Can negative characters in soap operas be positive for product placement?

Investigating narrative involvement, parasocial interactions, and impulse buying behaviours within a second screen social commerce context

“…Characters within a TV series provide fashion information by wearing products through both paid and unpaid product placements (PWC, 2016). Dias et al (2017) propose that soap opera characters build up PSI relationships with their audience through the series narrative and this positively influences purchase decisions of featured products. The narrative involvement has a two-fold effect, once with the story line and then secondly, mediated and enhanced by the narrative involvement with the influencer themselves.…”

“…The influencer will provide a second narrative linking the products into their own lifestyle choices. The Parasocial Interaction (PSI) therefore occurs with both the TV characters and the influencer and can be considered to have multi-channel PSI effects (Dias, 2017;Xiang et al, 2016). Yuan et al (2016) suggest that social media content on a second screen becomes an essential platform for developing PSI relationships between audiences and characters.…”

The Relationship Between Parasocial Theory and Brand Placement

“…In addition, several questions remain unanswered with this example as it remains unclear whether it has an impact on brand attitude in a positive way or not. Dias et al (2017) agree with and argue that an audience member may even form parasocial relationship with bad characters, for instance, despite the fact that a character who is represented as a murderer in the drama Dexter, an audience member may even form parasocial relationship plausibly with this negative character because an audience member is aware of the fact that this character is a fictional character. Knoll et al (2015) state that in the case of PSI, when the impact is affective (emotional), viewers engage more intensely with good behaved characters.…”

Television Serials as Career Stepping Stones: An Empirical Analysis of Employment Paths of Professional Actors

“…The existent academic literature on soap operas typically adopts a sociological lens, with studies predominantly addressing cultural, gender and reception issues (Dunleavy 2009;Hayward 2009;Brasch 2006;Reijnders et al 2006;Brennan 2004;Götz 2000;Greenberg and Woods 1999;O'Donnell 1999;Liebes and Livingstone 1998;Riegel 1996;Allen 1995). Research on economic and business aspects of soaps and related formats is scarce (Opitz and Hofmann, 2008;Franck and Nüesch 2007) and has mainly analyzed product placements and consumer behavior (Dias et al 2017;Russell and Stern 2006). Despite a broad and well-established literature on cultural labor markets in which artists participate as suppliers of their services (Towse K 2006;Throsby 2006;Menger 2006;Alper and Wassall 2006;Caserta and Cuccia 2001;Benhamou 2000;Throsby 1996), research on individual actors 1 as central inputs in the production of media content, if existent, focuses on motion picture artists and film stars (Hofmann 2021;McKenna 2019;Hofmann and Opitz 2019;Wirtz et al 2016a;Wirtz et al 2016b;Jones and DeFillippi 1996).…”