Brand placement in Web Series: Assessing consumer attitudes in India

  • Received March 10, 2021;
    Accepted April 21, 2021;
    Published April 28, 2021
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/im.17(2).2021.04
  • Article Info
    Volume 17 2021, Issue #2, pp. 33-44
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Reports indicate that 49% of adults in India spend at least 2-3 hours consuming OTT media, rather than watching conventional television. With such changes in the way the general population is exposed to content, brands have also been adapting to the new patterns that this study investigates. This study was conducted to assess consumers’ attitudes and acceptance towards brand placement in the novel media format of web series based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This study, based on a survey of 278 individuals from Urban India settings, was conducted using a self-report questionnaire adapted from F Davis’s Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use and User Acceptance of TAM questionnaire (1989). The study supports TAM and recognizes that the frequency of viewing Web Series directly relates to brand recall (R = 0.57, p < .001). Product/brand placement yields brand awareness for unknown or unpopular brands and provide evidence for higher engagement with the placement when the audiences have pre-existing positive attitudes towards the brand (t (277) = 27.11, p = .01). This study also confirms that TAM as a relevant model can be applied to understand how regularity and duration of viewing affect attitudes towards brands and their placement in Web Series. Brand placement in Web Series is perceived as useful and largely determines brand name recall. Thus, marketers should strategically consider using brand placement in Web Series as a part of their marketing communication plan, especially as this media with other related forms of advertisement are important for brands to keep up with the industry’s communication challenges.

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    • Figure 1. Operational model used for the purpose of the study
    • Table 1. Frequency table
    • Table 2. Gender
    • Table 3. Correlations between the number of Web Series watched and the number of brand name recall
    • Table 4. Regression analysis of the predictability of brand name recall by Web Series watched
    • Table 5. Differences in responses of Web Series viewers in the recall of new brand names
    • Table 6. Chi-square and phi coefficient tests for intention to buy and attitude towards brand placement in Web Series
    • Table 7. Attitudes toward familiar and established brands compared to unfamiliar and new brands in Web Series brand placement
    • Table 8. Chi-square and Phi coefficient for intention to buy and total attitude towards the brand
    • Conceptualization
      Kavitha Venkatasubramany Iyer
    • Data curation
      Kavitha Venkatasubramany Iyer
    • Investigation
      Kavitha Venkatasubramany Iyer, Anupam Siddhartha
    • Methodology
      Kavitha Venkatasubramany Iyer
    • Project administration
      Kavitha Venkatasubramany Iyer
    • Validation
      Kavitha Venkatasubramany Iyer, Anupam Siddhartha
    • Visualization
      Kavitha Venkatasubramany Iyer
    • Writing – original draft
      Kavitha Venkatasubramany Iyer
    • Formal Analysis
      Anupam Siddhartha
    • Supervision
      Anupam Siddhartha
    • Writing – review & editing
      Anupam Siddhartha