Show Me a Story: Social Media-Based User-Generated Videos and Destination Brand Engagement

Introduction

The use of story elements in advertising is a powerful way to convey a marketing message (Brechman & Purvis, 2015; Kılıç & Yolbulan Okan, 2020). This holds true in a consumer-to-consumer context, as evidenced by the continuing proliferation of consumer-created marketing, a form of organic promotion in which consumers create and share user-generated content (UGC) (Muñiz & Schau, 2007), often through the use of stories shared on social media. Most recently, platforms such as Instagram emphasize these story-based elements through video-based UGC. In Instagram’s case, these videos are referred to as ‘Reels’, 15-second videos that can be stitched together to create multi-clip content that is then shared with the general public (Instagram, 2020). Despite this increase in user-generated videos (UGV) and the comprehensive examination of how consumer-created marketing impacts user engagement in the marketing field, less research has explored this phenomenon in a tourism context. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the increasing impact of UGV on destination brand engagement. The research supports the vital role of destination resilience during crises such as the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on the tourism industry by revealing how UGV can encourage visitation to a destination, supporting destination marketing organizations’ (DMOs) pathways to recovery.

DMOs have responded to the advancement of media technologies by shifting marketing efforts from website development and online marketing to social media marketing (Pan, MacLaurin & Crotts, 2007). Taking advantage of social media’s decentralization, openness, and greater utility, DMOs continue to explore applications to host message boards and virtual communities as effective means to market their destinations, mixing messages either produced and/or distributed by consumers and/or other organizations. At the forefront, UGVs can be considered visual stories, told by subjects to an audience through self-made productions, with the intent to convey a meaning (Pace, 2008). Online communities provide the forums for stories to be shared (Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001), and increasingly these stories relate to the consumption of goods, services, brands, and destinations. The popularity of UGVs is recognized by destinations and travelers alike, and research is emerging to substantiate their effectiveness (Zhang et al., 2021).

Advertising research sheds much light on the popularity of UGVs. Structuring advertisements as stories, with a plot and a brand as the hero, can make the message more persuasive than an analytical illustration of product features (Escalas, 2007). Self-referencing theory is also relevant to UGV’s effectiveness. When consumers see advertisements that they can refer to themselves, they elicit more positive attitudes (Debevec & Iyer, 1988). Another relevant concept is authenticity, historically seen as positively correlated to traveler attitudes (Cohen, 1988; Hughes, 1995).

Simon Anholt (2007), a popular destination brander, describes place branding strategy as coming up with a brand story for a geographic region that is inspiring and magnetic but also credible. For destinations that can create a visual brand story, there is evidence that viewers will become absorbed (i.e., narratively transported) in the story and persuaded by the information (Escalas, 2007). Narrative transportation is different from traditional elaboration-based persuasion models that focus on cognitive response processes (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann, 1983). With narrative transportation, persuasion is more of an affective response to being immersed in a story (Escalas, 2007), signaling the potential of UGVs to persuade through narrative transportation.