UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL MEDIA MEME ADVERTISEMENT CONSUMPTION AMONG GENERATION Z IN MALAYSIA: A QUALITATIVE STUDY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37231/apj.2024.7.2.563Abstract
Abstract: Meme advertisements is one of a powerful marketing tool to promote products or services as they can help a company go viral quickly which has become a current trend. This research aims to discover the reason of Malaysian Generation Z consume social media meme advertisement. This research applies phenomenological qualitative methods and interviews as data collection methods. The researcher conducted an in-depth interview with six participants among Generation Z in Malaysia aged between 21 to 22. All the data gathered have been analysed using thematic analysis in NVivo software. The findings of this research show that six factors influence university students to consume meme advertisements. The first factor is diversion which is the need for entertainment and the second factor is personal relationships, which is the need to interact with others. The third factor is surveillance which is the need to gain information from the media, fourth is the nature of the brand which is only based on a certain nature of business, and fifth is engagement which is the brand has interaction with the social media users. The findings of this research are able to provide ideas and guidelines to companies to create advertisements by using meme photos to attract potential consumers, especially the young generation.
Keywords: Generation Z; media consumption; meme advertisement; social media; qualitative research.
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