Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has become the main social practice that influences all contents in the advertising. It has become a crucial time for brands to monitor what they advertise as it can be beneficial or sensitive. Most brands in the industry are creating content surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak. The milk formula industry is one of the industries that has connected their content from the influence of the social practice of the COVID-19 pandemic. Milk formula brands have opted to use their social media to advertise their product through fear based emotional appear towards parents. In the advertisement, they emphasised the milk formula brands offer the best for their children so that parents will not need to worry from the COVID-19 on their children. This research is a qualitative research focusing on social practice analysis from Fairclough (1995) critical discourse analysis. 3 super premium milk formula brands Facebook description content advertisement were analysed. 3 Facebook descriptions were analysed for every brand, one from 2019 before the COVID-19 outbreak, one from 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia and one in 2021, one year with the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings showed that the content from the milk formula brands for the pre COVID-19 outbreak was very generic and the product based on the Facebook descriptions in 2020 and 2021 included the COVID-19 content explicitly and implicitly. This showed that the social practice of the COVID-19 pandemic had influenced the content of the milk formula in a big way via its Facebook description post and how the industry is adapting to the pandemic situation and assuring parents that their brands are the best to protect their children. It is hoped that the future research could be done on the milk formula advertisements and the effectiveness of the digital advertising in comparison to the traditional advertising for the milk formula industry.
Highlights
Advertising is one of the biggest industries that is used by most brands to advertise their product or services
Based on the findings and discussion for this study, it shows that through Fairclough’s (1995) critical discourse analysis third dimension of social practice analysis, the COVID-19 pandemic played a big role in the content and messaging of AptaGro, Enfagrow A+ mindpro and Friso Gold’s Facebook description advertisements
Once COVID-19 was in Malaysia, more fear-based emotional content was used by AptaGro to get parents to try the brand
Summary
Advertising is one of the biggest industries that is used by most brands to advertise their product or services. In 2020 alone, Facebook had 2.7 billion active users (Statista, 2021) whilst Instagram has 1 billion active users (Statista, 2021). Brands have opted to advertise their product or services through social media, in order to have a bigger and closer impact to their target audience (Appel et al, 2020). This is because, social media is used for users to socialise, and when brands advertise through social media, it brings the brand and users closer together. It can be seen that many milk formula brands have shifted their messaging according to the social practice influence of the COVID-19 pandemic
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