Is Selfie Moving Towards Popular Culture? - Application of Selfie Phenomenon and Extension of Digital Self in Television Ads

Up until the early 2000s the content from television had found space in the internet, especially on the social networking sites where content such as news, soap operas, dramas, and movies, traditionally viewed and consumed on television was now also being consumed online by the consumers. However, recently a reverse phenomenon has been observed, where an internet trend, more specifically a social networking phenomenon namely, selfie, has found a space in the television advertisements, promotional activities and soap operas on televisions. This phenomenon in the last few years has been used extensively for the purpose of advertising and promotions. For instance, in 2015 a soap opera show named, Master Chef India, had announced a contest where, the interested audience were asked to prepare a special dish cooked by them, take a selfie with the dish and send it through Whatsapp. This provides marketer a direct interaction platform with the consumers. One of the factors that determine consumption is the affirmation of identity. Consumers seek to build some sort of congruity between themselves and brand so that the brand they use becomes meaningful to them. Therefore, it is essential for a consumer to select those brands that are in tune with their self-identity. An individual’s profile page on various social networking sites is like a reflection of them self and their self image. The digital self is created in the online communication with no intervention of feedback or external environmental factors. The digital self is more of the reflection of one’s inner world, which focuses on the thoughts, feelings, emotions and personalities of an individual. The digital self is often represented in a manner in which the negatively perceived physical attribute of a person could be changed into a positively perceived digital representation. This paper aims to conceptualise how the marketer uses the concept of digital self through the selfie phenomenon in the offline context, and how this has become a part of the popular culture where the digital self is extended from the online sphere to the offline sphere.


Introduction
People are learning and practicing a new form of devotion, where they are collectively worshipping their own digital altar selves. Today the consumers are simultaneously both empowered and incarcerated by the Smartphone's on which they are sharing images and pictures of themselves with their loved ones at an unprecedented scale. According to Glum, (2015) an average Gen Y and Z takes around 25,700 selfies in their entire life. According to Thomas (2014) globally people take more than 1 million selfies per day. Brands are taking this as an opportunity to not only reach their consumers but also interact with them and engage them at a more intimate level where now the consumers get to do what they enjoy the most and now they get to do it with their favourite brand. Where the brand merged with the person becomes the object of aesthetic beauty. The merger between the selfies and brands works in perfect sync with each other helping both the stake holders. Thousands of brands have already started to use selfie in their advertising campaigns and have made some of the very successful campaigns.
The selfie phenomenon is being used not only as a part of the storyline of the advertisement but also as a larger marketing strategy in order to interact with the consumers. There are three key causes of adoption of the selfie phenomenon in advertising, for one it is cost effective, two it is easy to instantly share selfies on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and lastly it has become a part of the popular culture where people have adopted taking their own photos from the various digital devices as a part of their daily life. It is therefore the brands have started

Conclusion
At present, most of the brands are using the selfie phenomenon in which the taker of a selfie is representing them and expressing their feelings. The key aim of the brands is both to widen their reach and also make the consumers share a part of their digital self with the brand. This approach not only helps the brands but it also makes the consumer feel as an important part of the brand. Again the entire debate on whether the adverting on television will suffer negatively due to the advertising internet has been in some way solved by the marketers. As they have started using one common campaign as a point of integration between the internet and television. Rather it is a perfect marriage between the old media and new media, of a self-portrait taken on smart phone, posted on social networking sites, is then shown to the larger audience on the television on various advertisements and soap operas.
The entire concept of selfies have been so much internalized that now with the selfies sticks, go-pro water proof digital cameras and drone camera people have now started taking pictures of their self doing various adventurous things and activities. A digital phenomenon started in 2013 is still it-thing even in 2016, which is to say a lot as the digital phenomenon has a tendency to become a trend real fast and the trend going away even faster.
Selfies ad campaign has been used for social cause marketing, brand promotion and advertising across the sector and across the categories. For instance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his 2014 general election campaign took selfies with the BJP followers during the entire campaign period and also took a selfie on the day of election after he voted. In 2015 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi led a social campaign to save girl child and launched it with a selfie ad campaign asking the citizens of the country on a monthly radio address to take selfie with their daughters and post/share it social media sites with hash tag #SelfieWithDaughter. It was an attempt to recognize and celebrate the girl child as part of his 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (Save the Daughter, Educate the Daughter) campaign. In an attempt to associate and interact with the young audience, Signature brand of premium whiskey launched a selfie campaign purely through the signature selfie mobile app. Most stylish signature selfie was selected and the winner got a private portfolio shoot with fashion photographer Atul Kasbekar. The signature selfie app also came with features such as 5-