Impact of popular culture on marketing

Abstract

Over the years, product placement in movies, TV shows and books has been used as a popular marketing technique. But lately, we see the emergence of a new trend where the roles have reversed. Companies are integrating characters and events from popular culture in their advertising content. For example, the popular TV show “Game of Thrones” have been used by various companies like Coverfox, Practo, Elle, Flipkart to reach to its wide fan base1. (Refer Appendix for screenshots of the mentioned campaigns). An UK based tailoring company, Norton and Townsend launched a collection of suits named “50 Shades of Grey” after the massively hit book with the same name2. The examples are wide and varied and while many campaigns have worked, there are a lot which have failed to impress the audience.