Media and Trends in Business

Media and Trends in Business

March 5, 2019 1 By Satida Dhanarajata

          How do media change and shape our society in the Business part? Does media change the way we doing the business or does it affect any of the business model? In this globalization era, we are all changing the way we spending our life in both lifestyle, business, activity, and education. In this blog I will explain about the Business that have changes through the time of technology development by using the Social Media and trends by using the example of Kardashians family and their businesses. Business trends have been strongly motivated by the use of media from both corporations and individuals as media is the most powerful communication tool these days. This research aims to examine eight different theories in business and how they are integrated with media and trends.

First with the “Postmodernism and Hyperreality theory” these theories are one of the biggest example we can see in Kardashians reality shows. As we all know that their reality do not contain all real situations, and we watch it because we want to be like what we sees and that it shows how the reality and media are collapse and hide many trends which could helps to sell or promote their family or friends products.

In this globalization era, we do not only spend our life in the real world but also stay in another world which is the cyberspace. Cyberspace is a space that most of us spend in our daily routine.It does not have oxygen, food, or land. None of us actually the owner of all. It is a place that we can find information, education, and also share and receive information just by a few minutes. It is a place that we can find things very fast or we all known as “Social media” or “Internet” . We spend our life in both the real world and internet world, so we can see that cyberspace and real world have combined together and become our world today. As the cyberspace and real world collide, we can also find many business and connection to other lives as well which it also changes our lifestyle in many ways. We can study and also find information just by unlock our smartphone. In this complicated and ever-changing new platform, one famous reality show called “Keeping up with the Kardashians” has emerged and taken the world by storm.

picture of the Kardashians family members for the “Keeping up with the Kardashians” reality show.

We can see many postmodernist events that has been showing a lot in this reality TV. For example, when they talk about the life they have to their friends and family members while having the camera filming it without looking at the camera all the time which makes their fans feels like they are actually in the scene and are one of the members. Moreover, the Kardashians can use this as their business tools. You can see that before Kylie launched out her Kylie lip kit and The KKW products, she gave it out to her family and other celebrity friends while in the TV shows it contains the content where she uses her products every day in the morning. So when it comes to the time that Kylie finally launched out her products, they were sold out within 3 minutes from her website. People took pictures of them or even film a vlog using the cosmetics and upload on social media. Then later within a week, the hashtag of Kylie lip kits became top hashtags in both twitter and instagram.

Kristen Mary Jenner is crying due to the misunderstanding with her daughter.

Post from Kylie lips kit Twitter saying that their product are sold.

Reviews from many influencer in many countries using KKW kits.

Talking about the Hyperreality, some of us know that the Keeping up with the Kardashian reality show does not contain all of their real life. They will not put all of the things they did in the show and they would cut and show only the interesting or the dramatic part in their show or they might have the script in their TV show.

However, their fans are still watching this TV show because they like dramas and they think that by watching their lives, they can have a glimpse at some parts of the Kardashians life as well. Also, the Kardashians are still able to promote their family business and other company products on the reality show. For example, in the latest season of Keeping up with the Kardashians, after Kylie has given birth to her kid, Stormi, she promoted and wore a waist trainer when they were having their morning workout. Kylie also posted her picture wearing the waist trainer and wrote a caption that it is her tips to help her body recovers fast. Then the next day, the clinical professor Mary Jane Minkin came out and said that the waist trainers did not help her body recover but rather only suffocated. The product nonetheless was sold out in days.

Picture of Kylie’s instagram post that she is promoting a product.

Pictures of informations providing that the weight training cannot help body becomes firm like Kylie said.

Most people who watch the Keeping up with Kardashians know that they cannot afford or spend their life like all of the Kardashian members. However, they keep watching as they want to have the life like that which they can experience through the show and we call this behavior as Society of Spectacle. We can watch it because we want to be one of them or to have their awesome and cool life. With this reason, some of their fans will find the products they can afford to buy. As we can see from that the DASH shop selling clothes and the accessories that has the same looks or brand as those Kardashians are using. The shop has become a trend in the social network by wearing the bodycon like Kylie, Victoria Secrets lingeries that Kendall wears.

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Pictures of Kendall Jenner on the Victoria Secret fashion shows.

Another theory know as “Gratification” or it known as the theory that people will only give attention on their interest and if the business owner know how to use this theory and put their products to the right media platform, they will definitely gains huge number of customers. For example, the fans that follow members of the Kardashians do not follow every one of them. They will follow only the one that they like or they feel related to. For example, those who like the shape of skinny models of Victoria Secrets model will follow Kendall. Those who like the hourglass body and the cosmetics might follow Kylie. Then, those who like the clean and healthy routine might fit more with the Kourtney. Still Kardashians family is smart enough to use this different fanbase to promote their products to reach diverse races, languages, genders, and others. As they cannot force their fans to follow other members of their family, they instead use their friends and family members to spread all of their products through the social media which is the way that Kardashians can use all of their social media to increase their customers.

Pictures of KKW products

We can see that the Kardashians and Jenners family is a smaller group of people within a large society but maintain their unique cultural identities. For example, the Kardashians famous reality TV show, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians focuses on the Kardashian-Jenner sisters and their mother which is portrayed as a small group of people, and we all know that they are worldwide famous, so I consider them to be known from a large society and we call this ‘Pluralism’. Even though they are just a minority group from the whole society but they got the others’ attention by having their own uniqueness to identify with others such as their own famous catch words or “the Kardashian Language” that you always find in their reality show.

Here is some examples of the famous Kardashians Slangs

Then Kim Kardashian West, one of the Kardashian-Jenner sisters, as known as the popular one with the sex tape, has brought these media-viral-slangs into her own emojis or emoticons called “Kimoji” and make money out of it.

Moreover, there is Stereotype which is when you categorize someone into a group that seems to be fit for that person, and mostly when you stereotype someone, it is often interpreted in a bad way. Similarly, prejudices and stereotypes usually confuse us because they are all based on a prior assumption of what we call a “bias.”

Stereotypes are often created when talking about races, genders, cultures, and more. For a gender stereotype example as a case of the Keeping Up with the Kardashians cable network reality show, there are many theories and critiques about gender stereotypes on the show and here are some of them,

  • There is a huge gender stereotype that women belong in the home and not out making careers or money for themselves because most of the content in KUWTK are filmed inside their home.
  • On the show, women are portrayed as dumb and useless because the show mainly focused on the drama between the sisters and their mother, their sexualized bodies, more than their achievements so the Kardashians-Jenners have been portrayed as a no-talented family even though they are billionaires.

For stereotypes in Business, Kanye West’s Yeezys is a very interesting example, especially in Thailand where many trendy Bangkok teenagers are often being stereotyped.

But first, let me tell you why Yeezy has become a trend.

In 2015, Adidas Yeezy has released the products in very limited quantities, which means the shoes became a super rare item. One year later, the outcome and feedback were excellent. Those sneakerheads (stereotyped) started to buy them continually, resell them in a higher price, and/or collect them as a rare item.

Kylie Jenner wearing Yeezy Boost 350 V2 Triple White

Paris Hilton wearing Yeezy 500 Desert Rat Salt

Yeezy became the talk of the town because many well-known celebrities who has big influences on social media wore them and shared it online, so it all went viral worldwide which means Bangkok has already seen the trend and those stereotyped as rich kids have followed them. They proudly wore them to department store where everyone, especially Thai teenagers, go. So, they have been stereotyped as rich but dumb people, or spoiled kids who do not know the value of money.

Thai Teenager buying Yeezys

Thai Teenager wearing Yeezy in a popular department store

In addition, there are so many trending hashtags on Twitter and other social media about yeezy going viral such as #yeezy#yeezyboost#yeezus#yeezymafia

According to Marshall McLuhan’s ‘the medium is the message‘, the medium is not only a vehicle to carry the message to reach its audience, but it also shapes how people feel, perceive, and understand the true meaning behind each message more effectively. In this case, the Kardashians and Jenner family are the medium themselves as they use nothing other than their identity and image to promote their business and advertise their products. Kylie Jenner, as one of the most prominent instances, advertises her cosmetic line using only herself and her social media account. However, she did not verbally promote her product but instead used it on her daily basis and fans then supported her offerings from that. The fact that she has curated her lifestyle as a glamorous, high-power, luxury helps strengthening the message and branding of the family as the royalty that people want to  be. The whole family in itself is the most powerful and influential media in catapulting the sales and marketing the brand.

Kylie Jenner using her own cosmetic line on her daily basis and post it on Instagram

Kylie Jenner using her lip kits

Kylie Jenner promotes her product by post pictures on her Instagram

The growing range in technology help business to grow better and drive a trend. In the case of Kardashians and Jenner Family, they used these advance technology as a tool to help grab as much audience as they can in order to grow their business. For example Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner use different media platform to promote and sell her products by putting the link of their website  and in their Instagram bio so when people visit their instagram and interested in their produces the audience can order the product right away and this is the Media Convergence theory. Furthermore, in their websites Kim and Kylie also put a link to their official Facebook page ,Twitter and Instagram of their brand to trap the audience and promote her product in any possible way.

Kim put a link to her website  on her Instagram bio

Kylie put a link of her business website  and Instargram @kyliecosmetics on her personal Instagram bio.

Kylie put a link to Kylie Cosmetics Official Facebook page,Twitter and Instagram on her website

In addition, the Kardashian and Jenner family use different kind of media in order to tell their stories by posting different things in different media platform which makes the audiences get involved with them. For example, Kylie usually post a picture of her actual product of her Kylie Cosmetic on Instagram and website but she also has a youtube channels to show how to use the product in an effective ways by showing a makeup tutorial. Kylie Cosmetic Instagram also repost lots of pictures of people who are using their products to gain trust from the audience. Moreover she use snapchat to show more reality side such as how her Lip Kit was made and give the audience a tour of her factories in order to make them feel more involved in her business and get to know the product better which persuade the audience to purchase her product.

Kylie Cosmetics instagram posting a pictures of their products

Kylie Cosmetic Instagram reposting a pictures of people who is using their product

Makeup tutorial on Kylie Cosmetics youtube channel showing how to use their product

Kylie Cosmetics website shows their products

Kylie Snapchat story when she was visiting her Kylie Cosmetics factory

 Mcdonaldization is one important theory that should be explain in every business models. This example can be seen that Kyliecosmetics control the business by launching out their products using the same company and the same chemical. She also set the same price and time to sell her cosmetics all over the world. Every promotions and gift aways are the same in every store around the world to maintain the quality and ease to calculate and control the quality of their products. Her products are mainly on the quality not the quantity, which is why it takes some time to launch her new collections and we also have to wait for her to restock the products. In addition, Kylie uses and promotes her products on social media to gain more consumers and also followers.


All in all, media nowadays are technologically driven the world more than ever and trends are currently one of the most powerful media tool, especially in business and lifestyle. We can see that as the world are getting better in technological and develop news systems, people and society also changes by its impact by many way like the way we using our lifestyle and how we are doing the business. Not only the owner but also the customer that change the way they buying or selling products which changes our lifestyle from going to the shopping mall everything we needed to see products or find something to going to the cyberspace. It is obvious that most trends and hashtags on social media have a very powerful impact to the audience. In the case of how Kardashians-Jenners family use social media to promote a majority of their products, the feedback is positively efficient which drives the business to the top because of their media popularity and the power of hashtags that help reach to many different target audiences. Therefore, we use these eight theories that we mentioned above, including Postmodernism, Hyperreality, Society of Spectacle, Gratification, Pluralism, Stereotype, Marshall McLuhan’s Theory, and the Media convergence in Keeping Up with the Kardashians represent a very effective case study to evaluate the understanding of media and trends in our world business.