The second part of our OSP CSP work is on the Audience and Industry contexts for Marcus Rashford and Kim Kardashian.
This will focus more on how technology, the internet and social media have changed society and culture for audiences and industries.
Audience
Target audience: demographics and psychographics
What is the target audience for two CSPs?
- Demographics: CAGE?
- Psychographics?
Audience engagement
Instagram engagement rate is a measure of how much audiences engage with posts (e.g. likes, comments). An engagement rate of 1-3% is considered good and anything 6%+ is extremely high.
Marcus Rashford’s power as an influencer is shown by his engagement rate of 6% (although recently this has dropped to 3.2% due to increasing his follower count and focusing more on football rather than his brand development).
Source: https://starngage.com/app/gb/influencers/marcusrashford
Kim Kardashian's engagement rate is lower at 0.33% but she has over 350 million followers so can still reach and engage with huge audiences.
Celebrity influences: appeal to audiences
What is the appeal of Marcus Rashford and Kim Kardashian to audiences? Think about their campaigns, use of social media and brand associations. Also, consider their appeal to different audiences.
Use Blumler and Katz Uses and Gratifications theory:
- Diversion
- Personal Identity
- Personal Relationships
- Surveillance/information
Industries
Marcus Rashford net worth
Marcus Rashford’s net worth has been estimated at around £16m (source: Sunday Times rich list). This includes:
- £300,000 per week from Manchester United (£15.6m a year)
- £2m endorsement deal with Nike
- Additional deals with Burberry, Jaguar Land Rover, Coca-Cola and others
He is also the youngest person to top the Sunday Times Giving List for raising £20m for good causes.
Kim Kardashian net worth
Kim Kardashian’s net worth has been estimated at $1.7 BILLION. This is from:
- The Kardashians TV show on Hulu is a $100m deal
- Her brands SKIMS, KKW Beauty and many more
Watch the following videos of Marcus Rashford and Kim Kardashian to get an understanding of their brands and commercial partners.
- What do the companies get from an association with Rashford or Kardashian?
- Thinking about media language, how do these adverts create an emotional connection between the brand and audience?
- How do the clips help Rashford or Kardashian control or build their own brand?
Marcus Rashford: Nike - New Normal
Marcus Rashford: Coca-Cola
Kim Kardashian: Meat alternative
Kim Kardashian Hollywood mobile game
Industries: ownership, control and regulation
Twitter/X
- Twitter was started by Jack Dorsey in 2006. It has over 500 million active users worldwide.
- Twitter’s revenue is around $3 billion.
- Twitter makes most of its money through advertising – promoted tweets or ‘trend takeovers’.
- Marcus Rashford has 7m X followers, Kim Kardashian 75m.
- In 2022 Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 BILLION and has since added controversial new features and renamed it X.
- Instagram is an image and video sharing site launched in 2010.
- In 2012 it was bought by Facebook for $1 billion. Facebook and Instagram’s parent company is now called Meta – a global conglomerate.
- Instagram has over a billion active users worldwide and more than 25 million users in the UK alone.
- Instagram revenue in 2023 was $61 BILLION.
- Marcus Rashford has over 17m Instagram followers, Kim Kardashian 350m.
- Over 40% of Instagram users are aged under 23.
- Research suggests that Instagram is damaging to mental health – particularly for teenage girls.
- Facebook’s own research suggested this – but they allegedly kept this secret.
- The research suggested one in three girls felt bad about their bodies and Instagram made this worse. It is also linked to increased anxiety and depression.
The government is introducing the Online Safety bill to try and add regulation of the internet to Ofcom’s role as media regulator. This includes:
- Sending threatening posts being punishable by jail sentences.
- Platforms like X and Instagram having to actively prevent users seeing harmful material – or risk being fined by Ofcom.
- Platforms paying Ofcom to regulate their content.
Finally, here is Marcus Rashford talking to Sky Sports News about what should be done about online abuse:
OSP: Audience and Industries blog tasks
Work through the following tasks to complete our OSP work:
Audience
1) Who are the potential target audiences for Marcus Rashford and Kim Kardashian's online content? Try and cover both demographics and psychographics.
2) Marcus Rashford’s online presence is partly driven by his excellent use of social media. How does he use social media to engage with his fans and make them feel part of his brand?
3) What is Instagram engagement rate and what engagement rates do Marcus Rashford and Kim Kardashian have?
4) Go to Marcus Rashford and Kim Kardashian's X or Instagram account. Find and screenshot/link three posts that show the different aspects of their brand e.g. Relatable person (normal, down to earth), Campaigner (interested in politics), Celebrity (e.g. awards ceremony or fashion), Brand promotion (e.g. selling a product).
6) Applying Stuart Hall's Reception theory, what would a preferred and oppositional reading of Marcus Rashford and Kim Kardashian's online presence be?
- Preferred reading (people who support Rashford/Kardashian):
- Oppositional reading (people who criticise Rashford/Kardashian):
Industries
1) What is Marcus Rashford and Kim Kardashian's net worth and how does their online presence help them to make money?
2) What companies/brands are Rashford and Kardashian associated with? Why might they want to be linked to those celebrities?
3) Research Twitter/X and Instagram. Who owns the companies, how do they make money and how much profit did they make last year?
4) What are the worries about Instagram’s negative effects?
5) How do social media platforms manage online abuse on their platforms and why has Marcus Rashford drawn attention to this? How might this change in the future?
6) What happened by law in 2022 that changed the way the internet is regulated? Write three changes that this new law may bring in and explain why it is difficult to regulate the internet.
Due date: on Google Classroom
Grade 8/9 extension tasks
Look at this Marcus Rashford tweet. How does this help Rashford create a positive representation of himself and also control the media narrative?
Read this Guardian feature on Marcus Rashford being a Hero of 2020. What representation of Rashford does this offer?
Read this Guardian Books interview with Marcus Rashford. How does Rashford's work on reading and literacy help his reputation? Can you find any other interesting representations here?
Read this news story on Rashford being named one of the top ten most powerful black Britons. What does this suggest about race and ethnicity in Britain and the British media?
How does Marcus Rashford's online presence reflect modern society and culture?
Read this Sky Sports interview with Marcus Rashford saying online abuse should be easier to stop. What does he think the companies should be doing to regulate it?
If you want to test yourself at A Level or even degree level, try reading this chapter from A Level Media theorist Clay Shirky called Publish, Then Filter. How does Shirky suggest the internet has changed the way we engage with the media?
