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This paper aims to assert that rather than challenging brand parodies, brand owners should consider allowing them in order to expand brand equity to convey a brand personality that includes a sense of humor.

The article analyzes recent brand product parody lawsuits.

Recent court decisions are more likely to allow product parodies than earlier court decisions.

Rather than expensive litigation that may lead to unfavorable public opinion, brand owners should consider licensing parody products to exercise some control over product quality and parody themes.

The article proposes tactical change for brand owners to further build brand equity.

While universities and colleges engage in marketing their brands through official communications, there also exists the unique case of social media accounts created by and for university students, which have the sole purpose of disseminating humorous parody content about the university. These accounts and their content are neither managed nor sanctioned by the university. While user-generated satire has been studied in the areas of politics and popular culture, it has not often been considered within the realm of universities and their student stakeholders.

A total of 200 undergraduates at a large public university in the southeastern United States were surveyed regarding their engagement with and thoughts about parody accounts associated with their school.

All students surveyed were aware of these parody accounts associated with their university; however, results suggest that enjoyment of and engagement with these accounts varies. Those students engaged with university parody accounts experience heightened identification with, but reduced concern over this satirical (and often unprofessional) community, which could be harmful to their university's image.

Although educational institutions aim to convey an outward-facing message of academic excellence and professionalism, their student population may create, engage with and disseminate alternative messaging that must be considered.

While this unique form of online brand engagement is potentially harmful to the university image due to its humorous nature, it also can be seen as a form of brand community, lending to feelings of group identification for students. Brand parody within social media remains a largely ignored topic within higher education marketing.

Parodies live off the things they imitate. They also exist as literary works in their own right. They raise important legal and ethical issues for people in literary, publishing, and information work. There may be infringement, use in a misleading context, the exercise of fair use, plagiarism, and free speech. At best there may be theft of the text, at worst theft of authorship itself. The postmodern interest in pastiche removes the oppositionality of parody but paradoxically reveals how perennial a form it is and its consequences are.

The use of aggressive media campaigns to parody a competitor is a relatively recent development. The aim of this study is to gauge the consequences of parody on attitudes towards the brand that is the victim of the parody.

The data collection was carried out in an experiment design in two steps (before and after brand parody exposure) in order to measure the effects of a parody exposition on brand‐parodied attitude.

The results show that average level of attitude toward the brand parodied is significantly different after exposure to the advertisement that parodies it. Thus, the average level of attitude toward the brand parodied is significantly different in accordance with the degree to which those exposed to parodies are subject to feelings of anti‐commercial rebellion.

This study shows that a brand parody communication by playing negative humour with an anti‐commercial style represents a real threat for the brand parodied.

This research measured the effect of parody on attitude toward the brand parodied by its competitor. For this, the original materials were used (iPod advertising and iPod parody advertising made by its competitor).

The purpose of this paper is to verify the difference in the effect of art‐parody and art‐infusion advertisements depending on the product type and regulatory focus, and to expand the boundary of research in the field.

The paper examines their effect depending on product type and regulatory focus through two experiments. One is the effect of art‐parody and art‐infusion advertisements by product type and the other is the effect of art‐parody and art‐infusion advertisements by regulatory focus.

Art‐infusion is more effective than art‐parody for utilitarian products in terms of message credibility and brand attitude except for purchase intention although there is no difference between the two types for hedonic products. Participants with promotion focus favor art‐parody advertisement, while participants with prevention focus favor art‐infusion advertisement in terms of cognitive attitude toward advertisement.

This study is conducted as a part of research on art infusion, which is in the primitive stage of development. Therefore, it shall be possible to extend the boundary of research by applying a variety of marketing theories in the future.

The results of this paper imply that the advertising technique must vary depending on the type of focus the target customer values.

What happens when an ad parody is created with subtle, professional changes to text and imagery, making it almost indistinguishable from the original corporate brand ad? This paper labels this limiting condition of ad parodies as hijacked advertising. Can viewers of such ads recognize whether the ad is hijacked or not? Also, what are the effects of using the dimensions of disparaging humor and offensiveness, commonly used in hijacked ads, on attitudes toward the brands in these ads and a propensity to engage in negative word-of-mouth (WOM) behavior? Results show that ad hijacking recognition moderates the effect of disparaging humor and offensiveness dimensions in hijacked ads on the dependent variables, with adverse attitudes toward the brand and increased intentions to engage in negative WOM behavior only when consumers can recognize that a hijacked ad is indeed hijacked. Further, the moderating effect of ad hijacking recognition on the dependent variables is attributable only to the dimension of offensiveness but not to disparaging humor. Finally, results show that attitudes toward the brand in the hijacked ads completely mediate the effect of offensiveness and the recognition that an ad is hijacked on intentions to engage in negative WOM behavior.

This paper investigates these questions through an empirical examination using an original corporate brand ad, a hijacked version of the original ad using a disparaging humor dimension and another hijacked version of the original ad using the offensiveness dimension.

Results show that ad hijacking recognition moderates the effect of disparaging humor and offensiveness dimensions in hijacked ads on the dependent variables, with adverse attitudes toward the brand and increased intentions to engage in negative WOM behavior only when consumers can recognize that a hijacked ad is indeed hijacked. Further, the moderating effect of ad hijacking recognition on the dependent variables was attributable only to the dimension of offensiveness but not to disparaging humor. Finally, results show that attitudes toward the brand in the hijacked ads completely mediates the effect of the recognition that an ad is hijacked and the dimension of offensiveness on intentions to engage in negative WOM behavior. The result, that a fairly high percentage of respondents attribute the original corporate brand as the source of the hijacked ads, points to a potentially damaging and out-of-control threat to marketers.

Through an empirical study, converging results around the effects of hijacking ads with disparaging humor and offensive dimensions on consumers’ attitudes toward the advertised brand and a propensity to engage in negative WOM behavior were gathered.

To explore moral rights laws in Europe and their effects on publication contents.

Conceptual analysis of legislation, cases and information resources which illustrate effects of law.

There are three main types of moral right. They effect: authorship and reputation concerning correction of errors and history of ideas; elucidation of ideas through parody: is a reputation being unduly attacked?; the creative extension of cultural content by its readership/audience: when is this legitimate?

These features link the property concept of knowledge with a human‐rights construct of content defined via personality.

Choices of regulation affect the balance between property and personality approaches which determine access to knowledge and culture. The IS community needs awareness of its choices.

Discusses the use of hit music, parodies of hit music, and originally scored music for products advertised in television commercials. Examines the results of a study undertaken to determine the role of music as a memory factor. Summarizes that music created specifically for a product is a more effective retrieval cue than a parody, which is in turn more effective than the use of original hits.

This paper aims to assess the effect of narrative transportation, portrayed action and photographic style on viewers’ likelihood to comment on posted consumer photos.

Integrating visual semiotics and experiments, this research examines the influence of consumer photos on viewers’ likelihood to comment on the visualised narrative. One pilot, three experimental and a content analysis involve photos varying in their narrative perspective (selfie vs elsie) and portrayed content (no product, no action or directed action). The authors also test for the boundary condition of the role of the photographic style (snapshot, professional and “parody” selfie) on the likelihood to comment on consumer photos.

Viewers are more likely to comment on photos displaying action. When these photos are selfies, the effect is exacerbated. The experience of narrative transportation – a feeling of entering a world evoked by the narrative – underlies this effect. However, if a snapshot style is used (primed or manipulated) – namely, the photographic style appears genuine, unconstructed and natural – the superior effect of selfies disappears because of greater perceived silliness of the visualised narrative.

Managers should try to motivate consumers to take selfies portraying action if their aim is to encourage electronic word-of-mouth.

Organisations can effectively use consumer photos portraying consumption for educational purpose (e.g. eating healthfully and reducing alcohol use).

This research links consumer photos and electronic word-of-mouth and extends the marketing literature on visual narratives, which is mainly focused on company rather than user-generated content.

This paper explores the purposive use of the selfie in the construction of personal narratives that develop and support an individual’s human brand. Selfies were divided into archetypical clusters of “genres” that reflected the combined story told through Instagram image and accompanying text captions.

The analysis drew a randomized sample of 1,000 images with accompanying text from a large capture of 3,300 English language captioned selfies. Coding for semantic and semiotic data used a three-wave technique to overcome interpretive limitations.

Based on their structural characteristics, seven genre types emerged from the coded sample set. These primary genres of selfie meta-narratives are autobiography, parody, propaganda, romance, self-help, travel diary and coffee-table book.

The research is limited in generalization to the Instagram photo-sharing app platform by design. Samples were taken from the app due both to its popularity and its capacity to annotate images. Selfies conducted in non-public, non-annotation-based apps may produce alternative genres and classifications.

The paper presents a genre classification to examine how selfies are used to “show, not tell” a portion of the consumer’s life story. Brands, firms and marketers can apply genres to examine the selfie types that best connect with the identity of their brands and consumers, based on how their consumers communicate within the Instagram network.

Selfies are an oft pathologized and moralized aspect of consumer conduct. We present a view of the selfie as a deliberate, consciously considered communication approach to maintaining social bonds between friends, family and wider audience. Selfies are presented as a combined effect of consumption of a social media service (Instagram) and the co-production of valued content (the selfie) that recognizes the individual as an active constructor of their digital self.

The paper outlines a novel framework of selfie genres to classify the deliberate human-brand narratives expressed in selfies. By taking a narrative perspective to the Instagram selfie practice, the genre type captures the combined effect of the mimesis and diegesis, where the mimesis showing of self is contextualized with the diegesis of the provided captions to capture an intentional storytelling act of image and text.