want to see it in the beginning, but with more and more people saw it and discussed it, I begun to be curious and eventually saw it…’, a respondent.
These respondents reflected the film while watched other people’s views and opinion in social media. Three respondents admitted that the WOM shaped their attitude toward this film. Therefore, the WOM of ‘Wolf Warrior’ can change purchase intention and attitude after purchase.
‘…after I watched the film, I saw some views about it…some of them were quite convincing and I agreed with them’, according to a respondent.
For MCU, the WOM intensified these respondents’ intention to watch and pushed them to generate positive attitude toward these films. In the perspective of these respondents, the WOM of MCU make them feel that these films were very attractive, unique and excellent, thus attracting them to watch. As a result, the WOM strengthened their purchase intention.
‘The WOM revealed that the film was awesome, so I had to watch it’, according to a respondent.
Furthermore, the WOM can strongly shape attitude and opinion of these respondents.
‘I saw the comments and views about MCU after I watched the film and I could agree them more’, according to a respondent.
The WOM helps these respondents to generate their opinions and attitude and guides them to create positive opinions and attitudes. It acts an important role in the process of audiences’ opinion generation.
‘After I watched the film, I was immersed into it. Then, I believed that some views in social media were reasonable. Then, I had many own opinions’, according to a respondent.
Generally, both two film franchises focus on WOM marketing. They shape WOM in a variety of sources and largely use WOM to affect consumers. The WOM of MCU has slightly stronger capability to affect consumers’ purchase intention and attitude toward its film than that of ‘Wolf Warrior’.
Trustworthiness
How much do you trust the information released from ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU social media accounts?
Four respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ totally trust the information from the studio. Two respondents doubted some information and one respondent was suspicious of all its information.
‘…I believe that the information is trustful…’, according to a respondent.
‘…some information clearly was not real and overrated for promotion…’, said a respondent.
‘…I doubted all messages they sent…I did not think that they needed to take any responsibility for what they said. It was advertising’, according to a respondent.
However, more respondents of MCU were willing to trust its marketing messages. 5 respondents totally believe it. 2 respondents were suspicious of some content.
‘I believe it.’, according to a respondent.
‘I think that Marvel is honest’, said a respondent.
Generally, Marvel Studio’s social media messages have greater trustworthiness than Wolf Warrior’s.
Why do you trust or not trust the information?
A respondent of ‘Wolf Warrior’ illustrated that some of its messages were illogical. They tend to be unwilling to trust such messages.
‘…some information conflicted with common sense. For example, the heroine was fired because she wanted to raise salary on the first day of shotting…’, according to a respondent.
Other respondents trust these messages because many other parties spread the similar messages. They illustrate that many information sources delivering consistent or similar messages made them to believe.
‘…all parties said the same or similar, which convinced them…’, according to a respondent.
However, the respondents of MCU had different reasons made them believe such messages. They believed in MCU because MCU had better transparency, they showed more respect and concern to fans, and they looked more professional.
‘…Marvel Studio are very concerned about its fans, so I don’t believe that it would viciously lie to fans for more profits…’
Marvel Studio developed a professional and reliable impression in the mind of Chinese audiences. They tended to believe that professionals were less inclined to false messages.
‘…they look serious and professional…’, according to a respondent.
MCU had better transparency expecting spoiling. It revealed details of shooting and stories behind the screen, which made these respondents believe that it was sincere.
‘…they reveal details after the releasement of their films… I watched these and felt their sincerity’, according to a respondent.
How much do the social media messages of ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU in social media make sense to you?
As figure 16, more respondents of MCU than those of Wolf Warrior believe that social media marketing messages make sense to them very much (high level).
Figure 16
These respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ revealed that some social marketing messages were less convincing and conflicted their common sense, which made no sense to them. However, because many media parties reported the same messages, they chose to believe these messages.
‘…many messages of ‘Wolf Warrior’ were abnormal…I did not believe in the first place. But other reliable media companies also reported these messages. So, I believed it’, said a respondent.
Those respondents of MCU explained the reason that they perceive its social media messages: 1) these messages are logical; and 2) these messages conform to their common sense.
‘…those messages fit my common sense’, said a respondent.
‘…if any thing is out of my common sense, Marvel explains it…’, according to a respondent.
How did trustworthiness of these messages of ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU affect you (your intention to watch these films and your attitude toward them)?
Both two groups of these respondents agreed that low trustworthiness could reduce their purchase intention and discourage them to purchase. Lower trustworthiness compromises audiences’ expectations on a film. With lower expectations, they show less willingness to actually watch it.
‘…trustworthiness is vital. If I do not trust marketing messages of a film at all, I will not waste my time to see it…’, according to a respondent.
By contrast, higher trustworthiness strengthens audiences’ expectations on a film and desires to watch it.
‘…I trust marketing message of MCU, which rose my desire to watch MCU film…’, according to a respondent.
Those respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ generally had a good trustworthiness to its social media messages. Hence, they chose to watch the film franchise. Meanwhile, the trustworthiness of MCU’s social media message was higher than that of ‘Wolf Warrior’.
Generally, trustworthiness of social media messages can affect audiences’ expectations on a film and their desires to watch it. Both ‘Wolf Warrior’ and MCU had good level of trustworthiness, while MCU was better. Some messages of ‘Wolf Warrior’ were illogical but the film franchise relied on many media companies reporting the same messages to convince audiences. However, the high trustworthiness of MCU resulted from its concerns and respects to audiences, high transparency and professional image.
KOLs
What kind of online KOLs ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU used in social media for their promotion can you recall? How do you describe the relationship between these KOLs and ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU?
Both two film franchises took advantage of KOLs in social media to increase its influence and affect consumer behaviour. They used online KOLs to guide WOM in social media.
‘…many KOLs complimented MCU films…I think they were paid…’, according to a respondent.
‘KOLs strongly shaped public opinions toward Wolf Warrior because they are opinion leader in the first place’, according to a respondent.
Both two film franchises hired those KOLs which fitted their films. For example, ‘Wolf Warrior’ focused on military theme, so its studio partnered with those KOLs related with military to create content.
‘…I remember that Wolf Warrior got many military-topic KOLs…’, according to a respondent.
How did these online KOLs affect you (your intention to watch these films and your attitude toward them?
Both two groups of respondents admitted that online KOLs strongly aroused their purchase desire and pushed them to have positive attitude toward these films.
Those respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ illustrated that KOLs advocated national pride and patriotic sentiment, which motivated them to watch the film and support it.
‘…KOLs aroused my patriotic sentiment. As a Chinese I got to watched it…’, according to a respondent.
Three respondents felt they as Chinese had to watch the film after they viewed KOLs’ content. Thus, the KOLs of ‘Wolf Warrior’ focused on national pride and patriotic sentiment.
Furthermore, the KOLs explained the reasons of the flaws in the film and tried to make audiences understand and gain their empathy. They illustrated the difficulties of actors and the crew, including lack of funding, challenging work environment and so on. They convinced audiences that all workers of the film had tried their best to gain empathy from audiences. As a result, these audiences tended to have a positive attitude toward the film.
‘…I was very unsatisfied with the story of Wolf Warrior II, but I read the story of making this film. I realised that they were very difficult. So, I changed my attitude…’, according to a respondent.
Meanwhile, the KOLs of MCU focused on the attractiveness of a film including cast, story and special effects to arouse consumers’ desire to purchase. Especially, many KOLs used comic books of Marvel to promote a Marvel film, who described an attractive comic book story related with the film to attract consumers to watch it.
‘…many KOLs worked for Marvel introduced comic book stories to arouse attention…’, said a respondent.
Some KOLs took guess about story of incoming film to arouse consumers’ curiosity and intention to purchase. However, all MCU films were related and made efforts to continuously describe a whole story. Fans have strong desire to know what will happen in the next MCU film. KOLs took advantage of the curiosity and used guessing to further intensify their curiosity.
‘…KOLs loved to guess story of next film, then I became urgent to watch it…’, said a respondent.
Furthermore, some KOLs wrote articles or made short videos to analyse MCU films. Such content can strongly push audiences to have positive attitude toward these films. These KOLs used such content to show their own logics and offer evidences to audiences with the purpose to prove the greatness of MCU films. Because such content is logical and supported by evidences, it is very convincing to audiences. It therefore can strongly shape audiences’ attitude toward the film.
‘…film analysis and comment made by KOLs also demonstrate the strengths of MCU films…’, according to a respondent.
‘…many film analysis videos are very convincing because they have their own logics and can offer evidences…’, according to a respondent.
Generally, both two film franchises largely used KOLs to arouse consumer purchase attention and shape their attitude toward a film, whereas they did different strategies and had their own focus. The KOLs of Wolf Warrior focused on patriotic sentiment, explanation of flaws in the film, and difficulties of the crew to make audiences understand and gain their empathy. However, MCU’s KOL strategies include to arouse attractiveness of its film, to take guess about incoming film to arouse audiences’ curiosity, and to use film analysis proving the greatness of its films.
Customer Relationship Marketing
How do you view your relationship with ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU in social media?
Those respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ feel that their relationship with ‘Wolf Warrior’ like their relationship with Chinese soldiers. They respect the film franchise while keep proper distance with it. They explained that Wolf Warrior made them feel solemn.
‘…like my relationship with real solider…’, according to a respondent.
‘…I like it but not as a friend…’, according to a respondent.
However, those respondents of MCU regarded their relationship with MCU as friend.
‘…MCU can be viewed a sort of friend and old friend…’, according to a respondent.
Other respondents also perceived that MCU has been friendly.
‘…friendly…’, a respondent said.
Why do you believe that you have such relationship or no relationship with ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU in social media?
The social media marketing of ‘Wolf Warrior’ focused on nationalism, patriotism, ethical values and Chinese traditions. These topics are so solemn that friends are unlikely to talk about them. Especially for patriotism, Chinese people talked about it very less.
‘…Wolf Warrior always advocate national pride and patriotism… These things we do not discuss between friends…’, according to a respondent.
‘patriotism and ethical values discussed by Wolf Warrior made me regard it as an old teacher’, according to a respondent.
However, the social media messages of MCU were much more funny, relaxed and entertaining, which made audiences feel a sort of friendship.
‘…Marvel Studio is a funny friend…’, a respondent said.
‘The messages Marvel posted have sense of humour’, according to a respondent.
Furthermore, these respondents felt that they were honoured and concerned. MCU cared the needs and interest of its audiences. It treated audiences equally and consider them as partners and friend.
‘…I can feel that MCU concern people….’, a respondent said.
‘…they regard audiences as partners…’, according to a respondent.
‘…they let audiences to get involved…’, according to a respondent.
However, those respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ did not perceive respect and concern from the film studio.
How did the relationship affect you (your intention to watch these films and your attitude toward them)?
Those audiences with stronger relationship with MCU tend to defend its reputation. The loyal fans of MCU argue with those critics in social media. Strong relationship helps MCU to confront with negative WOM.
‘…I argued with those critics of MCU in social media because I consider MCU as a friend…’, a respondent said.
Meanwhile, those loyal fans of ‘Wolf Warrior’ also do the same thing not because of their relationship with Wolf Warrior but because of national pride. They stand on the opinion that criticising ‘Wolf Warrior’ is criticising nationalism and patriotism because the film advocates nationalism and patriotism. In other words, fans defended for ‘Wolf Warrior’ due to their own national pride and patriotic sentiment.
‘…I defended for Wolf Warrior in social media like I defended the name of my country…’, said a respondent.
The audiences tend to be more satisfied if they have a good relationship with either ‘Wolf Warrior’ and MCU because good relationship makes them tolerant mistakes and have more understanding.
‘… with good relationship, I can easily understand why MCU told such story…’, said a respondent.
Generally, MCU is viewed as a friend because of its funny and relaxed social media messages, its respect and concerns to audiences and its strategy of treating audiences as partners. However, ‘Wolf Warrior’ is regarded as a teacher or solider because its messages focus on solemn topics. Audiences argue with MCU’s critics because of their relationship. However, they do such for ‘Wolf Warrior’ because their own national pride and patriotic sentiment.
4.2.3 External Environmental Factors
Cultural issues
How much can you easily understand messages of ‘Wolf Warrior’ / MCU in social media?
As Figure 17 shows, the messages of Wolf Warrior are much easier for Chinese audiences to understand than those of MCU.
Figure 17
There are four reasons of Chinese audiences perceiving hard to understand MCU’s messages. Firstly, some names of MCU actors are hard to remember for Chinese. MCU sometimes used their nickname called by Chinese fans to achieve localisation, which however made non-fans harder to understand. Secondly, MCU created a cinematic university and many terms such as ‘Infinity Gems’, whereas these terms made Chinese fans hard to understand. Thirdly, many messages of MCU contain Chinese and English at the same time. They are difficult for non-English speakers to understand. Marvel’s messages sometimes are too official and formal. Some respondents believe that some messages were translated from English, which were harder to understand.
According to these respondents,
‘…complicated name of actors…more confused nickname…’,
‘…too many terms…’
‘…cannot really understand those English words in Chinese messages…’
‘…too formal… directly translated from English…’
How much do you agree that Wolf Warrior’ / MCU communicates with your in a comfortable way?
Results of this questions are consistent with those results of above question. They indicate that MCU is less effective to communicate with Chinese audiences.
There are two reasons that they felt less conformable. Firstly, they cannot fully understand meaning of some messages. Secondly, some messages do not make any sense to them. This can be explained by the different perception and value caused by cross culture issues.
Figure 18
How much these messages of Wolf Warrior’ / MCU you agree, accept or support?
More respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’, agree, accept and support its messages because they approve nationalism and patriotism. ‘Wolf Warrior’s messages are strongly related with nationalism and patriotism.
‘…I support Wolf Warrior because it always talks about national pride’.
Figure 19
To sum up, MCU has lower effectiveness of communication because of culture differences. Chinese people are more supportive to nationalism in the message of ‘Wolf Warrior’.
Censorship
How do you view the argument that ‘Wolf Warrior’ advocates national pride and nationalism?
All respondents of ‘Wolf Warrior’ agree that the film franchise advocated nationalism and national pride. They were touched by the two patriotic stories especially for Wolf Warrior Two.
‘…it absolutely talks about nationalism…’
‘…I was touched, my whole family were touched…’
Some respondents argue that they have to support this franchise because of the value its represented. They wise more such films in the future.
‘…we need to support it…’
‘…I wish I can see more in future…’
‘…the value the film expressed is very important…’
How do you view the argument that MCU respects and appreciates Chinese culture and greatness of China?
Four respondents agree that MCU respects and appreciates Chinese culture and China very much.
‘…MCU respects Chinese culture…’
‘…Its works and actors showed great respect to Chinese culture…’
However, three respondents did not perceive it because the following reasons. Firstly, MCU has been developing and creating a film known as ‘Shang-Ri’ which involved a Chinese villain. This is regarded as insult to all Chinese by some Chinese audiences. Secondly, MCU did not show any greatness of Chinese culture and value in its films.
‘…Shang-Ri includes a Chinese villain, which insults to China…’
‘…it has not showed any good thing about China in its films…’
‘Wolf Warrior’ series are more adherent to Chinese censorship which has the purpose of developing nationalism. However, MCU’s respect to China is doubted due to the new film ‘Shang-Ri’ and its film lacked Chinese elements.
4.3 Summary
The findings of this chapter and the comparison of those two film franchise are summarised into Table 3.
Table 3: Summary of Findings
What are the differences and commonalities in social media marketing between Chinese and Hollywood films in China?
To begin with commonalities, both Chinese and Hollywood films have recognised the importance of social media marketing in China. Both of them focus on WOM, trustworthiness and KOLs.
They largely focus on WOM, strongly shape WOM in a variety of sources and adopt WOM to affect consumers. Their efforts on WOM can be explained by Hanna et al. (2011)’s argument that WOM has strong impact on consumer buying decisions and even change those decisions which have been made. Also, these film studios use WOM to arouse consumers’ purchase intention and make them realis their need for purchase, which is also consistent with the argument of Hanna et al. (2011) and Hennig-Thurau and Walsh (2003). These film studios also use WOM to change audiences’ attitude toward their films. This is supported by Trusov et al. (2009) who argue that WOM can shape consumers’ attitude toward a product after they purchased. However, the WOM of MCU has slightly stronger capability to affect consumers’ purchase intention and attitude toward its film than that of ‘Wolf Warrior’.
Both Chinese and Hollywood studios value trustworthiness and built truthful image in social media. This research finds that trustworthiness of social media messages can affect audiences’ expectations on a film and their desires to watch it. This finding is supported by previous studies (Dina et al., 2004 and Liu et al., 2008). It is necessary for social media marketers to develop their trustworthiness in order to affect consumer behaviour (Liu et al., 2008). Dina et al. (2004) argue that high trustworthiness of a brand brings greater competitiveness in social media. Nevertheless, some messages of ‘Wolf Warrior’ were illogical but it relied on many media companies reporting the same messages to convince audiences. Trustworthiness of MCU is better, which results from its concerns and respects to audiences, high transparency and professional image.
Both Chinese and Hollywood studios largely adopt KOLs to arouse purchase intention and affect attitude of audiences. They use KOLs to guide WOM and thus affect consumer behaviour. This is supported by Biswas et al. (2009) and Jansen and Chowdhury (2011). Especially, Li (2018) highlights that KOLs have influence on consumers’ buying decisions in China. However, Chinese and Hollywood studios use different strategies to arouse purchase intention and affect attitude of audiences. Wolf Warrior adopted KOLs to arouse patriotic sentiment, make explanation of flaws in the film, and highlight difficulties of the crew to make audiences understand and gain their empathy. On the other hand, MCU’s KOL strategies include to arouse attractiveness of its film, to take guess about incoming film to arouse audiences’ curiosity, and to use film analysis proving the greatness of its films.
Nevertheless, there are many differences in social media marketing between Chinese and Hollywood films. Firstly, Chinese films can make their actors and other works arouse online discussion about their film. They understand their film and can directly represent their films so as to effectively communicate with Chinese users. However, the casts and directors of Hollywood films are far from China. Therefore, Hollywood films cannot rely on their actors and other workers to promote its films in Chinese social media. Instead, it works with local celebrities and media.
Secondly, Hollywood films face the difficulties in cross-cultural communication even though they work closely with Chinese partners. To be specific, the names of Hollywood actors are hard for Chinese people to remember. Using nickname can arouse more misunderstanding. Some marketing messages of Hollywood films are hard to understand. These issues can be explained by the argument of Jawal (2014) who argues that culture differences lead to receiver’s misinterpretations and then arouse confrontations.
Thirdly, Hollywood films pay more attention to customer relationship development in China because Chinese audiences are sensitive. They deserve to be respected and are growing their commitment to nationalism. This is related with Chinese culture and communication style. Chinese prefer to avoid direct communication to avoid direct rejection and conflicts so as to save face (Khairullah and Khairullah, 2013). Therefore, saving faces for Chinese people are critical for Hollywood films.
How should Hollywood films conduct social media marketing?
Developing localisation is critical for Hollywood studios to have effective social media marketing. They firstly need to develop their network and partnership with Chinese companies to gain market knowledge, such as MCU, which is consistent with Uppsala theory (Johanson and Vahllne, 2009). Secondly, they need to develop great relationship with Chinese government, which means that they have to comply with censorship. They should understand the purpose of censorship, which is to advocate national pride and improve China’s image. Thirdly, they should develop good relationship with Chinese audiences by using proper communication. Showing more respects and concerns to them in communication can be effective because Chinese people value their face and are growing nationalism. Developing customer relationship can use social media marketing to directly communicate and repose them. Understanding Chinese culture is important. In this collectivistic society, people tend to have the same ideas and opinions (Schneider and Barsoux, 2002). They do not appreciate differences but value harmony. In communication, Hollywood studios have to pay attention to reserving harmony and avoid conflicts and differences.
Furthermore, Hollywood studios have to shape WOM, develop trustworthiness and effectively use KOLs. They should take lessons from MCU. They can use WOM to affect consumers’ purchase intention and attitude toward its film. To develop high level of trustworthiness, they can show their concerns and respects to audiences, maintain high transparency and develop a professional image. Effective KOL strategies include to arouse attractiveness of its film, to take guess about incoming film to arouse audiences’ curiosity, and to use film analysis proving the greatness of its films.
6.1 Summary of Findings
Both Chinese and Hollywood films have recognised the importance of social media marketing in China. Both of them focus on WOM, trustworthiness and KOLs. They largely focus on WOM, strongly shape WOM in a variety of sources and adopt WOM to affect consumers. They value trustworthiness and built truthful image in social media. Both Chinese and Hollywood studios largely adopt KOLs to arouse purchase intention and affect attitude of audiences. They use KOLs to guide WOM and thus affect consumer behaviour. Nevertheless, there are many differences in social media marketing between Chinese and Hollywood films. Firstly, Chinese films can make their actors and other works arouse online discussion about their film. However, the casts and directors of Hollywood films are far from China. Therefore, Hollywood films cannot rely on their actors and other workers to promote its films in Chinese social media. Instead, it works with local celebrities and media. Secondly, Hollywood films face the difficulties in cross-cultural communication even though they work closely with Chinese partners. Thirdly, Hollywood films pay more attention to customer relationship development in China because Chinese audiences are sensitive. They deserve to be respected and are growing their commitment to nationalism. This is related with Chinese culture and communication style. Chinese prefer to avoid direct communication to avoid direct rejection and conflicts so as to save face.
This research makes the following recommendations for Hollywood films to develop social media marketing in China. Developing localisation is critical for Hollywood studios to have effective social media marketing. They firstly need to develop their network and partnership with Chinese companies to gain market knowledge. Secondly, they need to develop great relationship with Chinese government, which means that they have to comply with censorship. Thirdly, they should develop good relationship with Chinese audiences by using proper communication. Showing more respects and concerns to them in communication can be effective because Chinese people value their face and are growing nationalism. Hollywood studios have to shape WOM, develop trustworthiness and effectively use KOLs. They should take lessons from MCU.
6.2 Recommendations for Further Research
Further research can adopt survey based on positivism to test these results of this research. By collecting a large amount of data from a large sample size, further research can offer empirical evidences supporting these results. It can use questionnaires to collect quantitative data. Furthermore, further research can adopt qualitative approach to interview managers and works of Hollywood studios who take responsibility of social media marketing to gain more insights.
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Appendix - Interviews
Dear Respondents
I am a postgraduate who is collecting data for my final year research. This research is about the comparison of social media marketing of Chinese and Hollywood films in China. The purpose of the research is to use the comparison to gain insights and identify effective social media marketing for Chinese audiences to improve Hollywood films’ revenue in the country. The comparison concentrates on two case studies: ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series and MCU films to gain insights for Hollywood films.
If you saw these two film franchises, you are invited to answer some questions about your experience with them.
This research strictly complied with the ethical standards of the University. Firstly, it was honest to its respondents about the purpose of the research, which means that it involved no deception. You have the right of quitting from this research or withdrawing your data without any reason.
This is a confidential research, which means that only the university and the researcher can access the data. The data will be destroyed before 15 December 2020. Moreover, the data has been locked by the researcher’s working laptop. This research has no involvement in debriefing in order to neglect any ethical problems.
It does not gather private information related with your identity, including name, contacts, etc. Meanwhile, the researcher avoided all offensive and sensitive questions. Due to the impact of COVID-19, the researcher only uses online video to have virtual face-to-face interviews by the internet.
The interview will cost you about 40 minutes, thank you very much!
WOM
1. How do you describe the general WOM toward ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU?
2. How much do you agree with the general WOM toward ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU?
3. How do you comment that argument that WOM about ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU is overwhelming pre and during their release?
4. How did the WOM of ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU affect you, including your attention to watch these films, your attitude toward them and any relevant issue?
Trustworthiness
5. How much do you trust the information released from ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU social media accounts?
6. Why do you trust or not trust the information?
7. How much do the messages of ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU in social media make sense to you?
8. How did these messages of ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU affect you (your intention to watch these films and your attitude toward them)?
KOLs
9. What kind of online KOLs ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU used in social media for their promotion can you recall?
10. How did these online KOLs affect you (your intention to watch these films and your attitude toward them?
Customer Relationship Marketing
11. How do you view your relationship with ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU in social media?
12. Why do you believe that you have such relationship or no relationship with ‘Wolf Warrior’ Series / MCU in social media?
13. How did the relationship affect you (your intention to watch these films and your attitude toward them)?
Cultural issues
14. How much can you easily understand messages of ‘Wolf Warrior’ / MCU in social media?
15. How much do you agree that Wolf Warrior’ / MCU communicates with your in a comfortable way?
16. How much these messages of Wolf Warrior’ / MCU you agree, accept or support?
Censorship
17. How do you view the argument that ‘Wolf Warrior’ advocates national pride and nationalism?
18. How do you view the argument that MCU respects and appreciates Chinese culture and greatness of China?
