i am not loving it: examining the hijacking of #cheerstosochi

Int. J. Sport Management and Marketing, Vol. 15, Nos. 3/4, 2014 163

Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

I am not loving it: examining the hijacking of #CheersToSochi

Ann Pegoraro* School of Sports Administration, Laurentian University, 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury, ON, P3E 2C6, Canada Email: [email protected] *Corresponding author

Lauren M. Burch Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus, Division of Business, 4601 Central Ave., Columbus, IN 47203, USA Email: [email protected]

Evan Frederick Department of Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA Email: [email protected]

Claude Vincent School of Sports Administration, Laurentian University, 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury, ON, P3E 2C6, Canada Email: [email protected]

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of the hijacking of #CheersToSochi and the potential impact on the McDonald’s brand. A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted on the entire sample of 33,604 tweets, using computer software known as Leximancer. Three key themes were revealed in the analysis including LGBT, Gay, and Sponsors. Seven peripheral themes were also identified in the analysis including Principle 6, Putin, Athletes, send, Equality, #AmericaIsBeautiful, and #CelebrateWithABite. Twitter served as a platform for everyday consumers to control the conversation by utilising a tool (i.e., #CheersToSochi) that was originally designed to be the cornerstone of McDonald’s digital marketing initiatives. Furthermore, this hashtag acted as an online soap box where ‘normal’ citizens could criticise sponsors for their affiliation with a country shrouded in controversy for its discriminatory practices. The loss of message

164 A. Pegoraro and L.M. Burch

control and ability of individuals to form social groups around a central cause created a perfect storm where the negative associations of Russia’s political policies were transferred to the sponsoring organisations, potentially negatively contributing to brand image.

Keywords: social media; brand management; qualitative analysis; Sochi Olympics.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Pegoraro, A., Burch, L.M., Frederick, E. and Vincent, C. (2014) ‘I am not loving it: examining the hijacking of #CheersToSochi’, Int. J. Sport Management and Marketing, Vol. 15, Nos. 3/4, pp.163–183.

Biographical notes: Ann Pegoraro is the Director of the Institute for Sport Marketing (ISM) and holds an appointment as an Associate Professor in School of Sports Administration, all at Laurentian University. She is an active researcher, who has presented at international conferences and published in refereed management journals in the areas of sport management, marketing, social media and communications. Her research primarily focuses on the intersection of sport and new media, particularly social media. Her work has been published in the International Journal of Sport Communication, Communication and Sport, American Behavioural Scientist, Journal of Sport Management, the International Journal of Sport Marketing and Management and the Journal of Sponsorship.

Lauren M. Burch is the Interim MBA Program Director and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Management in the Division of Business at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus. Her research interests include media effects in electronic and new media and the relationship between sport organisations, sport media, and sport consumers. Her specific areas of research include athlete portrayals on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and the framing of sport related concussions and attribution of responsibility as a public health issue. She has authored or co-authored publications in national and international peer-reviewed journals.

Evan L. Frederick is currently an Assistant Professor of Sport Administration at the University of New Mexico. His primary research interest is new media and consumer interaction. His specific areas of interest include fan-athlete interaction on social media platforms as well as organisational communication through social media outlets.

Claude Vincent holds an academic appointment as an Assistant Professor in the School of Sports Administration in the Faculty of Management at Laurentian University. He is the Associate Director of the Institute for Sport Marketing at Laurentian University. He has published monographs on small business and has done textbook adaptation for different markets. His scholarly work ranges from small business studies to the economics of professional sports.

This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘I am not loving it: examining the hijacking of #CheersToSochi’ presented at the Sport Marketing Association, Philadelphia, 22–24 October 2014.

I am not loving it 165

1 Introduction

With the rise of the internet, social media (SM) sites, and the prosumer, the locus of control for brands has shifted from the company to the consumer. The ability to post and comment without restriction allows consumers to play an active role in the image and management of brands. The internet has allowed consumers to join the conversation surrounding products and services, thereby dramatically altering the traditional model of one-way communication that once existed in the realm of marketing. As Bal et al. (2012) identified, “Money and advertising are no longer the sole controllers of message dissemination. Stakeholder interaction is now key to brand and image management” (p.204).Although increased stakeholder interaction has become a central component of modern day marketing, the online sphere makes it difficult to manage the messages being transmitted about a brand.

On January 21, 2014 McDonald’s, an Olympic sponsor since 1976, launched a SM campaign to activate its sponsorship of the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games. The goal of this activational communication program was to connect fans from around the world with Olympic athletes. Supporters could send personalised messages and good luck wishes to their favourite athletes and teams competing in Sochi by using the hashtag #CheersToSochi on Twitter or by visiting www.cheerstosochi.com (McDonald’s, 2014). To bolster this campaign, McDonald’s signed five-figure endorsement deals with six US and Canadian athletes to promote the #CheersToSochi campaign through Twitter and Facebook posts (Mickle, 2014).

Almost immediately lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists and other critics ‘hijacked’ the hashtag #CheersToSochi and started to use it to attack Russia’s discriminatory policies regarding sexual orientation and demand that official Olympics sponsors such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, denounce Russia (Merevick, 2014). Before the start of the Olympics, McDonald’s appeared to have abandoned the hashtag, but the website www.cheerstosochi.comwas still live. Activists purchased the domain cheerstosochi.org, and started a parody site to aggregate criticism of Olympic sponsors on SM (Merevick, 2014). It is clear that when done well and without controversy, stakeholder interaction in the online sphere can have a positive impact on brand image and brand equity (Bruhn et al., 2012). However, when an online marketing campaign is shrouded in controversy, consumers can gain control of the flow of information and affect one’s brand image and brand equity.

Research has indicated that SM platforms such as Twitter and Facebook can help increase brand equity and provide platforms for enhanced sponsorship activation (Santomier, 2008). That being said, limited studies have examined online marketing initiatives. Furthermore, the hijacking of #CheersToSochi is one of the first recorded incidents where a sponsor’s activation campaign that utilised a hashtag as its primary mechanism for centralisation and interaction for a mega-event was observed. This study extends previous sport and SM literature in that it was one of the first known attempts to characterise SM users’ portrayal of a brand after a hijack of that brand’s campaign. Furthermore, this study adds to the current body of literature as it provides an understanding of how individuals can reframe an organisation’s marketing message through SM, potentially harming that organisation’s brand. Therefore, the purpose of this research paper was to investigate what happened after the hijack of #CheersToSochi on Twitter and the potential impact of loss of message control on the McDonald’s brand. Specifically the research sought to answer two research questions:


RQ 1 What is the nature of the content on Twitter associated with #CheersToSochi after the hijack?

RQ 2 What is the nature of the content specific to McDonald’s on Twitter after the hijack?

The paper will first review the literature related to brand equity and sponsorship-linked marketing, followed by an outline of the methodology employed in the study. Results will be presented and discussed, including both practical and theoretical implications.

2 Review of literature

2.1 Customer-based brand equity

Early conceptualisations of brand equity approached the phenomenon from psychological and organisational perspectives. Farquhar (1989) defined brand equity as the intangible element that a brand contributes to a product, bringing value to the organisation or consumer. Tauber (1988) and Simon and Sullivan (1990) approached brand equity from an organisational perspective, and defined it in terms of the financial benefits, such as the expected earnings or increased cash flow provided to the organisation from possessing a strong brand. Due to its financial and managerial implications for organisations, a definition of brand equity was needed that incorporated the organisational, consumer, and financial foci (Leuthesser, 1988; Maltz, 1991; Srivastava and Shocker, 1991). While the financial focus was more tangible, and financial data had been employed in the operationalisation of brand equity (Gladden and Funk, 2002), other scholars argued for a greater focus on consumers in building brand equity (Aaker, 1991). Keller (1993) was able to incorporate both the consumer influence on building brand equity and the financial implications in his conceptualisation of customer-based brand equity. Keller defined customer-based brand equity as occurring, “when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favorable, strong, and unique brand associations in memory” (p.2). Additionally, Keller focused on the implications of marketing efforts that are specifically derived from the brand. That is, a brand has equity when marketing efforts result in outcomes that would not have otherwise been achieved had a brand not possessed a certain name.

According to Keller (1993), customer-based brand equity consists of two components: brand awareness and brand image. Brand awareness is defined as the overarching ability of the consumer to identify brands from memory (Kunkel et al., 2014). Brand awareness is comprised of the active element of brand recall and the passive element of brand recognition (Bauer et al., 2005). Brand recall involves the correct identification of a brand when presented with a product (Harrison, 2013), while brand recognition utilises consumer associations with a brand to evoke past experiences (Yoo, 2014). Brand awareness is an integral part of the marketing process, as increased awareness of a brand has been associated with purchase considerations on the part of the consumer (Baker et al., 1986; Bettman and Park, 1980; Roselius, 1971).

The components of brand image have previously defined by numerous scholars such as Gardner and Levy (1955), Newman (1957), and Herzog (1963) to include both the symbolic and psychographic elements (i.e., attitudes or opinions) associated with the


brand. According to Keller (1993), brand image includes the attributes (i.e., features), benefits (i.e., value), and attitudes (i.e., evaluation)of the brand. Furthermore, brand image is the cumulative product of brand associations stored in memory that determines the importance of the brand to consumer (Bauer et al., 2008). Gladden and Funk (2002) developed a team association model (TAM) within the sport industry that operationalised brand associations as the attributes and benefits linked with a product, and did not include the attitude construct as attributes and benefits would influence attitudes and subsequently behaviours. Although these brand associations can be related to a single organisation, brand associations can also be built with outside organisations through a strategic alliance of sponsorship that publically links the sponsor to partners (McAlister et al., 2012).

2.2 Sponsorship-linked marketing

Sponsorship expenditures by organisations, as part of an overarching marketing tool are projected to reach approximately $20.6 billion in the North American market in 2014 (International Events Group, 2014). Although early forms of sponsorship focused more on philanthropic efforts of an organisation, viewing sponsorships as gifts (Ryan and Fahy, 2012), focus shifted in the early 1990s to a market-based approach. This approach placed specific focus on brand awareness and image enhancement as an objective (Cornwell and Maignan, 1998; McDonald, 1991). Additionally, this approach placed sponsorship within the promotional aspect of the marketing mix with other communication-based tools such as advertising and personal selling (Ryan and Fahy, 2012). Advertising of an event with a brand sponsor creates an association, with awareness operating as the independent variable influencing attitude and purchase behaviour for the brand (Walliser, 2003). These brand associations represent a strategic alliance between organisations, and one area that has been identified as a viable alliance is sport sponsorship (Farrelly and Quester, 2005).

Sport sponsorship has emerged as a viable opportunity to create brand associations between events and sponsors, as it has been found that fans are three times more likely to purchase products when they have familiarity with a brand (Horowitz, 2012). Sponsorships within sports have traditionally focused on the alignment between the sporting participants and spectators (Kang and Stotler, 2011), with mega-sporting events a specific area of focus. One specific mega-sporting event that has garnered large amounts of attention from organisations is the Olympic Games, with The Olympic Partners (TOP) program generating more than $950million for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 2009 to 2012 alone (IOC, 2013). As a result, various scholars have investigated the effectiveness and impact of Olympic sponsorship (e.g., Giannoulakis et al., 2008; Meng-Lewis et al., 2014; Morgan and Frawley, 2011; Taylor, 2012).

In sport marketing, there is general acceptance that sponsorship without any form of activation provides little return on the investment and that it is critical for sponsors to invest additional resources to fully realise the potential of any sponsorship (Cornwell and Maignan, 1998; Crimmins and Horn, 1996; DeGaris et al., 2009; Papadimitriou and Apostolopoulou, 2009; Sylvestre and Moutinho, 2007; Weeks et al., 2008). According to Crimmins and Horn (1996), “If the brand cannot afford to spend to communicate its sponsorship, then the brand cannot afford sponsorship at all” (p.16). The average cost of a TOP Sponsor partnership for the IOC is around $100 million (Rogers, 2012) per


four-year cycle and companies who sponsor large mega-events like the Olympic Games spend millions of dollars to activate these sponsorships. Activation ratios in the range of 1-2:1 are most common and appear to be acceptable by industry standards (Farrelly et al., 2005; IEG, 2013; O’Keefe et al., 2009),indicating that for every one dollar spent in sponsorship, companies would spend one to two dollars to activate that sponsorship. Therefore, the TOP Sponsors for the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games would be spending anywhere from $100 million to $200 million to activate their sponsorship.

Within the literature, there are several accepted definitions of sponsorship activation. Cornwell (1995) uses the term sponsorship-linked marketing and defines it as “the orchestration and implementation of marketing activities for the purpose of building and communicating an association to a sponsorship” (p.15). Weeks et al. (2008) distinguish between activational communication and non-activational communication in sponsorship activation. Non-activational communications such as on-site signage are more passive and do not involve engagement of the audience. Conversely activational communications such as event-related sweepstakes, contests, or websites “promote the engagement, involvement, or participation of the sponsorship audience with the sponsor” [Weeks et al., (2008), p.639].

When activating sponsorship of mega-events, most sponsors implement a multi-method marketing program that is fully integrated with all other marketing communication efforts (Ladousse, 2009; O’Keefe et al., 2009; Papadimitriou and Apostolopoulou, 2009). Recently, trends in sponsorship activation have moved to include digital, mobile, and online mediums, all of which provide avenues for activational communication, as well as the potential to facilitate brand awareness in new markets (Santomier, 2008). IEG (2013) in their 28th Annual Sponsorship Survey reported that public relations and SM are the two most popular forms of activation used by 89% and 88% of the companies surveyed respectively. Sponsor created websites and SM platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are offering a new avenue for connecting with sponsorship audiences (Weeks et al., 2008; O’Keefe et al., 2009), as well as influencing brand image (Bruhn et al., 2012). As highlighted by Yan (2011), associations to a brand can be built on SM by “fostering a sense of belonging through the engagement itself” (p.690), in addition to providing an avenue for conducting consumer research through social media monitoring (SMM) (Branthwaite and Patterson, 2011). Online consumer engagement offers a reciprocal outlet of exchange as “online social media such as forums, wall-postings, instant messaging, tweets, blogs, vlogs, wikis, podcasts, and product reviews, all play a vital role in broadcasting consumers’ opinions and biases” [Steyn, (2009), p.318]. The employment of SM in sponsorship activation capitalises on the availability of multiple media channels to create consumer engagement through integrated messaging and strengthening brand associations through that engagement (Santomier, 2008).

3 Method

As previously stated, the purpose of this research was to investigate the nature of the hijack of McDonald’s online activation of its Olympic TOP sponsorship related to the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. This analysis focused on the use of the hashtag #CheersToSochion Twitter to assess the potential impact on the McDonald’s brand. Hashtracking a software program that tracks Twitter data by hashtag was used to collect


the data for this project. The hashtag #CheersToSochi was entered into the software and data was collected from January 31 to February 25, 2014 resulting in a sample of 33,604 tweets from 10,075 unique contributors. By contrast, the www.cheerstosochi.com attracted only 5,524 submissions. Hashtracking has been used in previous research to monitor eWOM around movies (Deltell et al., 2013) and around national elections (Kalsnes et al., 2014).

3.1 Data analysis

To analyse the data, Leximancer, a computer software tool that conducts conceptual (i.e., thematic) and relational (i.e., semantic) analysis on written words as well as visual text (Bal et al., 2012) was employed. Leximancer has also been used previously to analyse opinion polling and political commentary (McKenna, 2007), and to assess tourism event images and determine how public representation of events change over time (Scott and Smith, 2005). In the online realm, researchers have used Leximancer to analyse the website content of state tourism authorities, as it relates to online brand image communication strategy, in conjunction with consumers’ perceptions of that content to identify overlaps and gaps (Kattiyapornpong and Nel, 2009). Campbell et al. (2011) investigated consumer conversations around online advertisements. The authors mapped those conversations and provided a typology of consumer-generated ad conversations.

The automatic generation of the concept list by Leximancer from the #CheersToSochi data provides results that are statistically reliable and reproducible, as it is generated from the input text itself (Angus et al., 2013). Leximancer’s ability to analyse large datasets in totality, instead of using a subsample with human coders, allows researchers to consider complete samples and draw more concrete conclusions from these datasets while also allowing elusive or rare relationships to emerge (Angus et al., 2013). Furthermore, the analysis of large data sets can provide insights into consumer sentiments towards a brand, a marketing campaign, or a personality and produce thematic maps that are correlated with consumer sentiment and potentially consumer behaviour, allowing researchers to measure and gauge consumer sentiment effectively and in a timely manner. Therefore, the entire corpus of 33,604 tweets collected from the #CheersToSochi hashtag were uploaded into the software as a CSV file for analysis in relation to both RQ1 and RQ2.

4 Results

The total sample contained 9,254 (27.54%) original tweets, 22,117 (65.82%) retweets and 2,233 (6.65%) direct replies. On Twitter, the retweet is analogous to broad dissemination of information and aids in explaining how opinion formation occurs on Twitter (Hansen et al., 2011) and they may also function as a form of endorsement, often raising the visibility of content (Boyd et al., 2010). Given this, the retweets collected were included in the analysis to provide a complete analysis of the use of the hashtag. Additionally, 50% (16,890) of the tweets contained links and 32% (10,888) contained media (i.e., pictures, video). In addition, the tweets also contained other hashtags, with the most popular being #lgbt 27.2% (9,132), #sochi2014 19.8% (6,663), and #russia 11.7% (3,931). McDonald’s was mentioned in 2,112 tweets (6.28%), Coca-Cola in 3,057 (9.10%), Visa in 1,192 (3.54%) tweets.


4.1 Concepts and names

As noted in the data analysis section, the Leximancer software is able to detect both word-like concepts and name-like concepts. Words that appear in text with an upper case first letter are identified as ‘name-like’ concepts (i.e., names of people, or locations). All other words in the text are considered as ‘word-like’ concepts and refer to objects, actions and so on (Leximancer, 2011). The first step in answering RQ1 was to consider the word- and name-like concepts that emerged during data analysis. Given that this research sought to investigate the effect on the McDonald’s brand, the name-like concepts were also included in the analysis so that brand names would be identified if relevant. The resulting Leximancer list of concepts and names indicated that the top identified word-like concepts in order of frequency were gay, sponsors, rights, iocmedia, people, arrests, anti-gay, activists, and hate, as illustrated in Table 1. Table 1 Word-like concepts identified

Word like concepts identified Count Relevance

gay 3,520 37% sponsors 2,116 22% rights 1,998 21% iocmedia 1,959 21% people 1,762 19% arrests 1,164 12% anti-gay 1,010 11% activists 1,008 11% hate 968 10% human 897 9% message 860 9% protest 813 9% speak 789 8% stand 762 8% laws 735 8% homophobia 718 8% today 698 7% equality 680 7% athletes 639 7% send 563 6% rainbow 496 5% world 457 5% violence 441 5% opening 414 4% time 410 4% propaganda 395 4% video 386 4% tweet 259 3%


Additionally, the top identified concepts were grouped together around the centre of the thematic map, which is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Leximancer concept map output: #CheersToSochi (see online version for colours)

The top name-like concepts that were discovered were LGBT, Russia’s, Sochi2014, Sochi, Olympics, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Russian, and are illustrated in Table 2.The top name-like concepts also appear grouped closer to the centre of the map. These initial lists provide a preliminary result for RQ 1.However, further analysis was conducted.

These word-, and name-like concepts were grouped into themes based on relational analysis, as evident on the output map (Figure 1). In order to answer both RQ1 and RQ2, all themes identified from the data were considered. There were three key themes identified for the #CheersToSochi data: LGBT, Gay, and Sponsors as noted by their centrality on the map. These three themes also overlappedon the map indicating that they are strongly semantically linked (Bal, et al. 2012). Seven peripheral themes were also identified: Principle 6, Putin, Athletes, Send, Equality, #AmericaIsBeautiful, and #CelebrateWithABite. The latter two themes relate to specific hashtags that were used during the same time as #CheersToSochi, one that was part of a marketing campaign by


Coca-Cola (i.e., #AmericaIsBeautiful) and onethat was part of another McDonald’s campaign run simultaneously (i.e., #CelebrateWithABite). Table 2 Name-like concepts identified

Name like concepts identified Count Relevance Lgbt 9,472 100% Russia’s 6,489 69% Sochi2014 5,233 55% Sochi 4,463 47% Olympics 3,877 41% Cocacola 3,057 32% Mcdonalds 2,112 22% Russian 2,013 21% Twibbon 1,567 17% Visa 1,192 13% Putin 1,190 13% #AmericaIsBeautiful 1,015 11% #CelebrateWithABite 890 9% Sochiproblems 700 7% P6 631 7% Hunted 330 3% Lgbt Russians 327 3% Thanks 313 3% Love 245 3%

Results indicated that the majority of the content associated with the hashtag #CheersToSochi was not the positive content intended by the marketing campaign launched by McDonald’s. There was very little content related to sending cheers to athletes participating in the Olympic Games. Even when looking at the themes of Athletesand Send, although a small number of tweets related to the original purpose of the hashtag, for example, “RT @lolojones: Send your cheers to your favorite athlete or team #Olympics #CheersToSochi[link]”, the majority of the tweets were focused on the issues in Russia such as, “Putin wants to cleanse Russia of Gays. Sounds just like Hitler wanting to cleanse Germany of Jews Yet @McDonalds sends #CheersToSochi” and “#CheersToSochi I don’t think so. I don’t send cheers to hateful places!”. Two of the other peripheral themes, Equality and Principle 6, discussed the issues in Russia head on, for example; “we think it s important that human rights not get lost in the mix - @hudsonism of @AthleteAlly#CheersToSochi #P6 [link]” and “NEWS | #UN Chief calls for equality, non-discrimination at #Sochi @Olympics [link] @reuters #Russia #LGBT”. Putinappeared as a peripheral theme as well and Twitter users took the opportunity to directly comment on Russian President ValdimirPutin’s role in human rights and the Olympic Games; “#RUSSIA SisterCity Mayors of #Tallahassee #Orlando and #StPetersburg #FL urge #PUTIN to grow up [link] #lgbt#CheersToSochi” and “#CheersToSochi! Cheers to anti-gay Putin & his vanity project!”.


The last two peripheral themes involved sponsor hashtags that were utilised in other marketing campaigns during the period of the Olympic Games. These hashtags were also incorporated into the hijacked #CheersToSochihashtag by Twitter users. For example, “#AmericaIsBeautiful because sponsorship of gay-bashing is really bad for your brand #CheersToSochi [link]”, “.@McDonalds wants u 2 #CelebrateWithABite& by ‘bite’ they mean “ignore blatant human rights violations” #CheersToSochi” and “#CelebrateWithABite, @McDonalds? No thanks I’m allergic to homophobia”. The hashtag #AmericaIsBeautiful from a Coca-Cola marketing campaign appeared in 1,105 tweets in the sample and the secondary McDonald’s hashtag #CelebrateWithABite appeared in 890.

The following section will discuss each of the three key themes in more detail in order to address RQ2: What is the nature of the content specific to McDonald’s on Twitter after the hijack?

4.2 Key themes

4.2.1 LGBT

This theme was the top theme identified and encompassed the following concepts and names: LGBT, Russia’s, Sochi2014, Olympics, Sochi, rights, people, iocmedia, Twibbon, human, stand, and message. The LGBT name was evident in 9,472 of the tweets in the data sample, and tweets such as: “@QueerNationNY: #CheersToSochi #LGBT RT @MelanieNathan1: Gays to protest Sochi Olympic opening at Russian Consulate [link]” are characteristic of the use of LGBT in relation to the #CheersToSochi hashtag. Sochi 2014 and Olympics were also names associated at a high rate with LGBT, for example; “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win. Gandhi #sochi2014 #Olympics#CheersToSochi #LGBT” and “absolutely disgusting - all American companies too [link] #buytheworldacoke#Sochi2014 #LGBT #CheersToSochi #fail”. Twitter users also sought to bring the IOC into the discussion, primarily to highlight their lack of action on the issues in Russia by tweeting content such as “#CheersToSochi #LGBT RT @dumpstoli: Sochi anti-gay stuff overblown, IOC s Dick Pound says [link]” and reminding users of past IOC human rights transgressions; “Reminder: #IOC also thought the Nazis were no big deal. ‘Anti-stuff overblown’ #LGBT [link]’@iocmedia#CheersToSochi”. There was also a significant call for support for the LGBT community through the hashtag, by asking users to adopt a Twibbon1; “An effective method of supporting our #LGBT sisters & brothers in #Russia! [Twibbon] #CheersToSochi #homophobia #HumanRights”; and to send a message “A synchronized call for #LGBT liberty and freedom worldwide just as the #Sochi2014 games begin. #CC14 #CheersToSochi [link]”.

The last set of concepts associated with the LGBT theme involved human rights issues and requests for users to take a stand against discrimination. For example, content was created that focused on raising the awareness of human rights: “The #Olympic Charter states ‘The practice of sport is a #humanright’ and we tend to agree. #CheersToSochi #LGBT” and “#CheersToSochi grows. Find us on @facebook here: [link] Not going away until the #LGBT people are FREE WORLDWIDE”. Others used Twitter to admonish Russia for a lack of human rights “Human rights reach low point! #LGBT #CheersToSochi RT @DChernyshenko: Olympic Flame reached Europe’s highest point”. The last concept associated with the LGBT theme involved tweets asking


users to take a stand on the issue of LGBT rights, “We all have the right to #Love & #SpeakOut. Stand with #LGBT #Russia & basic #HumanRights #Sochi2014 #CheersToSochi #LoveIsLove”, entreating sponsors to take a stand “Beautiful commercial, @CocaCola Now, how about decrying the abuse of LGBT in Russia. Take a stand”, or calling them out for not following other sponsors’ lead: “@McDonalds @CocaCola @Visa @samsung why does [sic] your marketing departments look to @ATT how to stand up for LGBT #CheersToSochi #speakout”.

4.2.2 Gay

This was the second most prominent theme identified in the analysis and included the following concepts and names: gay, sponsors, Russians, arrests, activists, anti-gay, and laws. Gay appeared in 3,526 tweets in the data sample in messages such as, “RT @avimat90210: #CheersToSochi: RT @Slate: Gay teens in Russia are beaten, humiliated & forced to drink urine. Gov’t is OK with that: [link]”. Included within this theme were tweets that called out sponsors for their association with the Sochi Games. For example, “How would the ancient Greeks feel about Gay bashing at the Olympics? #CheersToSochi [link] Boycott all Olympic sponsors!” Although many tweets called out sponsors as a whole, others were directed at specific sponsors, such as: “@heidi_mcsista Found this on the internet why do you think gays are upset with @McDonalds???? #CheersToSochi[link]” and “If @CocaCola thinks including gay family in Super Bowl ad excuses sponsoring #Sochi they’ve been drinkin’ too much cola #CheersToSochi”. In tweets related to the concept of Russians, there were instances where individuals were linking sponsors with violent events taking place in Sochi. For example, “#Homophobia u support @McDonaldsCorp #Russian men found guilty of murdering they believed was #gay [link]”. An obvious link with the previously mentioned tweet, were tweets mentioning arrests. An example of such a tweet stated, “Beating gays, killing dogs, poisoned water, bad food, poor rooms, trash, construction, arrests.. Not #CheersToSochi but JEERS to Sochi!”. It is interesting to note that many of the arrest tweets were individuals reacting to gay individuals being arrested by Russian authorities, such as, “Russia makes first gay arrests of Sochi Olympics [link] via @gaystarnews#CheersToSochi”.

The other two concepts within this theme (i.e., activists and laws) reflected on the cultural and historical implications of what was taking place in Sochi. For example, “#LGBT activist defies Putin in #Russia with gay propaganda. “Berlin 1936 = Sochi 2014” [link] #CheersToSochi”. Once again, individuals were also utilising #CheersToSochi to tie the controversy taking place in Sochi back to the sponsors associated with the event. Examples of these tweets stated, “An LGBTQ activist set up a parody site of McDonald’s #CheersToSochi website. And it’s awesome” and “McDonald’s #Sochi2014 website hijacked by gay activist to protest sponsorship [link] #CheersToSochi”. Tweets related to laws focused primarily on the laws governing Russia and how they impacted both native citizens and those visiting for the Olympic Games. Examples of these tweets stated, “Olympians urge Russia to reconsider ‘gay propaganda’ laws [link] via @guardian #CheersToSochi” and “Editor, LGBT support group founder fined under Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ law [link] via @CNN #Sochi2014”.


4.2.3 Sponsors

This was the third most prominent theme identified within the analysis and included the following concepts and names: Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, hate, Visa, and homophobia. Coca-Cola appeared in 3,057 tweets, McDonald’s in 2,112 tweets, and Visa in 1,192 tweets. As is evident in the concepts of hate and homophobia, many of the tweets specific to these sponsors were very critical and attacking in nature. For example, “#LGBTQ activists pushing back against @CocaCola& @McDonalds sponsorship of #Sochi’s anti-gay thugs [link] #CheersToSochi”, “@stephenfry, I won’t be eating @McDonalds or drinking @CocaCola today, failure to spk out 4 human rights in #russia#CheersToSochi”, and “Olympic committee and sponsors like @McDonalds @Visa @CocaCola ignore #principle6 of Olympic charter #CheersToSochi”. Tweets against these sponsors were not simply passive. In fact, many attempted to engage the sponsors directly in dialogue. One such tweet stated, “@CocaCola YOU don’t condone “intolerance of any kind anywhere in the world.” ! This proves otherwise [link]”. Although tweets often attacked official sponsors, many also stated how association with the Sochi Olympics affected consumers’ brand loyalty. For example, “@pepsi over @CocaCola ,@BurgerKing over @McDonalds ,for everything else there is @MasterCard :)#CheersToSochi”. Additionally, it was clear that individuals recognised the magnitude of these worldwide brands associating with this particular Olympics in tweets such as, “Two of the biggest brands in the world sponsoring one of the biggest tragedies of this generation @McDonalds @CocaCola#CheersToSochi”.

The concepts of hate and homophobia were also utilised in tweets that criticised sponsors. Examples of these tweets stated, “Who would have thought a monumental error of judgment would come back & bite @CocaCola ( @CocaColaAU)? #CheersToSochi #hate #homophobia” and “@McDonalds So will you like some homophobia with that. #CheersToSochi”. Regardless of the beliefs and philosophies of these companies, various individuals perceived congruence between the politics of Russia and the sponsors linking themselves with the Sochi Olympics. For example, “Coke @CocaCola and @McDonalds supporting the most homophobic @Olympics ever. #CheersToSochi @iocmedia [link]”, “#Homophobia u support @McDonalds #Russian men found guilty of brutally murdering they believed was gay [link]#CheersToSochi”, and “@McDonalds, proud sponsor of homophobia#CheersToSochi”. Once again, tweets were both unidirectional and bidirectional in nature, with many using criticism, poking fun at the sponsors, or trying to engage the sponsors in dialogue.

RQ 1 sought to investigate the nature of the content associated with the #CheersToSochi hashtag after the hijack. The results of the data analysis indicate that the word-like concepts contained in the hashtag data included gay, sponsors, rights, people, arrests, anti-gay, hate, and homophobia amongst others. When considering the themes arising from the data, it is clear that content on the hashtag revolved around three key themes: LGBT, Human Rights and Sponsors. The third key theme of sponsors was analysed in more detail to provide further analysis for RQ 2, by exploring the content specific to McDonald’s. The top words associated with sponsors were hate and homophobia and while it could be argued that all content on the hashtag #CheersToSochi was related to McDonald’s as it was their activational campaign, the actual words associated with McDonald’s are presented in Table 3. As the results indicate, the majority of the top words in Table 3 have negative connotations (i.e., arrests, homophobia, hate,


anti-gay) and no link to the company, its products nor to the actual purpose of the hashtag, which was sending cheers to athletes. Table 3 Word-like concepts associated with McDonald’s

Related word-like Count sponsors 271 gay 232 today 205 arrests 195 activists 194 rights 174 homophobia 150 hate 147 people 84 watching 57 love 47 anti-gay 47 speak 31 laws 31 time 29 world 28 violence 28 athletes 19 human 17 video 14

5 Discussion

In this particular instance, Twitter served as a platform for everyday consumers to control the conversation by utilising a tool that was originally designed to be the cornerstone of McDonald’s digital marketing initiatives for Sochi 2014. Overall, those who contributed to the #CheersToSochi conversation utilised this hashtag as a digital rallying point to show support for the LGBT community through online activism. This hashtag acted as an online soapbox where ‘normal’ citizens could criticise sponsors for their affiliation with a country shrouded in controversy for its discriminatory practices. Furthermore, individuals used this hashtag to encourage protests of those who championed inequality, or topoke fun or criticise Russia’s political policies while also attacking companies who were affiliated with the games through official sponsorships.A sponsor’s association with the Sochi Games was viewed as an endorsement of a country that was willing to discriminate based on sexual orientation. It was clear that this linkage took place regardless of whether the sponsors’ beliefs were congruent with Russian political policy or not. Lastly, thehashtag served a news dissemination function, as many individuals used it as an


archiving mechanism for stories surrounding the games including controversial issues and cultural critiques.

The results of this study highlight interesting theoretical and practical implications in regard to sponsorship activation through SM. First, the theoretical implications with regard to brand equity and brand image are considered. According to previous studies, the most common marketing related sponsorship objectives are increased corporate and/or brand awareness (e.g., Cornwell and Maignan, 1998), improved brand image (Lough and Irwin, 2001), and increased sales (Seguin et al., 2005). Considering these objectives and Keller’s (1993) brand equity model, the underlying sponsorship strategy of McDonald’s for the #CheersToSochi campaign may have been to positively impact brand image through the association with uplifting stories of Olympic athletes. Specifically, they could have sought to focus on the type and strength of brand image associations. According to Keller, type associations of brand image focus on consumer attributes, benefits, and attitudes of a brand, while strength associations are based on the maintenance of connections to a brand stored in memory. The uplifting stories regarding Olympic athletes could have potentially positively influenced the attitudes of consumers toward McDonald’s as a brand, and also strengthened associations to McDonald’s through continued, positive exposure. The repeated, positive exposure would also simultaneously influence brand recognition by building more experiences with the brand from which the consumer could draw from in memory.

Following the hijacking of #CheersToSochi by activists, any potential benefits from the sponsorship activation, in terms of brand image, were negated. As illustrated by the results, the context and tone of tweets containing #CheersToSochi were overwhelmingly negative. Thus, the type and strength associations highlighted above could have been negatively impacted.

One interesting element to the results, which may have mitigated the negative potential impact of tweet content on brand image is related to the direct linking of McDonald’s to #CheersToSochi. The results indicated that McDonald’s was mentioned in only 6.28% of tweets containing #CheersToSochi. McAlister et al. (2012) stated that public linking of a sponsor to an event is needed to create brand associations in the minds of consumers. The explicit linking of McDonald’s to #CheersToSochi in 6.28% of the tweets may not have been enough to establish a negative association for consumers. Further, although public linking creates an association, it is brand awareness that acts as an independent variable, influencing consumer attitudes and behaviours associated with the brand (Walliser, 2003). In this particular instance, the low number of tweets creating a link between McDonald’s and #CheersToSochi may not have created a significant amount of awareness to impact attitudes and purchase behaviours. Additionally, as McDonald’s possesses previously established brand awareness, and consumers have brand recognition based upon past experiences, their previous exposure to the brand may have moderated the negative impact of the #CheersToSochi hijacking. But it is also important to note that the #CheersToSochi campaign was one of McDonald’s online activation strategies of its sponsorship of the Sochi Games, therefore one could argue that all of the tweets contained in the hashtag are associated with the McDonald’s brand.

It has been documented that SM has the potential to impact brand image (Bruhn et al., 2012), and build brand associations through reciprocal audience engagement (Yan, 2011). This has interesting implications in regard to Keller’s (1993) dimensions of brand knowledge, as prior to SM, the promotional elements of the marketing mix, including sponsorship, all allowed for message control on the part of the organisation. This creates


a one-directional link between organisational marketing communication efforts and brand knowledge, awareness, and particularly brand image, as positive message control can be maintained. Although SM-based sponsorship activation allows for additional benefits such as increased awareness (Santomier, 2008) and engagement (Yan, 2011), the two way, reciprocal nature of SM may impede the significance and measurement of organisational communication on brand knowledge and brand equity, as consumers are content creators. Additionally, the potential loss of message control, as illustrated in this study, could have negative implications from a practical standpoint as well.

In their attempts to activate this sponsorship, the positive features associated with SM, such as reciprocal dialogue (Steyn, 2009), and audience collectivity (Yan, 2011), were used against McDonald’s. Although organisations can benefit from the engagement with audiences provided by the reciprocal dialogue on SM, it also simultaneously can result in a loss of message control as seen in the hijacking of #CheersToSochi.Additionally, although audience engagement can foster a sense of belonging between individuals and brands, these same features can enable individuals to collectively form and rally around a social cause. McDonald’s is no stranger to this phenomenon, as a 2012 attempt at SM engagement through the hashtag #McDStories, which was intended to elicit positive responses from consumers, resulted in individuals sharing negative stories regarding past experiences at McDonald’s (Hill, 2012).

From a sponsorship perspective, the loss of message control and the ability of individuals to form social groups around a central cause created an online firestorm (Pfeffer et al., 2014) where the negative associations of Russia’s political policies were transferred to McDonald’s and other sponsors (i.e., Visa and Coca Cola) providing the potential to negatively affect brand image. What started out as an attack on McDonald’s, escalated into an attack on any company who had an affiliation with the Sochi Olympics, and potential damage to brand image extended beyond the sponsor who initiated the online marketing campaign (i.e., McDonald’s). Although all sponsors could have experienced damage to their respective brand images, ultimately as it was their marketing mechanism (i.e., #CheersToSochi) that was utilised in tweets that criticised and attacked sponsors for their Olympic affiliation, McDonald’s brand image may have sustained the greatest impact. As a result of activation efforts to create an association between the brand and the Sochi Olympics, McDonald’s hashtag served as the point of origin for all activism efforts, protests, outrage, cultural critiques, and sponsor criticisms, thereby furthering the association between the brand and the hijacked content in the minds of consumers worldwide. This investigation of SM users’ portrayal of McDonald’s brand image through the hijacking of a sponsorship activation campaign adds to the nascent literature on sponsorship activation in new media.

When considering practical implications, it can be noted that a hijacking of a hashtag can have negative effects on both brand image and on activation activities. Any sponsor of a mega-event considering an activation campaign through SM must carefully consider any hashtag that they wish to use; sponsors must consider the political climate of the host country and be aware of any potential for political activism around their campaign or sponsorship of the event. Sponsors can mitigate such activism by acknowledging the issues and working with local groups as appropriate. For example, Kia’s activation around the 2014 World Cup involved working with local youth futsal teams, producing inspirational stories about football youth in Brazil, providing opportunities for youth to escort the mascot into a game, and partnering with the Make-a-Wish Foundation to make the wish of an ill child come true with a trip to the World Cup (International Events


Group, 2014). All of these activities would provide a positive image for Kia in Brazil during the World Cup where there was the potential for political activism.

Also, sponsors must have a contingency plan should their campaign get hijacked. After the hijacking of #CheersToSochi, McDonald’s completely abandoned any activation through the hashtag, as the results indicated that little content was focused on sending cheers to athletes. Although this disassociation from the hashtag may have been a public relations tactic to reduce further negative impact, it also simultaneously prevented any attempt at image repair by McDonald’s. Perhaps they would have been better suited at utilising image repair strategies such as stonewalling (i.e., redirecting attention) and good intentions (i.e., claiming that one’s intentions were good) as outlined by Benoit (1995, 1997) on Twitter in order to address or circumvent the rising tide of SM criticism. Therefore, it is important to reiterate that when sponsors consider activation through SM it is important to note the potential loss of message control and to have a contingency plan should a negative firestorm occur.

While McDonald’s did try to promote the hashtag early on, those efforts were quickly silenced by the overwhelming opposition to the Games displayed by those in the LGBT community and beyond. Therefore, although the opportunity to engage in sponsorship activation and marketing efforts on SM provides numerous benefits, organisations must be aware that those same features also could result in a loss of message control that negatively impact brand image.

6 Limitations and directions for future research

A primary limitation that is inherent in all qualitative research is the subjectivity of interpretation. When using Leximancer, separate researchers may arrive at different understandings of the same conceptual map. Future research efforts should consider submitting their conceptual maps to multiple expert panels in order to determine if multiple parties interpret the same conceptual map in a relatively similar manner. Moreover, it is important to note that the output only reflects the sentiments of those who produced the content, and researchers need to be cautious in exploiting that sentiment to the entire population of individuals who consumed the event.

Another limitation relates to the newness of the application of this software to SM data, thereby raising issues of reliability and validity. Leximancer was used to produce conceptual maps that identified themes that reflected the voice of a specific group of Twitter users. However, the significance of those themes was not quantitatively measured. Furthermore, the analysis was only conducted on the sample of data related to #CheersToSochi that was collected by researchers, and does not represent the complete data set as it is possible some tweets were not gathered by the collection tool. Although the conceptual maps did provide insights into the cognition and attitudes of consumers, a direct correlation between the conceptual maps and consumer behaviour cannot be assumed. Therefore, future research should utilise survey methodology and random selection in order to see if individuals within the sample of Twitter users had altered their perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours toward a particular brand as a result of their failed marketing campaign. This would help determine the potential impact of SM on brand knowledge, brand awareness, and brand image. Determining if SM have a significant impact on brand image, or if the affects are moderated by previous brand awareness could influence the future utilisation of SM as part of the promotional mix.


A final limitation of this methodological approach is that the analysed input and the resulting conceptual maps are time dependent and subject to change. One has to recognise that users possess varying motivations and can easily post multiple iterations of the same comment on Twitter or any other SM site. To address this issue, researchers can conduct analyses of tweets at various time frames to measure how the dominant themes on conceptual maps shift and evolve over time (Angus et al., 2013). This would ensure that conclusions drawn regarding user sentiment or behaviour are validated over the entire life of the hashtag or trending topic on Twitter.

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Notes 1 The Twibbon application on Twitter is used to promote various charities and causes by

enabling supporters to customize their social network profile picture with a virtual badge (Chell and Mortimer, 2014).