Social media has been described as a platform for discussing ideas,
communicating experiences and exchanging knowledge. It has changed the
way individuals interact, providing massive amount of data and rich
market insight as customers and brands engage and build relationships.
This public declaration is of great concern for any organisation as it
transfers the power to shape brand images from the hands of advertisers
to the words of consumers' online connections.

This chapter sets an agenda proposing the possibilities of qualitatively
analysing user-generated content on social media platforms to provide
insight into attitudes towards advertisements and their brands. Unlike
participants being interviewed in a focus group, filling in
questionnaires or neuroscience providing insight into how the mind
perceives advertisements which typically requires expensive, bulky
equipment and lab-type settings that limit and influence the experience,
this is readily available public data which can be thematically analysed
to add to existing knowledge.

Presenting the idea, publicly declared responses to the advertisements
of UK banks on Facebook were analysed in order to gain insight into
their perceptions and attitudes towards the advertisements and their
brands. An outline of how to perform an analysis of user-generated
content was provided to buttress the research method. Challenges and
limitations of this research method were also considered.