https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3261-9938
ABSTRACT
Research on media brands is a growth area, but recently most of this research has focused on news media brands leaving the management of narrative media brands underexplored. This article explores how the creators of narrative media brands manage their narratives, characters, and storyworlds. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with authors and video game developers and analysed using thematic analysis. The results suggest participants had a general appreciation of the importance of the brand management and marketing of their creations’ narratives, characters, and storyworlds, but a deeper understanding of their necessity for success was lacking, particularly for the fiction authors.
Introduction
Despite the concept’s relative infancy (Weinacht, Citation2015), media brands are now recognised as a growing and core strategic research area (Malmelin & Moisander, Citation2014). Various aspects of media brands have been explored (Malmelin & Moisander, Citation2014) including their personalities (Kim, Citation2017, Citation2018), brand equity (Bakshi & Mishra, Citation2016; Victoria-Mas et al., Citation2018), co-creation (Bange et al., Citation2020; Burgess & Jones, Citation2020), and trust (Chan-Olmsted & Hyehyun Kim, Citation2023; Krouwer et al., Citation2017; Siegert et al., Citation2011). However, there are still various gaps in media brand research as the concept continues to evolve (Laaksonen et al., Citation2019). In 2014, Malmelin and Moisander published a comprehensive review of the existing media brand research to date. Since then, 22 articles have been published that focused on further exploring the concept of media brands and their management in the two journals that publish the majority of media brand research (Malmelin & Moisander, Citation2014): the Journal of Media Business Studies and the International Journal on Media Management. Of the 22 articles published, 16 focused on consumer perspectives and nine used news media brands as the research context leaving other types of media brands underexplored, . These research concentrations mean there are research gaps in the management and knowledge of media brands. To advance media brand research, various aspects of different types of media brands must be further explored.
Table 1. Media brand focused research articles published since 2014.
Early media brand research focused on media organisations such as publishers and television networks (Malmelin & Moisander, Citation2014). However, this is not necessarily surprising given that the entertainment media were initially considered as vehicles for brands to advertise in as opposed to brands in their own right (Calder & Malthouse, Citation2008). However, media brands are a broad category and can encompass news programmes, broadcasting and publishing companies, and fictional media, and different media brands have unique characteristics (Sampaio de Oliveira et al., Citation2022). For example, speed and accuracy is highly praised among news media brands but is not necessarily relevant for fictional media brands. Thus, the sub-category of narrative media brands has been proposed (Burgess & Jones, Citation2022) to encompass media brands that have a fictional narrative as their main feature such as movie, television, and video game series to distinguish fictional media brands from factual, broadcasting, or news focused ones.
Narrative media brand management is important to ensure that narrative brands stand out in a crowded market (Kim, Citation2018; Laaksonen et al., Citation2019). Given the importance of the characters and storyworlds at the heart of these narrative media brands (Burgess & Jones, Citation2022), their creators and managers must be aware of the emotional impact they can have on their consumers (Russell & Schau, Citation2014; Siegert et al., Citation2015). However, the marketing knowledge, including the brand management knowledge, of many narrative media brand creators and how they manage their narratives’ characters and storyworlds is an area lacking in research. This article and research thus aims to address this knowledge gap. The findings will advance understandings about the management and marketing practice of the creators of narrative media brands.
Literature review
Media brands and narrative media brands
Media brands are media entities with recognisable characteristics that evoke associations and differentiate themselves (Chan-Olmsted & Hyehyun Kim, Citation2023). Media brands are a broad category (Siegert et al., Citation2015) that can include fictional media such as video game, movie, and television series, and factual media such as news programmes and media organisations (Baumann, Citation2015; Kim, Citation2018; Malmelin & Moisander, Citation2014). It has been acknowledged that these various types of media brands have unique characteristics and contexts that need to be taken into account when formulating a media brand management strategy or undertaking media brand research (Victoria-Mas et al., Citation2018). Factual media, media organisations, and fictional media all provide consumers with different value propositions (Kim, Citation2018). For example, entertainment media brands need to provide pleasure (Burgess & Jones, Citation2020; Siegert et al., Citation2015), while consumers of news media brands require high levels of trust to form relationships with audiences (Sampaio de Oliveira et al., Citation2022).
To help capture and articulate the differences between some types of media brands, the concept of a narrative media brand was introduced. A narrative media brand has a continuing and evolving fictional narrative (Burgess & Jones, Citation2022). The narrative, and by extension the narrative’s characters and storyworld, is the core product and offering of a narrative media brand. Differentiating between a narrative media brand or other more factual types of media brands, such as a news media brand, is helpful to focus research and findings. For example, consumers of narrative media brands can form intense emotional attachments to the brand due to the story and characters (Siegert et al., Citation2015), but this emotional attachment is unlikely to form for a factual media brand. The concept of a narrative media brand synthesises conceptualisations of media brands (Chan-Olmsted & Hyehyun Kim, Citation2023) and narrative brands, a brand that features a continuing story such as a television or video game series (Russell & Schau, Citation2014).
Narrative media brands and audiences
The narrative and characters of a narrative media brand are key to how it is received by audiences. Loyal consumers of narrative media brands will closely scrutinise their continuing narrative developments to ensure they are internally consistent with the prior narrative (Mittell, Citation2015; Williams, Citation2015). Due to the advent of streaming platforms, movie and television narrative media brands can be relatively easily and cheaply accessed and fully consumed in a few or even one sitting, making internal narrative consistency extremely important (Mittell, Citation2015). Furthermore, very loyal consumers of narrative media brands will also often reconsume a narrative media brand, thus making it easier to pinpoint inconsistencies (Jenkins, Citation2012). Consequently, an unsatisfying narrative closure or an inconsistent narrative development may not only impact upon current consumers, but also the potential for future consumers, who may be dissuaded from watching it due to negative word-of-mouth comments. While it was once thought that branding was less important for media brands given that the risk of a negative consumption experience represented minimal harm for their consumers (McDowell, Citation2006), more recent research has established that there are considerable hazards for consumers from a negative narrative media brand experience, and also for narrative brand managers.
If consumers feel that a narrative media brand lacks closure, or a narrative direction is inconsistent, this can lead to a perception of inauthenticity and feelings that a transgression has been committed by the narrative media brand against its consumers (Burgess & Jones, Citation2023b). A brand transgression is deemed to have occurred when audiences and consumers perceive a brand has significantly disconfirmed their expectations guiding its performance (Aaker et al., Citation2004). Consumers react to brand transgressions with a variety of negative emotions including anger, contempt, disappointment, or disgust and can take part in revenge behaviours directed at the brand (Antonetti & Maklan, Citation2017; Kuchmaner et al., Citation2019). If consumers of a narrative media brand do indeed feel a transgression has occurred, then they may take part in value de-construction behaviours (Parmentier & Fischer, Citation2015) including protests, and spreading negative word-of-mouth (Jenkins, Citation2012). Given that narrative brands can also obtain revenue from deals with streaming platforms and tie-in merchandise, transgressions can represent a loss of revenue if consumers boycott these too. There are numerous examples of narrative media brand endings that have prompted negative reactions and outrage indicating narrative media brand creators did not fully understand what can provoke a brand transgression. Some transgression examples are Lost, Dexter, How I Met Your Mother, Mass Effect, and Game of Thrones (Burgess & Jones, Citation2023b).
Even if the narrative media brand’s ending is well received, consumers may feel grief at its loss given their intense emotional attachments (Russell & Schau, Citation2014) that may be formed with their characters and storyworlds (Burgess & Jones, Citation2020; Newman, Citation2006; Russell & Schau, Citation2014). Consumers can even develop feelings of emotional ownership over the narrative media brand due to these intense emotional attachments (Fiske, Citation1992; Roth & Flegel, Citation2014). While recognising their lack of legal ownership, narrative media brand consumers may feel a sense of stewardship and the right to resist continuations or developments of the brand they perceive to be inconsistent or unsatisfactory. For example, consumers of narrative media brands might engage in extensive co-creative activities in addition to the time spent consuming the narrative media brand. Furthermore, a brand’s meaning is socially constructed and negotiated between consumers and brand managers (Bange et al., Citation2020; Russell & Schau, Citation2014). Thus, narrative media brand managers must contend with and be aware of potentially highly engaged and active consumers (Parmentier & Fischer, Citation2015) when managing narrative media brands.
Narrative media brand creators and marketing
It has been proposed that entrepreneurial skills, for example marketing, are valuable for creative practitioners such as narrative media brand creators to ensure they can achieve financial success, take advantage of opportunities, and connect with audiences (Bartleet et al., Citation2019; Daniel & Daniel, Citation2015). The evolution of technology has meant it is easier for creators to create and distribute media and build relationships with their audiences (Bartleet et al., Citation2019). However, creators can also struggle with the idea of approaching their media and creations as a commercial activity, rather than one focused on passion and artistry (de Klerk et al., Citation2015). It is generally accepted that outside of large, international publishers and developers, many smaller independent developers worldwide lack mature business and marketing knowledge (Kerr, Citation2017). Indeed, within Australia, the location of this research, many smaller and independent video game developers do not think of themselves as a business (Keogh, Citation2021). Thus, many independent and smaller video game developers most likely lack brand management and narrative media brand management knowledge and skills. However, given the lack of research into narrative media brand creators and how they manage the characters and storyworlds of their brands, this research aims to explore this knowledge gap. Therefore, this article will address the following research question:
RQ: How do narrative media brand creators manage their narratives including their characters and storyworlds?
Methodology
Approach and data collection
This research adopted an exploratory qualitative approach (Eriksson & Kovalainen, Citation2008) given the lack of research into narrative media brand management. Furthermore, a qualitative approach is appropriate when the context surrounding the research topic is important to understand (Braun & Clarke, Citation2006). Semi-structured interviews with Australian video game developers, representing game design studios, and authors were used as the data collection method. These two different narrative media brands were selected to allow for the exploration of two different media brands that have synergies and similarities that allow for comparison.
Video game developers and authors can work alone to produce their narrative media brands and can choose to publish them independently utilising technology or with a traditional publisher (Bartleet et al., Citation2019; Larson, Citation2020). If they choose to publish independently, then they are responsible for their own marketing and narrative brand management activities. There has been limited research into the brand management of both video game developers and authors. To date, the emerging body of video game brand management knowledge has involved examining the brand image of publishers (Shay & Palomba, Citation2018), the success of brand continuations, for example sequels and spin-offs (Butcher et al., Citation2017), video game brand communities (Weijo et al., Citation2017), and the consumer brand engagement of players (Burgess & Jones, Citation2023b), but not the brand management skills of developers. Likewise, while there have been explorations of the impact of online word-of-mouth on book sales and their reception, there has been limited work exploring the marketing knowledge of authors including their brand management skills (Burgess et al., Citation2023). Both types of narrative media brands have also suffered recent, high-profile transgressions where consumers have rejected narrative developments and protested against the creators. For example, the cases of the fourth Twilight novel, Breaking Dawn, and the ending of the video game Mass Effect 3 (Burgess & Jones, Citation2023b; Parkin, Citation2010). Thus, exploring the creators of both of these different types of narrative media brands will allow for comparison and understanding of two different but synergistic narrative media brand categories.
The use of qualitative methodology and thematic analysis allowed for understandings of the interviewees’ thoughts, feelings, and attitudes regarding their activities in relation to managing their narrative media brands (Guest et al., Citation2012). Semi-structured interviews are an established, efficient, and effective data collection method for research into narrative media brand creators’ production processes (Jørgensen et al., Citation2017; Jørgensen, Citation2019). To ensure the interview participants were sufficiently relaxed, and to assist with gathering rich and high-quality data, the interviews all commenced with “grand tour” questions (Leech, Citation2002). Grand tour questions ask participants about situations they are very familiar with, and thus help them to feel comfortable, which primes them for more cognitively challenging or reflective questions (Leech, Citation2002). The grand tour questions involved gathering background information on each participant. They were asked the number of novels or video games they had published, and if they focused on a specific genre before the interviews turned to eliciting insights into their narrative management. The interviews were initially transcribed using an artificial intelligence powered software, Otter, and then manually checked against the interview audio and edited by a human to ensure accuracy.
Seventeen interviews were conducted with authors, , and fourteen were conducted with video game developers, . Ethics approval from the authors’ institution was sought and granted (no. A201478), and each participant provided informed consent. The participants were recruited via various regional, state, and national Australian literary and video game industry associations, by using the connections of the second and third authors, a published author and a video game developer respectively, and by utilising snowball sampling (Patton, Citation2002).
Table 2. Author interview participants.
Table 3. Video game developer participants.
Data analysis
This research utilised thematic analysis to analyse the data following Braun and Clarke’s guidelines (Citation2006). Thus, a traditional human interpretative approach in combination with the software programme, NVivo 12 plus, was used to allow for greater accuracy of the participants’ meaning (Arvidsson & Caliandro, Citation2016; Kozinets et al., Citation2018). NVivo is a qualitative data analysis software with various functions including generating word frequencies, word clouds, and mind maps among others. For this research, it was purely used as an interface to organise the data and the coding of the data. All of the analysis was manually coded by the first author to ensure accuracy and that industry slang and in-jokes were accounted for and understood, and to maximise the information extracted from the data (Scholz & Smith, Citation2019). The data analysis process was iterative and continuous, and the transcripts were returned to and re-examined to refine codes and groupings as the analysis progressed (McCosker et al., Citation2004). All the transcripts were read prior to the analysis beginning to ensure familiarity with them before commencing the analysis, which thus drew on the phenomenographic approach that is iterative familiarisation, analysis, and then interpretations to consider the collective meaning (Åkerlind, Citation2012; McCosker et al., Citation2004). Regular peer debriefing with the second, third, and fourth authors, two of whom are practitioners and creators of narrative media brands, was then used to validate the thematic analysis (Creswell & Miller, Citation2000). Utilising multiple coders does not necessarily ensure the analysis is more reliable and can simply indicate that the coders have all been trained to code the same way (Braun & Clarke, Citation2013).
Participants
Five of the author participants were male and eleven were female. Participants ranged in age from 26 to 81 with the average age being 50. All 17 participants had published novels, and some had published other forms of creative writing. Ten participants had published via a traditional publisher, ten had published independently via self-publishing or e-books, and some had published via both methods.
Video game developer studios ranged in age from less than a year to eight years old at the time of the interviews and focused on a variety of video game genres. All of the studios were either selling video games or were working on releasing their first game, which they intended to sell. They were all small studios managing their marketing and media branding in-house.
Results and discussion
Twelve of the fourteen developers interviewed felt that the characters, storyworlds, and narratives in their video games were important aspects in the marketing and branding of their narrative media brands. Thus, they recognised this critical aspect of narrative brand management and understood that their video games’ narratives, characters, and storyworlds are important for drawing in players and making sure they care about their games. As one developer explained:
if the game itself really focuses on narrative or storytelling or character as a major factor of the emotional rewards, you need to understand what the market might enjoy or what might be unexpectedly delightful for the market from that perspective.
Interestingly, this was in contrast to the authors. Only eight of the seventeen interviewed authors thought that a novel’s narrative, characters, and storyworld were part of its marketing and branding. Of the nine authors who did feel they were part of their novels’ marketing and brand management, the reasons expressed were similar to the developers. For example, one author noted how it is important to: “identify your audience and aim everything at them including the content of the book.” The other eight authors felt strongly that their writing and creative practice were removed from and separate to all marketing, branding, and business decisions. As one author explained: “That is the creative side, not the business side. I see marketing as very much a business side.” Thus, for this group of authors, the writing, plots, and character design were separate and isolated from any marketing or brand implications or actions.
In our research, more video game developer than author participants viewed narrative, characters, and storyworlds as part of their marketing and branding and they recognised their importance for brand management. This difference is interesting considering that at one time it was questioned whether video games were even capable of containing narratives (Juul, Citation2001), and the interactivity of video games is considered one of the media’s most defining features (Fordyce, Citation2021). The developers interviewed were also more definitive in their answers and were clear and confident in their views and opinions about marketing and brand management, while several of the authors were reluctant to acknowledge that narratives, characters, and storyworlds had marketing and branding implications. For example, one author noted it was “controversial” to think about the marketing and branding aspects of writing and another noted: “I don’t like to admit it”. The reluctance of the author participants aligns to prior research that has acknowledged that creators of narrative media brands often feel a tension between their commercial and creative personae (Bridgstock, Citation2012; de Klerk et al., Citation2015). For the author participants, their narrative media brands consist purely of the narrative, characters, and storyworlds, while for the developer participants these as well as interactivity, art, code, and gameplay are also important aspects of their narrative media brands. The developer participants’ acknowledgement that narrative, characters, and storyworlds were part of their marketing and branding potentially suggests a deeper understanding of marketing than what has been traditionally ascribed to smaller video game narrative media brand creators (Kerr, Citation2017). It also might suggest that given developers often have a focus on the technical issues of game development, such as art and level design (Kerr, Citation2017), they might view the narrative and characters on a more technical level than authors. So, while the narrative and characters are the overwhelming focus of a fiction book, they are only one of several aspects of a video game.
The narrative media brand creators were also asked how they might manage some narrative media brand hypotheticals. Both the developers and authors were presented with a situation where a side character in a video game or novel narrative media brand had become unexpectedly popular and how they might utilise or not utilise the character in future instalments. Nine of the fourteen developers and thirteen of the seventeen authors were open to making changes to future instalments to include that side character or creating spin-offs that focused on them. Both the developers and authors saw the utility of the side character and their positive potential for their narrative media brands. As one developer explained: “it would be the sort of thing I’d be pushing for. A good character (…) that’s quite important to our brand”. Another strongly agreed: “If there’s an easy and like logical way to bring the character back, f***ing bring them back.” The authors interviewed were similarity enthusiastic and open to the idea. As one author explained: “I’d totally be writing her or him into it. Absolutely because if the readers are engaging with a character, then something that I’ve done as a writer has worked.” Three developers were hesitant to further utilise the side character and were worried about oversaturating the audience with the side character, while the author participants, who were not enthusiastic to include the side character, emphasised that it was their belief in their story that determined what happened to their characters.
The narrative media brand creators were also given a second hypothetical, this time involving a possible sequel to a published narrative media brand for which they had some narrative ideas. However, part of the hypothetical was the creators finding out their audiences’ online conversations suggested they would dislike the ideas. Four of the fourteen developers and seven of the seventeen authors were insistent that they would not change their narrative ideas feeling that they had to be true to their creativity and the story they wanted to tell. For example, as one developer explained: “I think we’d still aim to do what we felt was right artistically.” One author put it more bluntly: ‘’Yeah, it’s my story. I don’t actually know if this would change that.’
Some of the narrative media brand creators were open to changing the idea in the right conditions. Four developers and six authors felt they would change the direction of their narrative media brand depending on the number and scale of the negative comments from their audiences. As one author explained:
I suppose if it was just one reader, maybe not. But if it turns out there is quite a lot of readers who would be really unhappy if I did that sort of thing, then I would probably take it into account.
Overall, the video game narrative media brand creators, who were interviewed, were more likely to understand the overall utility of narrative, characters, and storyworlds in their narrative media brands marketing and brand management. However, the results suggest more mixed understandings of the deeper role that narrative, characters, and storyworlds play in narrative media brands. The characters of a narrative media brand are highly important for the construction and management of that brand given the emotional connection consumers develop towards their characters (Burgess & Jones, Citation2023b; Newman, Citation2006; Russell & Schau, Citation2014). Characters are how consumers become attached to and interested in a narrative media brand (Mittell, Citation2015; Williams, Citation2015). The video game developer and author participants in general appeared to understand and could see the utility of expanding the prominence of a character, who attracted attention, despite that attention being unexpected. However, when they had to grapple with managing a negative, unexpected event, they were much more resistant. A proportion of the developers and authors interviewed were unwilling to reconsider narrative ideas at all, while some were willing to do so if there was something problematic about what they had planned, or they had overlooked some details, or if there was some negative feedback. The participants appeared to be looking at managing their narratives through a creative perspective, rather than a branding and commercial one. While the video game developer participants could recognise the utility of using narratives, characters, and storyworlds in marketing and branding their video games, they and the author participants appeared unwilling to utilise potential audience feedback to do so. This focus on the creative, rather than the commercial or branding, could be indicative of the tension between their commercial and creative personae as established in prior research (Bridgstock, Citation2012; de Klerk et al., Citation2015). If so, that would indicate that their knowledge and practice has not advanced, despite various examples of narrative media brand transgressions.
Narrative media brands are entertainment brands that provide hedonic benefits. Feelings of grief and loss can be prompted when consumers feel a narrative media brand (Burgess & Jones, Citation2023b; Russell & Schau, Citation2014) has negatively disconfirmed their expectations and thus this should be carefully avoided. Audiences can engage in various negative activities such as boycotts, protests, and negative word-of-mouth that can adversely impact on not just the current narrative media brand, but their potential spin-offs or continuations (Burgess & Jones, Citation2023b). However, given the results of this research and continued examples of narrative media brand transgressions (Burgess & Jones, Citation2023b; Parkin, Citation2010), and despite the growth in media brand management research, they would suggest that industry knowledge has not necessarily evolved to avoid these transgressions. The narrative media brand creators interviewed overall were not considering their audiences and how to avoid negative feedback and transgressions. Thus, in terms of the narrative media brand creators interviewed, it would appear that most did not fully appreciate the role of audiences in the construction of narrative media brands and thus narrative media brand management.
Conclusion
Despite the growth of media brand management research, there remains research gaps concerning narrative media brands and the brand management knowledge of their creators. Although it is known that narrative media brands are socially co-constructed by audiences (Bange et al., Citation2020; Russell & Schau, Citation2014), there continue to be instances of transgressions where audiences turn against narrative developments, conclusions, and creators (Burgess & Jones, Citation2023b). The results of our interviews with the creators of two types of narrative media brands, video games and novels, found that the participants had a general appreciation for how they can use their narratives, characters, and storyworlds in the management and marketing of their brands. This was true particularly for the video game developers interviewed.
Nonetheless, deeper understandings regarding the critical role of these in their management were more mixed and creators were resistant to changes due to negative audience feedback. Given the emotional connections that audiences form with the narratives, characters, and storyworlds of narrative media brands, and the impact these connections can have on consumer perceptions, this would appear to be a risk for their creators and managers. The risk of consumer and audience dissatisfaction could be lessened with narrative media brand training and market research tools and resources for narrative media brand creators. The training could highlight the role that audiences/consumers play in constructing narrative media brands and how they assess a narrative media brand’s authenticity. While creators can publish or develop anything they choose, audiences will also develop emotional attachments and expectations and will react if these are disconfirmed.
This research was limited to being conducted by interviewing video game developers and authors of narrative media brands in a single country, Australia. Future research could examine narrative media brand creators from multiple countries to see if there are cultural and geographic differences in creators’ knowledge and viewpoints. This research has added to the body of literature exploring and understanding media branding and narrative media brands and provided insights concerning how narrative media brand creators manage the narratives, characters, and storyworlds within their narrative media brands.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Jacqueline Burgess
Dr. Jacqueline Burgess is a Lecturer in International Business and the Program Coordinator of the Bachelor of Business in the School of Business and Creative Industries at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. Her research investigates the marketing and business aspects of the Creative Industries, and she has collaborated with various practitioners. Her work has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals including the European Journal of Marketing, Game Studies, the International Journal on Media Management, and the Creative Industries Journal. She has also presented at various academic conferences and been covered by local and international news outlets.
Paul Williams
Dr. Paul Williams is the Discipline Lead of Creative Industries and a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing in the School of Business and Creative Industries at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. Paul has published on genre writing, creative writing pedagogy, and practice research, and is an award-winning international author of crime fiction, memoir, literary fiction, short stories, and young adult fantasy and mystery. His academic work has been published in various journals and his latest books are Novel Ideas: Writing Innovative Fiction (Macmillan, 2020) and the crime novels Twelve Days (2019), and Don’t Tell (2020).
Alexander Muscat
Dr. Alexander Muscat is a video game developer, educator, researcher, and the Game Design Study Component Coordinator at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. In addition, Alexander is developing, with assistance from Vic Screen, Site Unseen, a perceptual puzzle game that expands on his previously award-nominated experimental game, WORLD4. Alexander’s expertise merges theory, design, and practice. He regularly organizes events including game jams, esports competitions, and conferences, and has shared his knowledge at academic and industry events worldwide.
Anthony Grace
Dr. Anthony Grace is a Lecturer in Business, the Assurance of Learning Lead, and the Assistant Deputy Head of School (Research) at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. Anthony has extensive experience designing employability and technology-based curriculums, while also producing high-quality research and gaining competitive grants (totalling $207,000 since 2014). His work has been published in various highly ranked journals including the Journal of Strategic Marketing, Journal of Marketing Channels and Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal.
Christian Jones
Christian Jones is Professor of Interactive Media and the leader of the Engage Research Lab at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. His research focuses on human–computer interaction, interactive media, and affective computing. He leads multiple large-scale, collaborative projects and his research has been published in over 100 international, peer-reviewed conference and journal articles. His work has also been covered by various journalists in news outlets.
Amy Curran
Amy Curran is an Honours research student in the School of Business and Creative Industries at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. Her research focuses on social media and her current project involves understanding how influencers can utilize it to build a following and achieve beneficial marketing outcomes. Amy also works in Marketing and Events and as a research assistant.
Jana Voelker
Jana Voelker is an Honours research student in the School of Business and Creative Industries at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. She is exploring the consumer behaviour behind the decision to use mobile or non-mobile payments and the effect of different cultures on these differences. Jana also works in digital and social media marketing and as a research assistant.
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