Brand Control in Social Media by Katarina Bellman

Brand Control in Social Media A study of the true brand owner in the transparent world of social media Katarina Bellman & Philip Nabseth

Master Thesis 15 hp Autumn 2010 Supervisor: Marianne Nilson Swedish title: Varum채rkeskontroll i Sociala Medier

Abstract Brand identity, image and associations, basically they are all how the brand owner wants the consumer to perceive the brand. The brand owner will seek to bridge the gap between the brand image and the brand identity. The concept of traditional marketing is of the character that the brand owner exerts full control of the brands values and meaning. Like an alchemist, values are infused into the brand and stories are created and projected into the market to position a predetermined place in the mind of the consumer. This is how we understand the view of the traditional marketing. But we also understand that there is a problem holding on to this view in the twenty-first century marketplace where the networked markets are faster and better informed than ever and where social media enables a shift in the way we live and do business. Traditional positioning is being questioned in a transparent world where social media empowers the consumers as authors of the brand. We asked ourselves “Who is in control of the brand in the Socialnomic world? The purpose with our research was to understand how brands are affected by social media and to contribute to the field of brand management. A case study has been conducted with an interview, a web survey and an observation of the brand, with respect to the three different stakeholders: the Company, the Consumers and the Social Media. We created our own model “The Brand Flower” which illustrates the sum of all brand values and indicates who is in control of the brand. A significant finding in our research showed that the Brand was heavily affected by the Social Media in terms of brand meaning. There are new ‘authors’ of the Brand and they are empowered by social media. These Consumers are conferring values on the brands which they use. In this sense, more and more "ownership" is being passed on to the Consumers. As our study confirms a ‘Socialnomic’ shift, it becomes relevant to ask one-self: “Does the social media landscape require companies to fully let go of their brand ownership as it is passing on to consumers?” We can’t really say if the Company should or should not let go of their brand as viral marketing suggests. But we can say that, in some sense, they don’t have the opportunity to choose. If there is something that this study showed, it is that the Company has lost control of their brand. Whether they do or don’t do “social media”, the Company has to realize the consequences of a transparent Socialnomic world, one being a different brand meaning. Although the Company no longer exerts full control of their brand, they still have some. The result from our study showed that much of the Company’s brand values were successfully communicated. And although it existed a ‘gap’ between brand identity and image, this was not an out-come of the Social Media. In fact, our study showed that the traditional branding like ‘positioning’ and The 4 P’s should not be out-ruled as a marketing tool as these seems to still be relevant in the twenty-first century marketplace. In our research, we moved from the traditional marketing view of full control, through the postmodern view of co-creation and into the Socialnomic view of no control. The multiple perspectives gave us tools to conduct the study as well as analyzing the results. In the end, the traditional view of brand identity and brand image and the postmodern perspective of cultural brands as symbols of meaning are not to be chosen between. They are not the opposite side of the same coin but rather totally different coins that together with the Socialnomic view creates a multiple perspective which is needed in the complex branding of the twenty-first century market place. Keywords Brand Identity, Brand Image, Brand Meaning, Brand Control, and Social Media.

!"#$%#$& 1.! INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 2! 1.1. Problem Background ............................................................................ 2! 1.2. Problem Discussion.............................................................................. 6! PART I: Traditional View .......................................................................... 7! PART II: Postmodern View ....................................................................... 9! PART III: Socialnomic View .................................................................... 11! 1.3. Research Question............................................................................. 15! 1.4. Purpose ........................................................................................... 15!

2. Method....................................................................................... 16! 2.1. Case Study as a Research Design ........................................................ 16! 2.2. The Empirical Study........................................................................... 17! 2.2.1. Interview ................................................................................... 17! 2.2.2. Survey....................................................................................... 18! 2.2.3. Direct Observation....................................................................... 18! 2.3. Reliability and Validity ........................................................................ 20!

3. Literature Review ...................................................................... 21! 3.1. The Role of Marketing ........................................................................ 21! 3.2. Empowered Consumers ...................................................................... 22! 3.3. Brand Meaning and Consuming Meaning ............................................... 23! 3.4. Brand Awareness .............................................................................. 25! 3.5. Brand Identity .................................................................................. 27!

4. Empirical Findings and Analysis ................................................. 29! 4.1. Factors Affecting the Brand Image ....................................................... 29! 4.2. Brand Positioning and Awareness ........................................................ 32! 4.3. Brand Identity and Image Gap ............................................................ 35! 4.4. Personality and Self-image ................................................................. 40! 4.4.1. Personality ................................................................................. 40! 4.4.2. Self-image ................................................................................. 41! 4.5. Physique and Reflection ..................................................................... 43! 4.5.1. Physique .................................................................................... 43! 4.5.2. Reflection................................................................................... 44! 4.6. Analysis of Brand Control in Social Media .............................................. 45!

5.! Final Discussion ....................................................................... 50! 5.1.!

Conclusion .................................................................................... 52!

5.2.!

Goals and Achievement .................................................................. 52!

5.3.!

Future Research ............................................................................ 53!

List of references ........................................................................... 54! Books..................................................................................................... 54! Electronic Sources.................................................................................... 55! Articles from Academic Journals ................................................................. 55! Registry Data .......................................................................................... 56!

Appendix 1..................................................................................... 57! Interview with the Company...................................................................... 57!

Appendix 2..................................................................................... 61! Survey with the Consumers....................................................................... 61!

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Problem Background That the internet has revolutionized almost every facet of our business and personal lives is not news to anyone. What is news however is that, today, we are in the early stages of yet another far-reaching revolution. This revolution is being driven by people and enabled by social media. It is a people-driven economy. It is a drastic adjustment in philosophy and in how people and businesses are changing and will continue to evolve in the coming years. 1 Erik Qualman suggests that social media enables a social and economic shift that will change the way we live and do business forever. He calls this new economy Socialnomics.2 The rock band R.E.M. said it best: “It is the end of the world as we know it”. Perhaps they sang about social media, probably not. What some still think is a fad is in fact a revolution that has changed the rules of marketing forever. Social media is not a fad; it is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. Maybe 500 million Facebook users can prove it? If not, here are some numbers that might: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Of the world’s population 50% is under 30 years old, 96% of Millennials have joined a social network. Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S. Social Media have overtaken pornography as #1 activity on the web. Years to reach 50 million users: Radio 38, TV 13, internet 4, iPod 3. Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year! If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest, right after China, India and just above the United States. Actor, Ashton Kutcher and singer, Britney Spears have more followers on Twitter than the entire population of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway, and Panama. Social Network Sites (SNS) rests on “the holy grail” of sharing. Most importantly; people talk about brands. Imagine what this means for customer experience… 3

The Cluetrain Manifesto says that a powerful global conversation has begun. Through the internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter and faster than most companies. Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.4 In fact, companies and organizations no longer have a choice to do social media but the question now is how well they do it. Because it is right here, right now. A blogger sums up the importance of business learning to adjust to social media: 1 2 3 4

Qualman (2009) http://www.managingthegray.com/2008/05/23/comcast-wins-with-twitter/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger (1999)

“Brands need to wake up to the fact that “new media” is not going away and in fact, I would argue that it is not new anymore, but it is here and at the forefront so you either wake up and pay attention or you lose business to the company that is paying attention.” 5 Although these previous statements are convincing as well as provoking, the discussion of social media is no longer about its existents or inexistent but rather of how great the impact will be. There are two important factors which are fundamental in understanding the profound change social media will have on business and marketing. The first one is transparency. “What happens in Vegas… stays on Facebook.” 6 Open diaries, videos, status updates… This mass transparency does not only come with benefits. It carries potential pitfalls. Qualman means that social networks are powerful enough to cause an adjustment in personal and corporate behavior on a macro-level.7 . The shift to consumer-driven platforms, such as video-sharing, increased with 83% in 2006, making it the quickest growing platform in the history. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. Social media impact is being felt across the globe. If there is an internet connection people will get involved in creating and sharing content.8 Hatch and Schultz argues that the iron curtain shutting off private companies from public life seems to be a token from the past. The necessity to disclose corporate stories can be seen as a logical consequence of a global trend in which the transparency of companies has become a basic requirement.9 In the article "Managing your company's image" Klopper argues that social media fosters transparency, subsequently encouraging honesty and authenticity. 10 Transparency allows people to see what goes on behind company doors and create a need for businesses to live up to their ethical standards. Klopper state that the goal of any communications strategy has always been to maintain and build up a company’s image, but with social media that becomes a 24/7 job. In the article "The social context of online market research: an introduction to the sociability of social media", Hardey discuss social media as the public model of consumerism. The past divergence between individuals or organizations online and offline life is in the new era of the web built upon the sharing of real social identifiers and related networks11. Hardey says: "To put it starkly, and to exaggerate only slightly, it is as though we all have a camera observing us, a data device tracking our habits, conversations and location. Is that the mobile phone or a data tracking device? Thus, the relative ‘openness’ of web 2.0 encourages transparency, social participation and interoperability."12 The other fundamental factor in understanding the Socialnomic world is “socialommerce”. Qualman means that Socialommerce is a term that encompasses the transactional, search, and marketing components of social media. Socialommerce harnesses the simple idea that people value the opinion of other people. This is hardly something new but what is new is that social networks make it so much easier to disseminate information. As the success of social media proves, people like sharing and 5

http://www.managingthegray.com/2008/05/23/comcast-wins-with-twitter/ Qualman (2009) page 42 7 Ibid 8 Tom Smith 9 Schultz, Hatch, Larsen (2009) 10 Klopper (2010) 11 Hardey (2009) 12 Ibid page 562-564 6

scattering great ideas. This explains the popularity of Twitter and other micro blogging tools. The most popular feature on Facebook and LinkedIn is status updates that enable users to contiguously brag, boast, inform and vent to everyone in their network. This simple tool allows users to easily stay connected with their network. As a result, 100 billion stories (updates) per day are processed through Facebook’s news feed servers. 13 In short, socialommerce is really a referral program on steroids. But how does it work? One parameter is the way in how people search the web. Google helps people search. Social media helps people find. Basically, the internet’s greatest strength – rapid and cheap sharing of information – is also its greatest weakness. Search engines have and will continue to help users quickly access the one morsel of information they need out of the trillions of bytes of data. 14 Some say that Google is like a librarian on crack. People ask for A and it runs around and come back with a huge pile of links and information, plus a couple of sponsored ads on the top. People still have to decide what information is qualitative and relevant, causing stress and anxieties. With the excess of information, people require a tool to make sense of it all. Social media is that mechanism!15 And perhaps the biggest threat to search engines today. As they have recognized this shift, old and new players alike are racing to win the battle of social search16. Examples of this are Google Real Time, Google Search Wiki vs. Digg, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook etc. To make purchase decisions people go to their social network and search instead. When asking for A they will not only get recommendations from people they know, trust and have intimate knowledge about, they don’t have to do all the research themselves making people more productive and stress free.17 Compared to other online reviews in the past, the intimate knowledge about friends in the social network is the key and what takes social media to the “next level”.18 What does Socialnomics mean for companies? The Cluetrain Manifesto puts it better than anyone else: “Companies attempting to "position" themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.”19 What this means is that it is only great ideas and products that actually interests the consumers that will be disseminated via social media. Consumers are looking to peers for recommendations on products, services, health issues, and more via social media. Only companies that produce great products and services will be part of these conversations; mediocrity will quickly be eliminated. Today, 76% of the consumers rely on what others say, while 15% rely on advertising.20 Instead of traditional marketing where companies push predetermined brand meaning and product they now have to let people pull these instead. We will no longer seek products and service, rather they will find us.” 21 John Gerzema, Chiefs Insights Officer at Young & Rubican says that social media is creating something that is going to be very healthy for the economy, and that is institutional brand integrity.”22 According to Qualman, micro blogging and status updates becomes a competition of who is doing the coolest thing. “It is all about me, me, me!” Over time, each of these posts 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Qualman (2009) Ibid Ibid Ibid Ibid Ibid Ibid page 118 Ibid Ibid Quealy (2009)

contributes to peoples personal brands. As a society, this is a good thing. It makes people do more stuff and they are actually living their own lives rather than watching others. An easier way to create great content is to look to brands for helpful tools.23 This is where branding and marketing theory comes in! This is where brand management becomes an interesting field of studies for understanding the future marketing landscape. According to a research done by Microsoft and Synovate back in 2008, 28% of the consumers talk about a brand in forums, 23% add brand-related content and 19% add branded content to their social sites. The conclusion from this is that consumers want to have a relationship with brands and even help them out where they can. All it takes from companies is honesty, transparency, listening and reacting.24 Syndicates global manager, Julian Rolfe indicates: ”Research shows that young people are not only comfortable with the idea of branded content and branded entertainment, but also reveals they are openly willing and eager to engage online with brands. They clearly feel their opinions about brands are important, they want to associate themselves with brands they see as “cool” and this is why we see them uploading clips to their social networking sites and IM services.”25 Social media has become an increasingly more popular forum for marketers. Creating a “buzz” through viral marketing is an example of companies trying to use ‘the machine’ socialommerce. Besides the high trustworthiness of the message and the many links which enables positive search engine optimization, the benefits are numerous; some of them are searchability, cost efficiency, dynamism, sniping, interactivity and measurability. More and more consumers expect to find companies on the internet as well as in the social media forum. And therefore there are significant benefits in reaching the target market for companies that succeed in the social media world.26 Foremost, marketing on the internet and in social media is more cost effective than traditional media. Companies can reach a wide audience for a fraction of traditional advertising budgets. 27 Marketing through internet and social media gives companies a chance to listen and respond to their consumers. Marketers can also customize their ads on the internet and in social media in a different way than what traditional media offers. Internet and social media offers an opportunity for active interactivity, unlike traditional media such as TV and radio which is more of a passive media, and only offers a one-way communication. Marketing through social media thus become more like a two-way conversation, and can lead to a direct response from consumers such as an insight or a purchase. Online marketers have also the advantage of measuring statistics in real time. Such measurements cannot be achieved through traditional media.28 There are many who preach about the new and shiny tools in social media. There seems to be great opportunities, but what about the risks? Many companies and organizations talk about the risk of losing control. Some say companies should let go of brand ownership, other says to hold on. How much should the companies ‘do’ social media? Eric Qualman argues that companies should learn to have faith in social media and even allow the public to take ownership of the brand and grow it to unexpected levels of

Qualman (2009) Ibid http://www.synovate.com/news/article/2008/11/young-adults-eager-to-engage-with-brands-onlineglobal-research-from-microsoft-and-synovate-revealpagehtml 26 Wells, Moriarty, Burnett (2006) 27 Bughin (2009) 28 Dahlén (2002) 24 25

success.29 Or will they? What effects does this have on the brand? We will discuss the issue of ‘brand control in social media’ further in the section 1.2. To summarize, Socialnomics is a massive socioeconomic shift. Yet some of the core marketing and business principals of the last few centuries will still apply; whilst others basic principals will become as extinct as the companies that continue to try to force them on the unwilling public.30 How does Socialnomics affect the role of marketing? What effects does it have on branding theories? As the phenomenon of social media is relatively new, the existing research is limited, especially on how it affects present marketing principles. This is where we have identified “the gap” which we will study and hopefully contribute to new insights about the branding of tomorrow.

1.2. Problem Discussion The previously presented background of the social media revolution is what we call the Socialnomics view on marketing. But there are also the traditional and the postmodern view. Together, these three views create a discussion about branding, which has lead us into questioning, what we summarize as, Brand Control. These views form the purpose of this essay and acts like a backbone in our research. With a postmodern view, the traditional marketing principles, which have ruled since the 1950’s, are falling apart. Many of the existing models from the “old school” rest upon the idea of the market being a homogeneous mass of passive consumers with stable references that can be segmented and targeted. Sequence models like AIDA, the 4 P’s and The Marketing Mix all assumes that the consumer is rational in the sense that she is fully informed and is maximizing her utility.31 The postmodern marketing questions these truths. Instead of taking them for granted it takes advantage of the ambiguity, fragmentation and “chaos”. The consumer is more and more active in the production of her own experiences. Consumption is an activity of awareness where the consumer wants to participate, control and experience. Not just receive as the traditional marketing models suggests. 32 The Cluetrain Manifesto criticizes the traditional views held by marketing schools: “Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.”33 ‘Segmentation’, ‘target market, ‘demographic sectors’ and ‘USP’ are dominant factors of traditional brand positioning. The Cluetrain Manifesto argues that these bombastic boasts – “We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ” – do not constitute a position”.34 Eric Qualman also argues that brand positioning, were developed during a time when consumers were more willing to be “spoken to” rather than to have a “conversation with”. Consumers may have bought the product based solely on glitz and glamour of the marketing but this possibility is very limited now that we are living in a world with social media. Instead people are having conversations about the product and the brands.35 The consumer is empowered in the relationship and the company is no longer the only author of the brand. The old and the new paradigm are illustrated in figure 1.1.

29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Qualman (2009) Ibid Desmond (2003) Bjurling (2009) Levine, Locke, Searls, Weinberger (1999) page 17 Ibid Qualman (2009)

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Fig 1.1. “Shift in power relationship - Who controls the brand? ’Old paradigm vs. New paradigm Bellman, Nabseth’”

There is, moreover, a sea change afoot in the nature of consumer brand relationships. Whereas brands were previously selected for their capacity to confer values on the consumers who use them, it is increasingly and more pertinently the case that consumers are conferring values on the brand they use. More and more "ownership" of brands is passing to consumers.36 In traditional research on brand management it is often assumed that the brand owner exerts considerable control over the brand. We think that this is deeply challenged by the new marketing landscape of Socialnomics. Social media fosters transparency and honesty. It empowers the consumer and questions organizations positioning their brand through one-way communication. We will hereon discuss these views, starting with the traditional view, followed by the postmodern view and end with the Socialnomics view. PART I: Traditional View When it comes to branding, traditional marketing often talks about “brand positioning”. The term "positioning" became popular because of two persons named Al Ries and Jack Trout. 37 Since then, marketing gurus like Philip Kotler, David Aaker, Henrik Uggla, and Frans Melin, to name a few, has provided the field with their own definition, all of which have a clear “how-to” management perspective. Their approach suggests that the brand owner exerts full control in the sense that he or she can project the fixed brand identity and create an image in the mind of the target audience. External factors like culture are not taken into account. Many of the traditional definitions of positioning are process oriented and include some degree of manipulation: ”Positioning is traditionally the name for the process where the brand owner tries to claim a unique spot for the brand in the consumer’s consciousness.”38

36 37 38

Batey (2008) Kotler, Keller (2006) Melin (2008) page 127

”Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.”39 Perhaps the most traditional of the traditional marketing ambassadors, Kotler defines brand positioning as: ”Positioning is the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market. The goal is to locate the brand in the minds of consumers to maximize the potential benefit to the firm”. 40 In this sense, brand control is about the company having much of it! These definitions of brand positioning are actually not far from the liberal explanation of power, which focuses on the ability of A to make B surrender to his or her will. More exactly, power is considered as the means by which A can get B to do something which B should not otherwise do.41 But what exactly is it that is being positioned? Aakers definition of positioning is “the part of the brand identity and value proposition that is to be actively communicated to the target audience”.42 According to Aaker’s view, brand identity is a unique set of brand associations that the brand strategist aspires to create or maintain. These associations represent what the brand stands for and imply a promise to customers from the organizational members.43 As the traditional definitions of brand positioning suggest, a brand identity is communicated to control the image of the brand, held by the audience. Uggla says that identity is the signal the company project44 but he also says that it is who you want to be but not necessarily are not.45 This is not something new. Many authors have tried to make models of the different identities and images held by the audience.The difference between the traditional and postmodern view is how this identity/image interface is viewed. In the article "Brand Management through Narrowing the Gap between Brand Identity and Brand Reputation" Chematonv argue about the "gap" between brand identity and brand image and reputation. Under the traditional view of brand management when the gap between a brand's identity and its image become noticeable, this acts as a trigger for change as the gap is viewed as a failure. Managers need to have a balanced approach to brand building as they strive to reduce any gaps.46 The postmodern view has another explanation. Brands are not homogenous identities but symbols of meanings, in fact the brand have many authors. Jean Nöel Kapferer defines brand identity in his book “Strategic Brand Management”. He means that identity exists to specify the brand meaning, goal and self image. 47 In a broader sense, brand identity is the configuration of words, images, ideas, and associations that form a customer’s aggregate perception. The identity is a brands unique fingerprint that makes it one of a kind, what Kapferer called its “meaning”.48 As Kapferer’s definition of brand identity is somewhat both traditional and postmodern, we have chosen to use his model ‘the brand identity prism’ in our study. We will present it thoroughly in section 3.5.

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Kotler, Keller (2006) page 311 Ibid page 310 Desmond (2003) Aaker (1996) Ibid Uggla (2003) Melin (1997) Chematonv (1999) Kapferer (1997) Upshaw (1995)

The view on identity, as a scientific concept, differs with respect to its coherence and continuity. Postmodern views of the self define identity as the product of cultural and social context. Modernity view identity as the centre anchor that endures and preserves its distinctiveness, despite the need for organizations to change. Despite changing events, times and perceptions its fixed and it is carefully projected onto the external environment, where it blends with “cultural capital” in the social construction of an image.49 Bauman explained the postmodern view on identity: “If the modern ‘problem of identity’ was how to construct an identity and keep it solid and stable, the post modern ‘problem of identity’ is primarily how to avoid fixation and keep the options open.”50 In this view, identity is a mask that can be changed according to context or whim. Schultz and Hatch means that the postmodern literature stresses the process and predominance of image offer claims of substantive bases for identity. In short, the relationship between identity and image is turned upside-down when seen through a postmodern lens; instead of emerging from organizational depth and origin, identity becomes a chameleon-like imitation of images prevailing in the postmodern marketplace.51 PART II: Postmodern View ”Though companies create brand identity, people create brand meaning.”52 How a company 'positions' a brand is not necessarily how the consumer perceives that particular brand. Brands allow marketers to add meaning to products and services, but it is consumers who ultimately determine what a brand means. The meanings people find in brands help them make sense of, and give shape to, the world around them. Brands help people to define themselves and their place in that world.53 In our modern consumer society, goods and services are not only consumed as objects, they are consumed as signs of difference, which in turn are linked to signs of status and identity. 54 Meaning acts as a form of currency for the creation of a person’s identity.55 This is of relevance because, in our modern consumer society, the consumer has become more individualistic, narcissistic and use goods to create their identity – their social self. A social self of this sort might be called the reflected or looking-glass self. It is how we create individual identities and how I reflect on myself as if I were someone else. It is the individual self. 56 Bengtsson and Östberg take on a more postmodern approach to brand meaning. Brands have emerged both as culturally important symbols that give ballast to consumer’s identity projects and as devices that bring competitive advantages to their legal owners. In both these respects, the study of brands has become a matter of central concern to marketing scholars around the world. In traditional marketing textbooks, brands are generally understood as devices for companies to achieve competitive advantages by offering added values to its customers. From this perspective, studying brands become a matter o analyzing and systematizing the strategies through which the brand was created 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Schultz, Hatch, Larsen (2009) Ibid page 16 Hatch, Schultz (2004) Batey (2008) page 13 Ibid Desmond (2003) Ibid Desmond (2003)

and exploring the ways in which these strategies have intended effects on consumers. Instead, Bengtsson and Östbergs perspective is that brand is a culturally constructed symbol, created by various types of authors who furnish it with symbolic content. This means that a brand is a co-constructed object whose meaning is closely bound to context and time. Many times, brand meaning is thought to be produced through a one-way communication process in which sets of neatly constructed brand identities are understood to be decoded into corresponding brand images. Rather than this overly simplified approach, Bengtsson and Östberg argue that the cultures of brands are dialectically constructed through interactive processes between various actors. Consumers are one important group of actors!57 To be more clear; the metaphor of the brand manager as an alchemist who can mix and match components to achieve a desirable outcome relies on an overly simplified view of the culture in which brands exist. Instead of the conventional view that a company communicates a certain brand identity that is more or less correctly interpreted by consumers as a brand image, Bengtsson and Östberg see the cultural meaning of a brand as constructed by carious ‘authors’.58 They illustrate this in the figure The Authors of the Brand, adapted from Douglas B. Holt.

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Fig 1.2. “The Authors of the Brand” Bengtsson, Mats & Östberg, Jacob

According to this view, a brand’s meaning is co-constructed by the brand owner, consumers, popular culture and other important stakeholders. The company which has given birth to the brand by making it available on the market is indeed a significant actor. Within each group of authors that produce stories about the brand, a particular culture of the brand emerges. It is in this sense that brand can be understood as a multicultural entity whose peculiarities need to be examined from different perspectives. For example, Bengtsson and Östberg mean that through consumption, the particular status, uses and meanings of brands are subject to social negotiation. Bengtsson and Östbergs study is inspired by Douglas B. Holt, the author of “How brands become icons”. According to Holt, a brand emerges as several “authors” that tell stories that involve the brand. He explains that although the product has a name, a trademark logo, unique packaging and other traditional markers of the brands USP, the brand does not truly exist. Names, logos and designs are just material markers of the brand. Because the product does not yet have a history, however, these markers are empty. They are 57 58

Belk (2006) Ibid

devoid of meaning! Holt argues that the markers have been filled with customer experience. Over time, ideas about the product accumulate and fill the brand markers with meaning. A brand is formed.59 O’Reilly is another author who also takes on the approach of ‘cultural branding’ He argues for a vide view of the symbolic dimension of branding saying that brands are symbolic articulators of production and consumption and that all brands are socially, not merely managerially, constructed.60 Douglas B. Holt book “How brands become icons” is placed in the marketing section of ‘cultural branding’. He is critical towards the traditional view, which he calls ‘mindshare branding’.61 In fact, Holt argues that the image of a brand being a set of abstract associations. For a brand to succeed in a society whose volume of mass communication, the brand must own a simple, focuses position in the prospects mind, usually a benefit associated with the product category. To Holt, the image of brands contesting for scarce mental real estate in consumers’ minds is highly provocative. The USP can be traced back to the hard-sell advertisers in the 1950’s when Al Ries and Jack Trout published their famous exposition on positioning and academics and consultants have taught an entire generation of marketers that all brands work according to these principles.62 Some variations of mind share are today found in virtually every strategy document used for the worlds’ most prominent brands, Holt says. The terminology sometimes changes – other popular terms that reference virtually identical ideas include brand essence, DNA, genetic code, brand soul – but the idea has remained remarkably consistent since the 1970’s. Brand Identity is one of them. 63Holt takes on an approach to branding which differ from the “provocative” ideas traditional marketing hold. Instead of highlighting unique features and benefits to position, brands become iconic by staking out a provocative and valued position in the national culture. Iconic brands address acute cultural contradictions – and the widespread desires and anxieties they create – by “performing” myths. Myths are stories which smooth over these tensions, helping people create purpose in their lives. Over time, as the brand performs its myth, the audience eventually perceives that the myth resides in the brand’s markers (e.g., its name, logo and design elements). The brand becomes a symbol, a material embodiment of the myth. So as customers drink, drive or wear the product, they experience a bit o the myth. Competitors are the other brands competing within the same myth.64 PART III: Socialnomic View Although, the days of traditional brand marketing are not necessarily dead; they are just taking on new forms, one of them is cultural branding. Another is viral marketing. As people increasing looking to their social networks for advice and recommendations, marketers need to make certain that they are part of the consideration set! In order to accomplish this, companies need to create great products and services rather than rely on fancy advertising campaigns to bail them out. When transaction occurs, marketers need to encourage or give incentives for users to complete product and service reviews albeit good, bad, or indifferent. Companies able to encourage this information sharing from their customers via both online and offline means, help water the seeds of viral success in social media, money to water the seeds will come from traditional advertising budgets and will go directly into the customer’s pockets. This is another reason why consumers will take more ownership of the brands they associate with!65 Qualman argue that executives and companies that want to excel need to be comfortable in knowing that not 59

60 61 62 63 64 65

Holt (2003) O’Reilly (2005) Ibid Ibid Ibid Ibid Qualman (2009)

everything related to the brand will be owned by them, that their customers is beginning to take ownership. In return, the referral power is priceless! 66 Viral marketing – or buzz marketing – is defined as the amplification of initial marketing efforts by third parties through their passive or active influence.67 It is a term used in Word of Mouth, the interaction of consumers and users of a product or service serve to amplify the original marketing message. It can be described as a form of hype among consumers. Consumers can exchange opinions and experiences related to companies, products and services with individuals outside of their personal communication network of family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues.68 An example of a company that successfully used buzz marketing before launching a product was Apple with their Iphone. The demand and interest of the product was higher before it was released than after its introduction to the market.69 Traditionally, Word of Mouth is described as informal communications that are exchanged among consumers regarding sellers or the ownership, usage or characteristics of goods and services from sellers. Thanks to advances in both information technology and the internet, the power and potential impact of online Word of Mouth has substantially increased. Many factors point toward a world in which buzz will dominate the shaping of markets. The phenomenon of Buzz is already becoming an industry unto itself. Many online-companies have built their entire businesses and web sites around customer Word of Mouth, where customers rate and review products, and the results are tallied for prospective shoppers to view. Companies that are unable to control buzz may soon find that the phenomenon is increasingly controlling them.70 Many experts today recommend below-the-radar marketing, which seeds the brand among the most influential people. The basic idea is that if the firm can combine these people to make the brand their own, and configure the brand, like a virus, to make it easy to talk about, these influencers will rapidly spread their interest in the brand to others through their social networks. Brand managers have decided that going viral is the quickest and cheapest path to brand heaven. The more velocity through the system, the better the brand does. In viral branding, a covert public relations mode becomes the core of the branding effort and according to them, brand meaning equals brand buzz.71 Holt does not share Qualman’s positive outlook on the viral marketing though. He argues that the viral model is essentially a fashion branding model. The firm relinquishes control of the brand to consumers and cultural tastemakers. The problem is that these authors thrive on influencing the next big thing. As soon as they make a brand famous, they move on. Fad brands are dumped by fashion-forward tastemakers as soon as their cachet has been depleted. Ultimately, the problem with viral model is that it assumes that any communication is good as long as it is retold. Viral branding itself is not a viable approach of building strong and lasting brands, what he calls iconic brands. Identity brands that are developed through viral approaches have a fatal flaw – they are authorless.72 To summarize, the modern marketing principles want to control the brand identity and explains “the identity/image gap” as a failure, and the postmodern view explains it as 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Ibid Metz (2006) Mitchell, Khazanchi (2010) Metz (2006) Dye (2000) Holt (2003) Ibid!

totally natural as the brand has no true essence, but is a reconstruction of its social context. This is not something new, but it becomes important now, as social media enables consumers with different social context to share their use of the brand and discuss their thoughts. All of these discussions are taking place in social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc. With millions of â&#x20AC;&#x153;authorsâ&#x20AC;? of the brand, the discussion is loud. We believe that it seems difficult, perhaps impossible, to hold on to the traditional marketing principles; where companies still have full ownership of the brand and can infuse them with predetermined values to position to a passive audience. On the other hand, viral marketing and brand only being its buzz is a totally opposite view. This view puts the power of the brand in the hands of the consumers. To investigate who has control of the brand in contemporary markets we have conducted a study based on the three stakeholders: the Company, the Consumers and the Social Media. This is a short disposition to our study:

Views !

Summary:

TRADITIONAL The Company is in control (100%) - Communication - Positioning - Narrow the identity/image “gap”

Brand definition:

Brand Identity

Theoretical framework:

Kapferer’s Brand Identity Prism

Empirical data: (Case study)

Qualitative interview with “the Company”

The Model

POSTMODERN The Consumer is partly in control - Interpretation - Take a position - The brand meaning is constructed and reconstructed within its social and cultural context. Brand Meaning Bengtsson and Östbergs The Many Authors of the Brand Quantitative survey with “the Consumers”

SOCIALNOMIC The Social Media is in control (0%) - Conversation - Viral marketing - Let go of ownership

Brand Buzz Eric Qualman Socialnomics Direct observation with “the Social Media”

To carry out the study, we have designed a model that is called ”The Brand Flower” it is a simplified structure that demonstrates the different academic marketing views as well as the stakeholders, which we collect data from and analyze to create an insight in who owns/create the brand in the twenty-first century marketplace. “The Brand Flower” The Company

The Model cont.

The Consumers

The Social Media

With social media the world is one gigantic glasshouse. To be successful in the socialnomics world, companies need to be more open and comfortable letting go of their brand ownership. How does the social media demand for transparency affect branding theories? What happens to the role of marketing when the consumers become a part of the brand? Who is the author of the brand meaning? Who has ownership of the brand meaning? 100% control or 100% let go? Can there be a way in between?

1.3. Research Question From the problem discussion we have developed a main research question, and three sub questions. Who is in control of the brand in the Socialnomic world? The Company, the Consumer or the Social Media? " " "

Are the consumers and the company sharing the same perception of the brand and are these two alike to the social media buzz? Is traditional positioning still valid in a Socialnomic world? Does the social media affect the brand?

1.4. Purpose The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion of branding in the twenty-first century market place. We wish to understand how brands function in the world of social media, where decreased brand control and increased transparency is a fact. More precisely; this study will analyze whether the consumers or the company are in control of the brand. The research contribution will be, apart from valuable findings regarding marketing within social media, a notion for brand managers entering the world of social media.

2. Method 2.1. Case Study as a Research Design This study aims to examine brand control in social media. To carry out this study we believe it is required to do a thorough examination into a company which has extensive activity in social media and by a planned interview, an extensive survey and a direct observation create an impression of the situation. The case study has therefore been chosen as the research design. The basic form for a case study contains a detailed and thorough study of a single case, in this study a single company. There is a tendency to associate case studies with qualitative research, in contrast to our quantitative research method, but Bryman argue that case studies are a means by which a variety of methods can be combined and thereby allows researchers not to rely too heavily on a single method or one approach. In fact, a case study often comprises an appliance of both qualitative and quantitative method. 73 This statement motivates our choice of case study as the research method as the study holds a qualitative interview with the Company, which is compared to the results from the quantitative survey with the Consumers, and the direct observation in the Social Media. Even though all scientists have the objective goal to describe reality, there is a variance in which strategy is the most optimized to reach that goal. Our approach to theory and practice is both deductive and inductive and therefore an abductive approach. We go back and forth between the marketing theory and empiric data to create a deeper understanding of the problem and to give our self time for interpretation and analysis, thereby letting the insight slowly grow bigger. Brand control in social media is a relatively unexplored field whereby the prior research is limited. Therefore are the marketing theories, especially brand identity, tested in a deductive approach. The empirical result from the interview, survey and observation is resubmitted to the existing theories and research, in an inductive approach. The main part lies on the empirical data from the qualitative interview with the Company and the quantitative survey with the Consumers. Further on a direct observation of the Social Media has been conducted. We are humble of the choice of research perspective. The study applies basically a positivistic perspective as we strive for a value-free and objective research. Furthermore is the result of positivistic character where the survey and the observation has been analyzed and compiled. Our study should be regarded as a quantitative study where surveys and observation data has been gathered and processed mathematically. However, the study has also elements of qualitative data where an interview has been conducted with the case company. The study has chosen to combine the two research methods but with an emphasis on the quantitative method in which qualitative research is to support and strengthen the quantitative research. It has been well in agreement that surveys based on a multiple 73

Bryman (2002)

approach in it-self are not necessarily better than one study that used one of the methods.74 Case study as a research design can have both qualitative and quantitative methods, and an abductive approach is recommended.75 This further motivates our approach in the study of brand control in social media. It is important to know that the approach is a tendency rather than an unequivocal distinction. 76

2.2. The Empirical Study The study’s purpose is to investigate if traditional marketing principles of brand meaning are valid in the world of Socialnomics. The study has been conducted through a case study on a company that produces and sells products within the field of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). The company in our case study has extensive experience of brand management and, as the company is only 2, 5 years old; it hasn’t existed before the time of social media. Although the company has done all kinds of marketing, from traditional advertisement and TV to blogs and Facebook Business Page, the possibility for customer and consumers to share their experience in the transparent world of social media has been there from the start. The success of the company has been great, almost like a fairytale and their brand is well known, making it easier to collect empirical data. Data which is of great relevance for our chosen purpose – to understand how brands function in the world of social media, where decreased brand control and increased transparency is a fact, in the end contributing to the discussion of branding in the twentyfirst century market place. We have conducted an interview, a survey and a direct observation to try to be as objective in the research we possible can be. Interviews were made with the case company to understand how the Company perceive themselves and how they believe the market perceives them. A survey was made with various respondents to gain knowledge in how the market perceives the Brand. The direct observation was planned to be made with a brand new analyzing tool called SomeTracker, where we analyzed what is being said about the Brand in social media. With the observation we believe we got the objective approach we initially aimed to get. 2.2.1. Interview The primal sources of information to this study lies in the interviews with key persons within the Company. On October 14th 2010 we conducted a semi structured interview with the Company’s CEO and the Brand Manager. We got valuable information about how the case company act and market themselves, both in social media and in traditional media. How they perceive their own brand on the market, how they think the market perceive them and whether or not there is a gap between the two perspectives. The questions and answers can be found in Appendix 1. The Company The case company is a beverage company that develops and produces, within what is called ´functional drinks´. The case company is based in Sweden which is their core market but the company also acts in Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, and

74 75 76

Ibid Ibid Bryman (2002)

in Denmark. Since the Company decided to be anonymous we can´t describe it more extensively. 2.2.2. Survey The survey was conducted to gain information from the market to see if there is a gap between what the company perceives and how the market perceives the Brand. To collect empirical data from the Consumers we constructed a web based survey for the respondents to answer on their own. The purpose was to analyze the data from the Consumers with the data from the Company. The questions in the survey are therefore created based on the qualitative data from the interview. To get as many respondents as possible to answer the survey, we used the internet, instead of traditional post or location, as a forum. We used the free survey tool Surveymonkey, which we programmed onto the free blogging tool Blogger. The URL to the survey (www.hardukoll.blogspot.com) was then spread with the help of e-mail and social media like Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc. The questions and answers can be found in Appendix 2.

Age 15-25

Gender

26-35

36-45

45-

Male

Female

4% 5%

38% 53%

Fig 2.1. “Survey – Age”

42% 58%

Fig 3.2. “Survey – Gender”

The Consumers The total amount of respondents was 100. Of the total amount, 12% of them was not aware of the Brand and therefore did not complete the whole survey. The respondents were mainly in the age of 26 – 35 years old and little more males than females. 2.2.3. Direct Observation The direct observation was conducted to gain information how the market really perceives the company and to see if there is a gap between what the company communicate, the consumers response, and how it actually is. The plan was to conduct the observation through a web-based social media tool called SomeTracker, which would sweep across the web concentrated on social media, such as social communities, blogs, micro-blogs and other social forums. But, due to technical issues and time limitations we could not complete the observation with SomeTracker and therefore conducted an observation on our own. A general problem with direct observation can be the quality of the data material often is different from time to another.77With that in mind we conduct out observation during a time span that would give us the quality we urged for.

Dahmström (2008)

We conducted the direct observation with a random sample on the 1st of December 2010. We used Google, Google Real Time, Twitter and various forums with the key word; the Brand and collected it for a quantitative analysis. The Social Media Some might ask why consumers are not a part of social media. Of course they are! But as we wish to get an insight to how brands function in the world of social media, this element will act as a stakeholder on its own. Prior research about, what we call, brand control in social media is very limited and in the future the models will probably look different. But for now, “The Brand flower” acts like a molecule which suddenly has been added with a new and radically different stakeholder.

Gender - Social Media Male

Female

Age - Social Media Young (<20)

Medium (>20)

Old (>50)

3% 13% 49% 51% 84%

Fig 2.4. ”Observation – Gender”

Fig 2.5. ”Observation – Age”

This is an illustration of how we will study brand control. Following are three extreme scenarios where, in each case, the dominating views of the brand.

Fig 2.5. ”The Brand Flower - A” Fig 2.6. ”The Brand Flower - B”

Fig 2.7. ”The Brand Flower -C”

In figure 2.5, the Company has been successful in a traditional sense as it has projected its preferred brand values (A) onto the other stakeholders. In figure 2.6, the Consumers brand values (B) are dominant as ownership is totally passed on to them in the sense that the Company has nothing to say about their brand. In figure 2.7, it doesn’t really matter what the Company or the Consumers are saying, ‘digital tsunamis’ of brand buzz is the dominant provider of the brands values. By using the Brand Flower, we will be able to better illustrate the issue of brand control as well as analyze our findings. These will be presented in the chapter 4 and 5.

2.3. Reliability and Validity Reliability is about the consistency and the trustiness of a measure of a term. Stability question if we as scientist can be confident that our results does note fluctuate over time, in this study the terms of peoples preferences regarding the Brand. Which we believe is stable over time in the sense that no other factors influence the direct environment of the Brand and its stakeholders. Validity is about whether one or more indicators designed to measure a concept actually measure this particular term. We believe that the empirical data needed to reach our goal was best collected through an interview, a survey, and a direct observation, from which the data was compared. The qualitative interview was necessary to gain the detailed information about the Company and the Brand. The quantitative survey was based on an online tool called Surveymonkey. The survey design can be questioned in the sense that it was only based online (not in real life) and spread via social media. The direct observation of the buzz in Social media was originally planed to be collected through a tool called SomeTracker but as time run out we had to improvise our own observation of the buzz. Although this was quantitative, it was not optimal. The studyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s external validity, or generalization, is questionable. The study did not have a representative sample of several companies, but rather one company. Therefore, this study should not be generalized to other cases. But as Bryman argue, that when it comes to case studies, it does not matter whether the results can be generalized to a larger context, but how well the theoretical assertions are that the researcher can generate from the results. 78 !

Ibid

3. Literature Review 3.1. The Role of Marketing Schultz and Schultz argues that marketing has gone through two distinct phases in the past 40 years and is about to enter a third. The first phase was domination of markets by manufacturers, who were able (through intensive promotional campaigns) to control markets or at least to have the strongest influence in them. The second phase was domination by the retailers, who (because they are closest to the market) have been able to determine which products are offered to consumers and which are not. The third phase brought about by increasing use of IT by consumer, is consumer domination of the marketplace.79 “In some ways the role of marketing is shifting from a strategic function to a tactical one as consumers become more powerful in the relationship”.80 Blythe argue that the strategic role of marketing has sometimes been seen as patriarchal; with powerful, all-knowing marketers providing consumers with what the research says is best for them. This model has been breaking down for some time, in the face of unpredictable consumer responses, fragmentation of societies and increasing individualism. This means that market research findings no longer act as truly effective predictors in many cases, and marketers are left to respond as effectively as they can to consumer demands as expressed through interactive media.81 Even the field of corporate branding discuss a wider view where stakeholder – especially consumers – have to be taken into account.82 Qualman discuss this interactive market, enabled by social media, where companies and marketers better start spending more time listening to their consumers and less time spending countless hours creating the next award-winning, but-no-customer-getting 30second television commercial.83 Instead of trying to figure out the next best thing for their target audience, they are in constant contact with their target audience!84 Klopper argues that in a 21st Century business landscape, both online and offline media are equally important, so strategic senior managers must also now combine traditional communications techniques with a good social media strategy if they hope to gain competitive advantage. Koppler says that the goal of any communications strategy has always been to maintain and build up a company’s image, but with social media that becomes a 24/7 job. Social media is just a new tool in the toolbox. The basic principles behind the benefits of a good communications plan haven’t changed.85 79

Blythe (2006) Ibid page 301 Ibid 82 Gylling, Catharina and Lindberg-Repro, Kirsti,(2005) 83 Qualman (2009) 84 Ibid 85 Klopper (2010) 80 81

3.2. Empowered Consumers Branding has a long history in relation to personal identity. Brands have always been associated with power and control, a sign of ownership indicated through marketing a brand physically on the property. The earliest instances of the use of branding were in branding of slaves and criminals for purposes of identification. Recent branding has taken on a more positive aspect through the development of commodity brands which offer to protect and heal the self. Individuals now market themselves with brands as a means of self-affirmation rather than negation.86 An extent of this is the personal brand. People identify their brand position by consciously emphasizing something that can be of value and unique to themselves, which acts as a positive generator of differences with others.87 But who controls the relationship between the consumer and the brand? Brands connote a range of values to their target market. The transmission of such values is only partly in the control of the firm which sells the brand. The power of a reference group to decide which brands are in and which brands are out can play a decisive role in whether or not a brand is perceived to be a ‘dud’ or a ‘must have’. That is only one example. “Wrong consumers” can adopt the brand and infuse it with “unwanted values” changing the brand meaning. Another is brand failure, when a brand fails, the market can be unforgiving. Before, mass media was the one writing the story, today, anyone is writing the story. “Consumers want to take ownership of your brand and brag about your product; let them!” 88 Companies need to embrace social media rather than fight it, but the risks are many. The most staggering suggestion to fight it is to provide consumers with a selection of content that they can choose from that the marketer has previously cleared. Limiting the content that consumers can create in connection with marketing campaign is probably a desperate attempt to hold on to the old ways of communication. But the consumers talk and connect with the brand, weather the company want them to or not. Trying to remove and controle user-generated content is another dangerous act and might end up in yet another viral tsunami sweeping over the web.89 The philosophy of “this is my ball so only I am going to play with it” has failed time and time again on the internet.90 A part of being successful in the Socialnomic world is for companies to be more open and comfortable in letting go of the ownership and control of their brand.91 But, fear of failure is crippling in the world of Socialnomics. The quickest death in this new Socialnomic world is deliberating rather than doing. Qualman means that it is not going to be perfect ever time, and the end user is smart – they will understand that user generated content is beyond a brand’s control. Or will they? “No matter how important consumers are, marketers need to remember that the true brand owners are the company stakeholders”.92 The issue of ‘brand ownership’ – or as we call it: brand control – is a hot topic and many blogs, web pages and journals are discussing the topic. The Marketing week is skeptical towards consumers owning the brand. They argue that consumer engagement should not be confused with ownership. The mantra today, the consumer owns your brand must be 86

Desmond (2003) Ibid 88 Qualman (2009) page 59 89 Melissa Landau Steinman and Mikhia Hawkins (2010) 90 Ibid 91 Ibid 92 Ibid page 204 87

because marketers are confusing what the brand stands for (the message) and how it communicates in the modern media landscape. The journal writes: “Lazy marketers can let consumers with crayons color the next pack design but these are one-night stands, not a long-term change in the relationship between the brand owner and brand user. Brand manager means managing not abdicating.”93 Viral branding focuses on the paths of public influence; how non-company actors influence consumers to value the brand. Douglas B. Holt argues that the viral approach is a compendium of ideas rooted in the classic ideas about public influence – diffusion of innovation, Word of Mouth, and public relations – that responded to two major shifts in the 1990’s: the increased cynicism toward mass marketing and the emergence of the internet. Viral branding assumes that consumers, and not firms, have the most influence in the creation of brands. Cynical consumers will no longer heed the missives of mass marketers, so instead must “discover” brands on their own. The internet provided a means to accelerate this discovery. As a result, what was once considered an important process that marketers might want to stimulate has no often become an end in itself.94

3.3. Brand Meaning and Consuming Meaning Jean Baudrillard argues that consumption is not a passive process but an active one constituting the network of signs on which our whole cultural system is founded. The primary role of consumption is no longer that of consuming the object itself; rather what matters is what the object means in relation to its status associations. Consumption is when objects lose their focus in use as things and become nodes in a network of difference.95 Ewens argues that the marketers center an endless creation and recreation of the ‘social self’; a self, which plague by uncertainty and self-doubt, turns increasingly to the world of commodities for (never to be reached) solace and fulfillment. Advertisers create a ‘lack’ of something. This ‘lack’ is creating more anguish and anxiety.96 Lacan discusses the “lack”. The self is formed through energy which is produced as the result of lack or desire – but where does this energy come from? It comes from lack, from a desire for unity, for reintegration with the mother. The self is empty – it is filled up with things. But this desire can never be satisfied. 97 In fact, Baudrillard argue that marketing create false needs. The underlying cause which fuels the expression of human needs is desire, a desire which is motivated by feelings of lack and of difference. To replace the lack, to create wholeness and an identity, we consume objects as they are not only material goods, but also unction as signs which both denote and connote meaning. 98 Bengtsson and Östberg discuss brand research and because the brand has become increasingly important in our culture it is hence increasingly important to marketing scholars. They argue that, today, when we live in consumer society, identity constructions has moved from collective identities in the production realm to individual identities in the 93

94 95 96 97 98

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/consumer-engagement-is-not-brand-ownership/3006898.article Holt (2003) Ibid Ibid Ibid Ibid

consumption realm.99 Identity construction has become a highly visual phenomenon100 and products are valued as much for what they can do as for what they symbolize.101 A prime means with of communication with consumption is brands, as they, through their high recognition, cut across the cluttered visual landscape. Therefore an understanding of brands and their functions as symbols is crucial for anyone wishing to study contemporary markets.102 Therefore, we take a deeper look into the prior research about meaning. The linguist Saussure explained meaning as a language. He argues that the meaning of an object is arbitrary and that there is no natural link. More exactly, the object has to "borrow" meaning and it does so within different meaning systems. He talks about the signifier (sound, image or the letters), the signified (the concept that appears to the person who understands the system of signs) and the referent (the real thing, for example the dog that bites you). Codes are associations that help us to interpret signs. Meaning is a form of difference that exists between two objects within a system of language. For example; to explain brown you need to put in a system (color) and describe it as “not red”. The reason for this is just that brown is not an independent concept which is defined by some essential property, but one term in a system of color terms defined by its relations to the other terms which delimit it. The central point here is that meaning is acquired within the context of a set of relationships of differences within a system of language, differences which are arbitrarily set by convention.103 So how do products and brands come to generate meaning if they are arbitrary set by convention? Williamson discussed the process by which products move from a position of dependence of being the signified, where they must rely on others for their meaning, to constituting signifiers in their own right; then finally blazing out as active generators of meaning which act as a form of currency for the creation of a person’s identity. Williamson describes three steps: 1. Products as Signified: At the starting point the product or service initially has no ‘meaning’ in its own right. Initially this must be borrowed from somewhere else, preferably from a system of meaning with which target consumers are already familiar. At this stage something about the product is being signified and the correlating thing or person, for example a celebrity, is the signifier.104 The system of signs from which the product draws its image is a referent system, traditionally controlled by the marketers and advertising.

Slater (1997) Schroeder (2002) Gardner, Levy (1955) 102 Belk (2006) 103 Desmond (2003) 104 Ibid 100 101

Fig 3.1. “Process of signification” Saussure, de Ferdinand

2. Products as Generator of Meaning: Once the correlate becomes fused with the product so that it appears that the link between them is natural, the product can then become a generator of meaning in its own right. They become to ‘be’ the feeling. In this case, if we were to see a person with the product, the transfer might be from the product onto the person. 3. Products as currency: Williamson notes that these products form a kind of intermediate currency between money and emotions; ‘money can not buy love’ but shampoos, skin lotions and whitened teeth can. To this extent products are set up to acquire thins you cannot buy – esteem, respect, attention and love. 105 The three steps described by Williamson are rather ‘traditional’ as it suggests that the Company can infuse preferred brand values into the brand to create a meaning which in some sense is fixed. But, postmodern thinkers argue that meaning is up for negotiations and interpretation, and the role of the individuals in the creation of meaning is a very active one. Structuralist semioticians Barthes have pointed out that individuals are not passive receivers of meaning created by some external agent or authority. Rather, they are actively involved in the process of signification – the product of meaning. 106 In the article, "Marketing to postmodern consumers: introducing the internet chameleon", Geoff Simmons says: ”The meaning of objects are no longer fixed and linked to their functions, but are free-floating as each individual may ascribe the meanings she/he desires to the object.”107

3.4. Brand Awareness The article “Are brands forever?” discusses that brand awareness and brand relationships are critical parameters in building a successful brand image. Brand awareness reflects how well the brand exists in the mind of the consumer. Kapferer takes this further and says that brand awareness is a measurement of how successful the brand is positioned. 108 He has developed a model to analyze brand awareness. He describes three levels, the top being the hardest to reach:

105 106 107 108

Desmond (2003) Batey (2008) Simmons (2008) Kapferer (1997)

1. 2. 3.

”Top of Mind” – this level of awareness measures if the brand is the first brand that the asked person thinks about when being asked about brands within a certain category. ”Unaided” – this level of awareness measures the brands force to break through and how well the asked person spontaneously associates the brand with a category. ”Aided” – this level of awareness measures how well the target group knows about the brand or at least have heard its name.

3.5. Brand Identity Kapferer is a professor at HEC University in Paris. In 1993 he was the one to start the discussion about brand identity and have since then written several books about brand identity and communication. In this study we have applied Kapferer’s Identity Prism where he identifies that brand identity consists of six facets. These facets correlate to one another and create a mutual unity – a brand identity.

Picture of sender Physique

Personality

Externalization

Internalization

Relationship

Culture

Reflection

Self-image

Picture of recipient Fig 3.2. “The Identity Prism” Kapferer (2004)

1. A brand, first of all, has physical specificities and qualities – its physique. It is made of a combination of either salient objective features or emerging ones. Physique is both the brands backbone and its tangible added value. Physical appearance is important but it is not all. Nevertheless, the first step in developing a brand is to define its physical aspect: what is it concretely? What does it do? What does it look like? The physical facet also comprises the brand´s prototype: the flagship products that are representative of the brands ´qualities. 2. A brand has a personality. By communicating, it gradually builds a character. The way in which it speaks of its products or services shows what kind of person it would be if it were human. The easiest way of creating instant personality is too give the brand a spokesperson or a figurehead, whether real or symbolic. It should not be confused with the customer reflected image, which is a portrayal of the ideal receiver. Thus, brand personality is described and measured by those human personality traits that are relevant for brands.109

109

Kapferer (2004)

3. A brand is a culture. There is no cult brand without a brand culture. A brand should have its own culture, from which every product derives. The product is not only a concrete representation of this culture, but also a means of communication. Here culture means the set of values feeding the brandÂ´s aspirational power. The cultural facet refers to the basic principles governing the brand in its outward signs. This essential aspect is as the core of the brand.110 4. A brand is a relationship. Brands are often at the crux of transactions and exchanges between people. This is particularly true of brands in the service sector and also of retailers.111 5. A brand is a customer reflection. When asked for their views on certain car brands, people immediately answer in terms of the brandÂ´s perceived client type: thatÂ´s a brand for young people! For fathers! For show-offs! Because its communication and its most striking products build up over time, a brand will always tend to build a reflection or an image of the buyer or user which it seems to be addressing.112 6. A brand speaks to our self-image. Brands is closely related to the understanding of consumer self-image that is the features with which consumers identify themselves and the very same features they would like to be reflected by the chosen good and its brand. The conception of consumer self-image includes an amount of individual ideas, thoughts and feelings about him in relationship with other objects within socially defined boundaries. The conception of consumer self-image is developed within timeframes and is based on that what a consumer sees around himself and how other consumers evaluate and respond to him. The conception is a set of beliefs about oneself, retained in memory. The conception of consumer self-image can be determined and strengthened by examining purchase and consumption. 113

110 111 112 113

Kapferer (2004) Ibid Ibid Ibid

4. Empirical Findings and Analysis We have gathered data from an interview, a survey and a direct observation. The findings will be displayed in the following chapter in various sub-chapters classified from the theoretical framework. We will start with showing what factors are affecting the brand image, followed by positioning, awareness, identity, personality, self-image, physique and reflection. The chapter will end with an analysis of brand control in social media. The chapter outline emanate from the Company (the interview), the Consumers (the survey), and the Social Media (the direct observation), namely the different stakeholders in our model â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Brand Flowerâ&#x20AC;?.

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4.1. Factors Affecting the Brand Image In order to understand and address who is in control of the brand, we needed to find out what factors were affecting the brand image. As brand image is closely connected to the concept of audience, which until now has been a relatively passive receiver in a one-way communication, the direct observation in the Social Media (C) is not included when studying brand image. In 4.1, the Social Media is rather seen as a medium and an alternative channel to more traditional channels like TV, billboards, drug stores etc.

The Company (A) • Positioning: “Café is a marketing strategy and an important branding. It takes a lot of recourses but does not necessarily generate any direct revenues.” •

Traditional media: “Yes, every type of traditional media. TV, Newspaper, Bill board etc.”

•

Free samples to celebrities: “Yes, but not actively. It is if someone, which it always is, calls us and says “hey, we love your product, can we bring some on the tour? We promise to place it on the stage!” But we do not call them. Sometimes ‘wrong’ brand ambassador asks (like Ola) and we might just say yes in spite of that he/she does not match our brand. This is because he/she has a broad fan base, which is an attractive target market for us.”

•

Media budget spent on social media: “Zero, it is not relevant for our customers. Social Media is not in “their box” when asking about our marketing investments.”

•

Blog:

•

Facebook fan page: “We finally took the decision.” They continue by explaining the late start up: “It is always difficult… Lack of time was the main reason at first but foremost the question of how we would be perceived. What questions would show up there? What level should we be on? How personal should we be? Would it be strictly a channel for commercial (buy this, sale, info etc.)? What would the purpose with the Facebook page be?”

“We used to have a blog but we ended it when we felt that no one had the time or heart to invest in to it we started the fan page on Facebook in the end of July this summer (2010). “

“We want the Facebook page to be like a person. There is where consumers can track what type of music, sports event and fashion the Company likes. Also what we think about other people and companies, restaurants etc. This is where the consumer will be able to understand the brand personality. It is those values that are hard to put a word to.” •

Supervise social media content: “Yes, off course. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, other communities, for example political communities, and so on. You name it”

The Consumers (B) We then asked the Consumers which channels that have influenced their image of the Brand the most, graded by importance 1-3, where 1 is not at all and 3 is totally.

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Fig 4.1. ”Factors influencing the image”

! Result/Analysis Schultz and Schultz argues that marketing has gone through two distinct phases in the past 40 years and is about to enter a third. The first phase was domination of markets by manufacturers, who were able (through intensive promotional campaigns) to control markets or at least to have the strongest influence in them. The third phase and most relevant phase in this case, is brought about by the increasing use of IT by consumers. It is the consumer domination of the marketplace!114 Although Schultz and Schultz, with many others, argue that the power relationship has shifted, we wanted to find out if the traditional promotional campaigns still had an effect on the Consumers brand image. This would then mean that the Company still has some control of their brand. The Company in our case study market themselves through traditional positioning like the 4 P’s. The infamous ‘marketing mix’ by Kotler is not mentioned in the interview but obviously present as it seems to be the main strategic tool used by the Company. Blythe argue that the strategic role of marketing sometimes has been seen as patriarchal. This view align with the strategy used by the Company as they are strongly trying to control their Brand via extensive promotional campaigns buying all forms of traditional media like TV, news papers, billboards etc. Social media is not included in their strategy and absent in the marketing budget. In this sense, the Company does not embrace the social media and the third phase of marketing through a viral approach. The Company is in between the phase by promoting certain blogs with free samples but not letting the brand run totally free in social media. One-way communication dominates rather than interactive and viral two-way conversation.

114

Blythe (2006)

To investigate if this is still affective we asked the Consumers which channels have influenced their image of the Brand the most. Place and promotion does have a great impact still as stores, coffee shops and billboards are the most influencing channels amongst our respondents. Just as fig 4.1. display there is much to gain from Word of Mouth. Friends in real life were the second most influencing channel according to the Consumers. In fact, compared to TV, the result showed that ‘friends irl’ are extremely trustworthy and highly impacting the Consumers image of the Brand. Even though social media tools like Twitter, blogs and Facebook showed the least influencing power in our survey it cannot be out-ruled as a powerful channel in the future. The line between online and offline is diminishing and ‘friends’ is not an exception. The Company has the marketing strategy of below-the-radar-marketing. The idea of below-the-radar-marketing is that if the firm can combine influential people to make the brand their own, and configure the brand, like a virus, to make it easy to talk about, the influencers will rapidly spread their interest in the brand to other through their social networks. The Company much desire to have the artist Robyn as their public face. They do so by giving her free samples of their product and therefore being associated with her brand values. This is not a parameter which we covered when asking the consumers. It should therefore be said that the results in figure 4.1. are limited in the sense that other factors like reference groups, symbols and meaning is not taken into account.

4.2. Brand Positioning and Awareness Traditional definitions of brand positioning suggest that it is the process where the brand owner tries to claim a unique spot for the brand in the consumer’s consciousness. Brand awareness reflects how well the brand exists in the mind of the consumer. Kapferer says that brand awareness is a measurement of how successful the brand is. Therefore, to analyze how successful the Company has “positioned” the Brand, we have used Kapferer’s model which consists of three levels: Top of mind, Aided and Unaided. Top of mind being the most successful and unaided the least. The Company (A) In comparison to soft drinks the Company wants to position their brand as healthy, smart and good-looking. The Brand Manager describes the Brand as following: " Young " Innovative " Swedish " Good-looking " Better alternative

The Consumer (B) Top of Mind:

Can you mention a swedish brand that is good-looking, young and inovative? LKJPQX!

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Aided:

Can you mention a smart alternative to soda? 29,85% 19,40%

16,42% 10,45%

8,96%

5,97%

4,48%

1,49%

Fig 4.3. ”Aided”

Unaided:

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Fig 4.4. ”Unaided”

! Result/Analysis The survey shows that the Company’s positioning of the Brand is successful in the sense that they are mentioned within ‘Top of mind’. Other brands the Consumers mentioned as Swedish, good-looking, young and innovative are relatively gigantic brands like Acne, H&M and Spotify. Although the Brand is only represented by 5% within the ‘Top of mind’ this should not be seen as a failure. First of all, it is the fact that the Brand is mentioned at all which indicates that the Company still have something to say when it comes to the brand values. Secondly, the brands which got a higher percentage are fashion and music brands which the Brand wants to be associated with according to the Brand Manager. Another way of analyzing the companionship of the attractive fashion and music brands within the top of mind is by referring to the concept of cultural branding by Holt. Iconic brands find their competition within the same myth/cultural contradiction.115 Hence, the highest competition for the Brand is not only represented by actors within the same product segment but can rather have a totally different product. Both Acne and H&M makes clothes and Spotify stream music while the Company acts within the segment of functional drinks. On the second awareness level, ‘Aided’, we asked the Consumers if they could mention a smart alternative to soda, which according to the CEO is their positioning on the market. In this case, the Brand ended up on 5th place right after water, sparkling water, lemonade and juice. In this case, being 9% ‘Aided’ is ok but nothing more. The Brand should have a higher number of awareness on this level to be successful though the same positive reflection goes here as the companionship is relevant and a proof of attempts to position the Brand as a smart alternative to soda. Although the Company should strive to get a higher awareness, being represented at all is off course a success. As the empirical findings show, no other brand was mentioned but rather categories. This shows that the Company has succeeded in positioning their Brand within the preferred market segment. The lowest level of awareness is called ‘Unaided’ and it is the direct knowledge of the brand. The Consumers were, besides from being directly asked about the Brand, also showed a picture of the product and logo. The survey showed that out of the 100

115

Holt (2003)

respondents, 82% had heard about the Brand and 12% had not. This shows that it is certainly a well known brand amongst the age-group; 15-35 in Sweden. So what can we say about the empirical findings? The Company’s extensive promotional campaigns using traditional media, events and stores have reached a lot of Consumers as most of the respondents where aware of the Brand. But are they perceived as ‘a smart alternative to soda’? 9% mentioned the Brand amongst water, juice and lemonade. So, yes in the sense that the Company has succeeded to position the Brand within the right market segment. No, in the sense that they loose to better alternatives. So, when looking at the Brand from a traditional point of view, using Kapferer’s model of successful branding, we discovered that traditional positioning is better explanatory factor for tangible parameters like product, competitors, market segment etc. while the brand values like Swedish, good-looking, smart and innovative’ can be explained by cultural branding. In both cases, the survey shows that the Company in some way still controls their brand with traditional positioning but that they still have a long way to go to beat their competition.

4.3. Brand Identity and Image Gap The traditional definitions of branding suggest a brand identity is communicated to control the image of the brand, held by the audience. We wanted to know if this is still possible for a company moving in a transparent Socialnomic world. Is the brand identity the same as the image or is there a gap? Does the consumers create their own brand meaning by completely have a different perception of the brand? How is the brand affected when a third stakeholder, the Social Media is empowered? In this part of the study we wanted to analyze the brand and its attempt to control its brand identity and the image and associations held by their consumers. We first listened on what the Company said, and then asked the Consumers what they thought and felt, and finally we did a direct observation and took a random sample of the Social Media. The Company (A) The brand values which the Company ascribes the Brand is: " " " " " " " "

Young Innovative Swedish Good-looking Better alternative Trendy Healthy Smart

When we asked the Company about the Brand’s image they said that they are perceived by the Consumer as a good-looking and tasty alternative. But it exists an image problem! The Company is aware of an unwanted image, which we explain as the brand identity and image gap. The CEO explains a big image problem where consumers perceive the Company as a “marketing company”. People questions the product regarding its’ content. This lack of trust is something the Company struggles with and tries to solve with intense communication in media as well as on their products.

“I think that we can… well, we are afraid of being perceived as a marketing company. This is something we try to avoid. People can question our products when it comes to its content.” The Consumers (B) We asked the Consumers how they feel when consuming the Brand. The purpose was to create an understanding for what values and meaning they ascribe to the Brand and what the Brand symbolizes other than the direct brand image.

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Figur 4.5. “Brand Image”

Fig 4.5. “Brand Image” shows that out of the 100 respondents, almost half of them have a positive feeling when consuming the Brand. Meaning that 48% or the Consumers image are aligned with the brand values the Company communicates (A). Healthy, fresh, tasty and trendy where the most common ones. See figure 4.6. The survey also showed that 22% of the Consumers had a totally different image of the Brand (B), see figure 4.8. The most significant finding is that 30% of the respondents had negative feelings, which confirms the brand identity and image ‘gap’ (B). See figure 4.7. This “unwanted image” was also expressed by the Company. Positive values (A) “Wanted Image”:

What do you feel when consuming the Brand? (Positive) ISJKNX!

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Figur 4.6. ”Wanted Image”

Fig 4.6. “Wanted Image” indicates that almost 30% of the total amount of respondents feels healthy when consuming the Brand. The Company wants to be perceived as a healthy and tasty alternative which they clearly are. Fresh was another common feeling amongst the Consumers. Even trendy, which the company indirectly communicates and strive to be. Although this is a success, the positive parameters should be compared in relation to the negative and other brand images below. Negative Values (B) “Unwanted Image”:

What do you feel when consuming the Brand? (Negative) OQJPOX!

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Figur 4.7. ”Unwanted Image”

Fig 4.7. “Unwanted Image” shows that the Company’s biggest fear, that they just are a marketing company, is generic. That 30% of the respondents have a negative feeling concerning the product and they perceive the Brand as a hoax, just a marketing company, that they do not believe in its contents and that it is expensive. After ‘healthy’, ‘fooled (don’t believe in the product)’ is the second biggest image amongst the Consumers in our study. The third most common image is ‘fresh’ with the relatively low number of 8,96%.

Other values (B):

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Out of the 100 respondents, 22% expressed other brand values than the positive and negative. Almost 6% had no image. 4,48% didn’t buy the brand because it was healthy, good-looking or trendy. They where just thirsty! Can thirsty people be segmented by demographic factors like traditional marketing theories suggest? No, but ‘trendy’ people can be. An interesting connection to figure 4.6 is that the exact same amount, 4,48%, held an image of the Brand as trendy. The Social Media (C) During the observation, we wanted to find out what is really being said and discussed about the Brand online – namely its buzz! A third of the data was collected from blogs, another third from forums and the last third from the popular micro blogging tool Twitter. These are the results:

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According to fig 4.9. “The Social Media – Blogs”, the red staples align with how the Company wants’ the Brand to be perceived. Healthy – 18%, tasty alternative – 17% are 38

the two most common answers which indicate that the Company still exerts some control of the Brand. What was expressed intensively though was ‘happiness and love’ for the brand. Some also talked about the content of the product in a positively way. Although much of the conversations are positive and align with the communicated brand identity, negative discussions like ‘unhealthy’, ‘untasty’ and ‘expensive’ where quite common. The Company can not protect themselves from this as the Socialnomic world allows many new “authors” of the brand.

Social Media - Forum discussions Better alternative to competitors Unhealthy Weak taste Have no opinion Don't trust the product Dosen't taste good Worse alternative to competitors Feel healty/Trust the product Expensive Spread facts/comparison Expressed love

3% 3% 3% 5% 7% 8% 8% 8% 10% 10% 33%

Fig 4.10. “The Social Media – Forum Discussions”

Fig 4.10. Compared to the brand values expressed by bloggers, forums didn’t talk as much about ‘healthy’ which was only represented by 8% whereas 10% expressed ‘expensive’. In fact, the same amount that discussed ‘healthy’ discussed the product as ‘worse alternative to competitors’. The negative brand values like, unhealthy, don’t trust the product etc. where more common within forums. Perhaps this is compensated by the great amount of 33% that expressed love and affection for the Brand.

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Fig 4.11. “The Social Media – Twitter”

Fig 4.11. “The Social Media – Twitter” shows that the most common topic of discussion is gossip, news and spreading positive information about the Brand. This confirms that our world is, due to social media, highly transparent! The observation shows that people 39

engage and talk about the brand and whether it is good or bad, they tell everyone. Control has in this sense been lost. ! Result/Analysis The study shows that the Company is right about one thing. The Consumers do perceive the Brand as tasty. In fact, the Social Media shows that people express true affection and a love for the Brand. Healthy, smart and good-looking are also common images held by the Consumers. Although this indicates a successful branding it does not mean that the Company is in control! Just as the Company feared, there is a negative image of the Brand as well as other images. Together these stand for 52% of the brand’s image. The reasons for this can be many. A failed promise, poor products or failed marketing strategy to name a few. The CEO was aware of the unwanted and negative image and said that they try to bridge the brand identity/image by communicating even more. But what if no one is listening? One thing is for sure, weather the image is good or bad, people will tell their world about it. The discussions are the same but the arena has changed from the water cooler to the transparent and fast moving platforms of social media. For anyone with an internet connection, a Facebook account or who knows how to Google, This is where the Company lost the control!

4.4. Personality and Self-image To get a deeper understanding of the Company’s brand identity we studied its internal facets: personality, self-image, physique and reflection. In part 4.4 and 4.5, the Social Media isn’t directly observed to gain data as these facets are very specific and data are only collected through the interview with the Company and the survey with the Consumers. This doesn’t out-rule the Social Media as a stakeholder as the expressed attitudes (see figures 4.9 -11 above) are used to draw conclusions. But, foremost, Social Media shows significant change in brand control when studying the Brand through Kapferer’s facets of the brand identity prism. 4.4.1. Personality In Kapferer’s identity prism the internalized side of the brand identity consists of the brand personality and the consumers’ self-image. According to Kapferer, the personality is the facet which the brand owner has control over and with which he or she indirectly can control or at least attempt to control the self-image. The brand personality shows what kind of person it would be if it were human. The easiest way of communicating a brand personality is via a real or symbolic figurehead, for example a celebrity. The Company (A) When we asked the Brand Manager at the Company what personality the Brand has, she answered: •

A trendy person

The Company communicates their brand personality mainly through their Facebook Fan Page where they post music videos, sport and fashion events: “We want the Facebook page to be like a person. There is where consumers can track what type of music, sports event and fashion the Brand likes. Also what we think about other people and companies, restaurants etc. This is where the consumer will be able to understand the brand personality. It is those values that are hard to put a word to.” 40

As the brand personality speaks to the consumer self-image, in a perfect world it would seem like they are the exact same. We therefore asked the Company who their "dream consumer" would be. The answer was the extremely popular music artist Robyn, which is a modern icon and symbol of a ‘trendy person’. The Consumers (B) We asked the Consumers what kind of person the Brand would be like. We gave the respondent a number of personalities to choose from. Some trendy, some sporty and other masculine etc. Robyn was one of them. We also gave them a chance to name a particular celebrity on their own if they perceived the Brand to have another type of personality. The result is shown in figure 4.12.

If the Brand would be a celeberty, who would it be like? 29,69% 25,00%

A trendy/fashinable A superfical blogger artist

25,00%

An athlete

10,94%

9,38%

Other

A masculine person

Figur 4.12. ”Brand Personality”

Figure 4.12 shows that almost 30% view the Brand as a ‘trendy’ person who is involved with music and fashion. The alternatives that were given for this parameter was Robyn and Oscar Linnros, both musicians and trendsetters within clothes fashion. 25% view the Brand as a sporty and athletic person. The alternatives that were given for this parameter was Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Karolina Klüft. Together, a total of 55% of the Brand’s personality, when asking the Consumers, consist of values which the Company prefers. ! Result/Analysis The biggest finding though is not that the Company has communicated the Brand’s personality well but that they are losing control! Almost a third of the Consumers view the Brand as ‘a superficial blogger’! The alternative that was given was a well known Swedish blogger called Blondinbella which is a symbol of young girls making it within the shallow blogosphere of fashion, lifestyle and everyday life. From the trendy point of view she is in generally not a sign of cool and hip rather the opposite. We can only interpret this finding as a result of the many authors of the Brand which is enabled by Social Media. 4.4.2. Self-image Kapferer argue that a brand speaks to consumer’s self-image. Brands are closely related to the understanding of consumer self-image that is the features with which consumers identify themselves and the very same features they would like to be reflected by the 41

chosen good and its brand. The conception of consumer self-image can be determined and strengthened by examining purchase and consumption.116 The Company (A) The personality and the physique of the brand are the brand identity facets by which the sender, traditionally the Company, can control the self-image.117 These values were: " "

Personality: Young and trendy (interested in the right music, sports and fashion) Physique: Good-looking and trustworthy/high quality

The Consumers (B) If we had asked the respondents “How would you like to be perceived socially when using the Brand?” the answers would have been affected by them not being honest to themselves or us. You cannot really say “because I want to look hip and cool”, that’s just not hip… or cool. According to Kapferer, the facets within the identity prism correlate to one another and create a unity.118 We therefore interpret the self-image as a product of the personality and similar to the reflection. The personality of the brand was viewed by almost 30% as a trendy and fashionable person and by 25% as a healthy person (sees fig. 4.11). Of the reflection held by the consumers (see fig. 4.11) only 6% of the respondents thought that this was a brand consumed by a trendy person. Again, ‘healthy’ person was perceived by 25%. Disturbingly enough, ‘superficial blogger’ was a strong reflection as well as personality type which the respondents held about the Brand. ! Result/Analysis The study shows that almost 60% of the Brand’s personality is ‘healthy’, ‘trendy and fashionable’. As these values are promoted by the Company, it is a success. The problem is the 25% of the respondents who view the Brands personality as a ‘superficial blogger’. We interpret this finding as a result driven by the Social Media where anyone, anytime and anyhow can blog about the Brand. This confirms what Qualman argues; what take social media to the next level are the personal brands of the people spreading the brand. To understand this we have to take a look at who is saying what in Social Media networks. During our direct observation of the Social Media we did not collect the specific background information to analyze this. Though, we collected the demographics (see figure 2.3-4) which indicates that the main bloggers are young (under 20 years old). This seems natural as the Social Media is a relative young phenomenon adopted mostly by young people.119 We think that this finding could not have been possible by only studying the brand identity/image gap as perhaps the traditionalists would have done. Neither by only studying the success or failure of brand positioning. No, this finding is an outcome from a study where the deeper facets of brand identity are taken into account. When we asked the Company about the positioning and image, ‘superficial blogger’ was not mentioned. Probably because this is a result driven by the Social Media as well as a more postmodern view of branding, which is not the dominant view amongst academics or companies. Batey argues that how a company 'positions' a brand is not necessarily how the consumer perceives that particular brand. According to the postmodern view, brands allow marketers to add meaning to products and services, but it is consumers who ultimately determine what a brand mean! In our modern consumer society, the meanings people find in brands help them make sense of, and give shape to, the world around them. Basically, 116 117 118 119

Kapferer (2004) Ibid Ibid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng

brands help people to define themselves and their place in that world.120 The Consumers defining themselves as a ‘superficial blogger’, a ‘trendy and fashionable person’ or as an ‘athlete’ when consuming the Brand should be in the greatest interest of the Company as we live in a Socialnomic world where Facebook status updates, sharing and narcissistic behavior makes the brand facets personality and self-image increasingly important.

4.5. Physique and Reflection In Kapferer’s identity prism the externalized side of the brand identity consists of the brand physique and the consumer’s reflection. The physique is the brands physical appearance; the features that represent the brands qualities. The reflection is the image of the buyer or user which the brand seems to be addressing. Physique is the facet by which the company can control the reflection.121 4.5.1. Physique The Company (A) “We feel that the brand is very good-looking and esthetic. It reaches a certain creative height. But this is not something that we say, hence it something that we communicate indirectly. It is something that is incorporated in the brand.” •

Trustworthy/rich of ingredients: “The bottle is very informative. We take inspiration from pharmacies and to everything that has a high amount of trustworthiness. We want it to be associated with something of high quality and which is rich of ingredients.”

•

Good-looking/highly esthetic: “Then there is the bottle in itself, which we are very proud of to have conceived. It is so good-looking!! The bottle itself makes you more good-looking. It works like an accessory.”

•

Swedish/soft, calm and ‘lagom’: “The brand physique/product has soft and calm colors. It should attract the Swedish consumer. It is “lagom.”

The Consumers (B) Once again, we asked an open question to get the Consumers honest and spontaneous thoughts. Among the 100 respondents, there were clear patterns and agreements of what feelings the brands physique communicates. • Trustworthy/rich of ingredients: 12, 22% of the respondents said that the Brand’s physique communicates a feeling of trustworthiness. But this was not the main feeling amongst the Consumers. •

120 121

Good-looking/highly esthetic: 17, 78% explicitly said the same thing: Good-looking! Some of them also thought the physique was pure and simple which can be interpreted as goodBatey (2008) Kapferer (2004)

looking. In that sense as many as 35, 56% of the asked consumers agreed with what the Company tries to communicate. Another strong value that the Consumers felt about the Brands physique was healthy and fresh/cool/refreshing. Observe that this was not a brand value directly mentioned by the Company

What feelings does the Brand physique communicate, according to you? 45&%C18()/%! Y%+/#$:! =&51#3$*&#:!;*,#%,#! =&%,0:! T_;/518U%! Y*+_!

KJKKX! KJKKX! IJIIX! IJIIX!

NJNQX! LJLNX!

OQJQSX! OQJQSX! OLJLNX! ORJRRX! OIJIIX!

. Figur 4.13. ”Brand Physique”

Figure 4.13. The result is obvious! The brands’ physique is strongly interpreted as pure

and simple, good-looking, healthy and trustworthy amongst other positive values. Even though ‘boring’ and ‘hoax’ are represented in the survey, they only stand for a minimal part of the Consumers perception of the brand’s physique. The Company has truly succeeded in communicating the desired brand values, by using the ‘physique’, to their audience. Perhaps, the Brand’s physique is the strongest facet where the Company can add values to the brand. 4.5.2. Reflection When asked about a brand, people often answer by describing what kind of person the brand is addressing. “That is a brand for young people! For fathers! For show-offs!” This part of Kapferer’s identity prism is called the reflection.122 The Company (A) The Consumers’ reflection is a part of the brand identity which the Company can try to control by the physique and the personality. These values are as previously mentioned: • •

Personality: young and trendy (interested music, sports and clothes fashion) Physique: trustworthy and Swedish but foremost good-looking as it is highly esthetic in the sense that it will make the consumer more good-looking. It works as an assessor, according to the Brand Manager.

The Consumers (B) A third of the respondents’ reflection of what kind of person is consuming the Brand answered that it is a healthy person but only 6% reflects upon the brand as consumed by a trendy person. The dominant reflection amongst the respondents of the survey is that the 122

Kapferer (2004)

Brand is consumed by a young and urban resident, often a girl who is fooled by the marketing and buys the expensive product. The most evident outcome of the survey is that the respondents feel that this is a brand consumed by ‘superficial bloggers’. Se figure 4.14 below.

What kind of person is consuming the Brand? ILJILX! ORJORX!

OKJOKX!

OIJOIX! SJMSX!

Healthy

Young

Other

SJMSX!

Superficial Urban Fooled by blogger residents the marketing

QJMQX!

NJMNX!

Girl

Trendy

Rich

Figur 4.14. ”Brand Reflection”

! Result/Analysis The result shows that the Brand’s physique is strong in the sense that it is perceived by the Consumers in the way which the Company wishes it to be. If Kapferer’s identity prism is right, the reflection should match the physique but our study shows that it does not. Off course, ‘healthy’ is highly represented amongst the Consumers’ perception but the main reflection is a totally different from all other values that we have come across in the study. Of the 100 respondents 68, 7% perceive the Brand to be consumed by what we summarize as a ‘superficial blogger’ as many of the other parameters can be applied upon it. This is definitely an interesting finding and we ask ourselves why this is; can it be a result of the Socialnomic era? Does it confirm that the company has lost control and ownership has passed on to consumers? The results from the case study is discussed and analyzed below to interpret the issue of branding in the twenty-first century marketplace.

4.6. Analysis of Brand Control in Social Media “Consumers want to take ownership of your brand and brag about your product; let them!” 123 Qualman argues that a part of being successful in the Socialnomic world is for companies to be more open and comfortable in letting go of the ownership and the control of their brand. But what is meant by ‘ownership’? As Batey describes it: “Whereas brands were previously selected for their capacity to confer values on the consumers who use them, it is increasingly and more pertinently the case that consumers are conferring values on the brand

123

Qualman (2009)

they use. More and more, "ownership" of brands is passing to consumers.”124 But why is this discussion interesting right now? We think it is because of the interesting combination of social media and the modern consumer society, where the consumers is more individualistic and narcissistic looking to fulfill its social-self by consuming brands which acts as symbols of meaning together with the fact that people are eager to engage online with brands as they clearly feel that their opinion about brands are important. They want to associate themselves with brands which contribute to their personal brand. Together with the opportunities of social media network sites, like, for example Facebook’s extremely popular ‘status update’, this creates a problem. The problem is that meaning of an object is not static but rather free-floating and can therefore change. When social media now enables who ever, when ever, to write and say whatever about the brand in a social media network, which not only reach its closest friends and family but which easily can become a digital tsunami in a global context, the company no longer have full ownership of the brand. Instead they are co-creating the brand together with other powerful stakeholders. The consumers are one of them and right now, perhaps the most powerful of them? Bengtsson and Östbergs model of brand meaning gives a good indication of the relationships surrounding the brand.

2&+,0!*3,%&1!

6*,15(%&1!

"#$%&! '()*&#+,#! -#+.%$*/0%&1!

4*)5/+&! 65/#5&%!

Fig 4.15. “The Authors of the Brand” Bengtsson, Mats & Östberg, Jacob

The model “The many authors of the brand” was confirmed in our study of brand control in social media as well as strengthened by following quote: ”The meaning of objects are no longer fixed and linked to their functions, but are free-floating as each individual may ascribe the meanings she/he desires to the object.”125 The semiological approach to meaning describes brands as symbols in a system of meaning which the linguist Saussure analyze through language. He argues that meaning is not natural but rather arbitrary. Objects can only signify meaning when being signified by a signifier.126 Clearly speaking, a brand has no meaning of its own but this has to be injected. Why this becomes interesting is because of the question of who is in control.

124 125 126

Batey (2008) Simmons (2008) Desmond (2003)

Our study showed a couple of results which support the previous analyze. The most significant finding in the study was the reflection the Consumers had about the Brand. Almost 70% thought of the Brand to be consumed by a young, urban girl who is fooled by the marketing and therefore buy the expensive product. She is a superficial blogger. These values are the opposite of the trendy dream consumer (like Robyn) which the Company wants to communicate to its audience. But why is this? Our immediate response is that the Company is no longer the only one telling the brand story and together with the fact that in a Socialnomic world, the values of the person telling the story is connoted upon the brand. In the case of our study, the brand meaning has changed in the favor of the consumers rather than the company. The quickest death in this new Socialnomic world is deliberating rather than doing. Qualman argues that it is not going to be perfect every time, and that the end user is smart – they will understand that user generated content is beyond a brand’s control. Or will s/he? Our case study reviled a consequence of the viral approach which indicates that the companies are losing control of the brand meaning when doing so. This partially confirms Holt’s view on viral marketing, saying that the problem with the viral model is that it assumes that any communication is good as long as it is retold. According to him, viral branding itself is not a viable approach of building strong and lasting brands, what he calls iconic brands. He also says that identity brands that are developed through viral approaches have a fatal flaw – they are authorless.127 Our study showed that in fact, the Company is still great authors of the brand with respect to the successful branding through traditional positioning but they are not the only one. This change in brand control is an outcome of the transparent and real time world of social media. The Company did not invest any budget in social media and viral marketing, so how come their brand is partially a ‘superficial blogger’? They did not, directly, let go of their brand. In fact, they are very protective of their brand as this is one of their greatest assets. The answer is – they didn’t have to. Qualman’s term Socialommerce indicates that people trust other people more than they trust Google, not to mention advertisements. The ‘holy grale’ of social media –sharing – made this possible. Although most of the Social Media buzz where affectionate and passionate, it wasn’t the Company who was telling the story. It was the Consumer – in this case a young, urban girl…. A ‘superficial blogger’. But, although it might seem as the Company had nothing to do with this new brand image, they indirectly did. It is aligned with Qualman as he argues that the philosophy of “This is my ball so only I am going to play with it” has failed time and time again.128 The Company in our case study is letting go of the brand ownership in the sense that they sponsor bloggers, musicians and other events that will spread the Brand. The Brand Manager said that they do not have a certain strategy when it comes to who is sponsored. As long as he or she has a fan base or reader base which the Company then can reach. An example is the Swedish musician ‘Ola’ who was sponsored because of his fan base of teenage girls even he is seen as the opposite to cool, hip and trendy (like Robyn) as they want the Brand to be. The Company in our study is willingly giving out free samples to bloggers as well as sponsoring events and music artists. But the attitude of “as long as we can spread the brand and reach an audience and desired target group”, which is similar to Holt’s criticism towards viral branding, it is shown to have affects on the brand meaning in terms of changed identity and image. Does this result apply to all types of brands? Which brands are more likely to be owned by the Consumers? This is something which could be the target for future research but as 127 128

Holt (2003) Qualman (2009)

we have studied a brand in the contemporary market we have gained some insight which might explain the question. We think that a brand is more likely to be ‘high-jacked’ by the consumer if it is a brand that is valued much for what they symbolize rather for what it does. Especially in a Socialnomic world where the consumer uses brands to create an identity. Baudrillard argues that to create an identity, we consume objects as they are not only material goods, but also function as signs which both denote and connote meaning.129 Bengtsson and Östberg argue that, today, when we live in consumer society, identity constructions has moved from collective identities in the production realm to individual identities in the consumption realm. Identity construction has become a highly visual phenomenon and products are valued as much for what they can do as for what they symbolize.130 The Brand in our study wants’ to be entertaining, smart, and goodlooking. These are some values which we think will trigger the Consumer to passionately engage and talk about the Brand in social media. In the future Socialnomic world, the Company might only be the value innovator and the Consumer the true value creator. As our study have shown, The Social Media does affect the relationships between the stakeholders and true owner as creation of the band meaning does not singularly lie with the Company anymore. The Brand Flower By doing a quantitative estimation of the brand values amongst the Consumers and the Social Media, the brand flower is calculated as following: (A/B/C->B?) Trendy/Healthy/Good-looking Hoax/Don’t trust it’/Expensive Young/Urban/Superficial blogger

A B C

Image 48% 52%

Personality 75%

Physique 88% 12%

25%

(A/B/C->C?)

Reflection 32% 8% 60%

Blogs

Forums

Twitter

243% 72% 85%

400% 400% 400%

Total A/B/C amongst B 61% 18% 21% Total A/B/C amongst C

Trendy/Healthy/Good-looking

54%

23%

42%

119%

300%

40%

Hoax/Don’t trust it’/Expensive

31%

42%

81%

300%

27%

Love/Recommend/Not tasty

38%

46%

16%

100%

300%

33%

The Social Media 40% 27% 33%

181% 65% 54%

(A/B/C->Brand Flower?) A’s brand values B’s brand values C’s brand values

129 130

The Company 80% 20% 0%

The Consumer 61% 18% 21%

300% 300% 300%

The ‘true brand’ 60,20% 21,70% 18,10%

Desmond (2003) Belk (2006)

Who is the true brand owner then? What results came out of the case study in terms of our analytic model which represents the Company (A), the Consumers (B) and the Social Media (C). The answer is:

Fig 4.16. “The Brand Flower” Bellman & Nabseth

Although a successfully positioned A, there is a distinctive B which can be explained by C. Our study shows that there is neither C/C/C which would out-rule the A and the B (total domination by a specific social media buzz). The C is present in the Brand Flower by means of new values which change the brand identity – reflection, personality and self-image – which in the end changed the brand meaning.

5. Final Discussion When we started our journey in late august 2010 we had a hunch that this was going to be ‘a hard nut to crack”. But because the issues which the social media landscape presented before us was so profound, we could not be other than extremely intrigued! Without knowing where we would land we went out on a hunt for the branding of tomorrow, hoping to find the answer to all our questions. As these, off course, were many we boiled them down to the overall question of “Who is in control of the brand in the social media world?” And to the three operationalized sub questions of: " " "

1. Are the consumers and the company sharing the same perception of the brand and are these two alike to the social media buzz? We found the answers in the traditional positioning of brand identity and the issue of brand image. But we were given the tool to analyze it by the postmodern understanding of brand meaning. Our case study showed that the Company and the consumers are partially sharing the same perception of the brand but far from entirely. A brand identity/image gap was obvious as only 48% of the respondents in the survey perceived the brand exactly as the company had intended them to do. A traditional approach to this problem would be to bridge ‘the gap’ through intense communication and by successful positioning bribe a predetermined place in the consumers mind. But perhaps the Consumers create their own meaning of the Brand? Or perhaps the Social Media buzz creates it for them? We do know that the brand identity and the brand image partially differed but were any of them alike to the Social Media? Our case study showed that much of the Social Media in blogs, forums and Twitter were positive but not exactly the same parameters that were expressed by the Company nor the Consumers. Love and affection, happiness and passion for the Brand were often expressed in the Social Media as the Consumers do want to engage with brands. The unwanted brand image was present but far from dominant. The Company can communicate even more to position a stronger brand identity to bridge the gap between the desired and unwanted image which the Consumers evidently holds. But they should be aware of the concept of brand meaning and take important stakeholders into consideration. Whether they want it or not consumers are taking more ownership of the Brand and the Company has to wake up and pay attention! 2. Is traditional positioning still valid in a Socialnomic world? Our study showed that traditional positioning is still valid in a Socialnomic world. Product, Price, Place and Promotion created a desired image and brand awareness 50

amongst the Consumers. Although the â&#x20AC;&#x153;unwanted imageâ&#x20AC;? was found, the specific brand identity/image gap had no clear connection to the Social Media.

3. Does social media affect the brand? The Social media world does affect the Brand. Our case study specifically showed that the Consumers reflection of the brand identity was heavily affected by Social Media. Although the physique and personality of the brand identity was strong, these did not control the reflection and self-image, which could only be explained by bloggers adapting the brand. The brand identity was injected with values from another stakeholder and this had changing affects on the brand. The brand meaning is up for negotiation and the different stakeholders are eagerly willing to participate!

5.1.

Conclusion

The problem that we have discussed is Brand Control in Social Media. We moved from the traditional view of full control, through the postmodern view of co-creation and into the Socialnomic view of no control. We asked ourselves “Who is in control of the brand in the social media world?” and wished to gain insight in the discussion of branding in the twenty-first century market place. The postmodern view of marketing argued that the traditional view holds a strong metaphor of the brand manager as an alchemist who can mix and match components to achieve a desirable outcome relies on an overly simplified view of the culture in which brands exist. Instead of the conventional view that a company communicates a certain brand identity, which is more or less correctly interpreted by consumers as a brand image, our study confirms that the meaning of a brand is constructed by various ‘authors’ who are telling their own stories. The postmodern thinkers does not suggest a better ‘how-to’ (it would go against their philosophy, which is more about challenging existing truths by showing that there is no single truth). In that sense, we cannot really say that the Company should or should not let go of their brand. But we can also say that in some sense, they don’t have the opportunity to choose. A significant finding in our research showed that the Brand was heavily affected by the Social Media. There are new ‘authors’ of the brand and they are empowered. The Company has lost some – but not all – control of their brand as part of the ownership has been passed on to the Consumers. Whether they do or don’t “do social media”, the Company have to realize the consequences of a transparent Socialnomic world, one being a different brand meaning. Finally, our study confirms a Socialnomic shift but it also shows that traditional branding – like positioning – is still relevant. The 4 P’s should not be out-ruled as an marketing tool. We think that the traditional view of brand identity and brand image and the postmodern perspective of cultural brands as symbols of meaning are not to be chosen between. They are not the opposite side of the same coin but rather totally different coins that together with the Socialnomic view creates a multiple perspective which is needed in the complex branding of the twenty-first century market place.

5.2.

Goals and Achievement

We felt that something has happened to the marketing landscape. Something which we referred to as Socialnomics. As we have been taught the principles of traditional marketing as well as the thoughts of the postmodern school, we wanted to investigate the 52

brand control in social media with hopes of contributing to the discussion of branding in the twenty-first century. And so we did! The multiple perspectives lead us to develop a The Brand Flower which worked as a skeleton in our empirical research. The findings were obvious. Traditional positioning like the marketing mix are still valid as many of these desired brand values are being held as an image or as a buzz. But as we took the investigation to a deeper level of the concept of brands, the empirical data showed that the brand identity was heavily affected by unwanted and different values. These lead to conclusions of brand meaning and that consumers are taking more and more ownership of the brand, hence the company is loosing control of their brand. We also hoped to find out if the Company should let go or keep full control, something which this research does not prevail. We did though create an insight about brand control in social media. We hope that our insight will give the academic market scientists a notion and a ‘heads up’ so that Social Media will be included in future marketing models, as it is a strong force to be recon with! We were aiming to have more eccentric finding where were we would put an end to traditional marketing principles of the 50’s. This did not happen, yet the critical and optimistic approach might have been necessary as a starting point. At least, this was what triggered us to conduct the study.

5.3.

Future Research

In an extended future study in brand control we believe by adding a more diverse foundation of companies, respondents and in social media we would gain insights in a more general aspect. A tool to study the social media buzz will also be needed. As we think that ‘we are on to something’ future research might therefore be a replication of this study but in a larger extent.

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Slater, D. (1997) ”Consumer Culture and Modernity” Polity Oxford Uggla, Henrik (2003) ”Organisation av varumärken” Kristianstad Boktryckeri AB, Kristianstad. Upshaw, Lynn B (1995) “Building brand identity” John Wiley & Sons, Canada. Wells, William, Sandra Moriarty, och John Burnett (2006) “Advertising, Principles & Practise” Pearson Education LTD, Upper Saddle River.

Electronic Sources http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng 2010-10-01 Chapman, CC (2008) “Comcast Wins With Twitter” http://www.managingthegray.com/2008/05/23/comcast-wins-with-twitter/ 2010-10-01 Synovate (2008) “Young adults eager to engage with brands online, Global research from Microsoft and Synovate reveals“ http://www.synovate.com/news/article/2008/11/young-adults-eager-to-engage-withbrands-online-global-research-from-microsoft-and-synovate-revealpagehtml 2010-10-05 Andrew Harrison (2009)” Consumer engagement is not brand ownership“ http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/consumer-engagement-is-not-brandownership/3006898.article 2010-11-20 Bjurling, Carl (2009) ”Postmodernismen knackar på” http://www.daytona.se 2010-10-09

Articles from Academic Journals Alanah Mitchell, Deepak Khazanchi (2010) “The Importancew of Buzz” Marketing Research. Bughin, Jacques (2009) “Going Digital: Essays in Digital Transformation” Copyright: McKinsey & Company. Dye, Renée (2000)”The Buzz on Buzz” Harvard Business Review. Gardner, B.B, Levy, S.J.( 1955) “The product and the brand” Harvard business review, vol 33, 33 - 39. Greg Metz Thomas Jr. “Building Buzz in the Hive mind” Journal of Consumer Behaviour Vol. 4, 1, 64–72.

Geoff, Simmons (2008)”Marketing to postmodern consumers: introducing the internet chameleon” Emerald Group Publishing Ltd, European Journal of Marketing vol 42 issue !. Gylling, Catharina and Lindberg-Repro, Kirsti “Investigating the links between a corporate brand and a customer brand”, (2005) Brand Management Vol. 13, NO. 4/5, 257–267 April-June Hatch,M and Schultz,M (2004) ”Organizational identity” Oxford university press, Oxford UK, page 362 Hardey, Mariann "The social context of online market research: an introduction to the sociability of social media", International Journal of Market Research Vol. 51 Issue 4, p 562-564. Klopper, Chris "Managing your company's image". Manager: British Journal of Administrative Management, Summer 2010, Issue 71, p15-17. Leslie de Chematonv,”Brand Management Through Narrowing the Gap Between Brand Identity and Brand Reputation”, Joumal of Marketing Management 1999, 15, 157-179. O’Reilly, Daragh (2005) “Cultural Brands/Branding Cultures”, Journal of Marketing Management, 21, 573-588 Quealy, Stewart 2009 ”Interview: John Gerzema,” SES Magazine, March, page 57. Renée Dye “The Buzz on Buzz” Harvard Business Review No-Dec 2000 Simmons, Geoff. 2008, ”Marketing to postmodern consumers: introducing the internet chameleon”,Emerald Group Publishing Ltd, European Journal of Marketing vol 42 issue ! Schroeder, R. (2002) “The Social Life of Avatars- presence and interaction in shared virtual environments” Springer-Verlag London Limited. Tom Smith, "The social media revolution", International Journal of Market Research Vol. 51 Issue 4, pp 559-561 Melissa Landau Steinman and Mikhia Hawkins (2010) "When Marketing Through Social Media, Legal Risks Can Go Viral" Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal, Volume 22 • Number 8, pp 1-9

Registry Data Lars Melin, Birgitta Mannfelt (2008) ”Företagens användning av IT 2008” Copyright: Statistiska centralbyrån.

Appendix 1 Interview with the Company 14/10-10 STOCKHOLM PRODUCT 1. What is The Company? The Company develops and produces within what is called ‘functional drinks’. 2.

Define your market. Brand Manager: “Sweden is the home market. But we also act in Norway, Finland, Holland, Italy, Greece, and Denmark.” CEO: “Convenience, Café, Sport”

What is your marketing strategy? Café is a marketing strategy and an important branding. It takes a lot of recourses but doesn’t necessarily generate any direct revenues.

Do you buy traditional media? CEO: “Yes, every type of traditional media. TV, Newspaper, Bill board etc.”

BRAND 1. Describe the brand. Young. Innovative. Swedish. Quick. Smart. 2.

What core values does it hold? Innovative – The CEO says that this is what they want to be but might not be, yet! They hope to be able to live up to it next year (2011). Better alternative – to the existing products. No matter what happens! Young – youthful mind, employees and brand. This has to do with the values innovative and quick. The Brand Manager says: “We have a possibility to listen and act on it at once.”

How do you think that the brand is perceived? 57

The Brand Manager says: “I think that we are perceived as good-looking and as a tasty alternative. The CEO sees a big image problem! “I think that we can… well, we are afraid of being perceived as a marketing company. This is something we try to avoid. People can question our products when it comes to it’s content.” The Company struggles with lack of trust and are helping the problem with intense communication. We asked how they communicate this more concrete and the Brand Manager adds: “We talk a lot about the content, manly on the bottle. We often talk about it in our communication campaigns. Another important strategy is that our products can be bought at the pharmacy. This is very important for our trustworthiness. That the pharmacy thinks that the product is good and allows us to place our products there.” The CEO continues: “It is important to know that our products are not medicine. It is just a smarter and better alternative to soda.” But, he says, “This is hard. When it comes to PR, this is our biggest problem” He describes what is written about The Company and what is being asked at interviews as the same type of question over and over again: “Is not it more healthy to eat a carrot and drink a glass of water?” 4.

How do you position the product? (try to summarize it in 140 characters) The CEO: “In relationship to soda. It is more healthy, smart and good-looking!” He continues: “Then there is the Swedish aspect (that it is a Swedish brand and that the product is produced in Sweden). Here you can add the environmental aspects. Although that is not something that we push it is still there. There is also an aspect of better ingredients compared to the competing sodas.”

What values is the brands physics communicating? The Brand Manager: “We feel that the brand is very good-looking and esthetic. It reaches a certain creative height. But this is not something that we say, hence it something that we communicate indirectly. It is something that is incorporated in the brand.” She continues: “The bottle is very informative. We take inspiration from pharmacies and to everything that has a high amount of trustworthiness. We want it to be associated with something of high quality and which is rich of ingredients.” After having explained the physical appearance of the text on the bottle, the Brand Manager spontaneously adds: “Then, there is the bottle in itself, which we are very proud of to have conceived. It is so good-looking!! The bottle itself makes you more good-looking. It works like an accessory.” The brand (which basically is equal to the bottles appearance) has soft and calm colors. It should attract the Swedish consumer. It is ‘lagom’… ““When you are tiered of water and want something with taste but not to strong taste.”

What kind of personality does the brand have? Both the CEO and the Brand Manager: “ Trendy person.” The Brand Manager adds: “When we discuss this we often talk about the different products which together form a family. One product is the parent, another the cool person, the young man or middle-aged woman etc.” The Brand Manager also says that consumers are heavily affected by colors. “Women chose pink and men black.” 58

CONSUMERS 1. Who is buying your products? The CEO defines who is buying their products by talking about their target market terms of demographics: In this case a segment which spans from 12 to 45 years old. It has started to spread though. Before it was mostly young people but now they are attracting more and more people in the age of 30 +. This might be a result from the shift, from mainly cafés to supermarkets, in location where the product are sold. 2.

Do you have a dream consumer? Who? - Robyn! “She is almost too good to be true!” Both the CEO and the Brand Manager sounds like great fans of the Swedish musician and they also have a picture of Robyn hanging in their conference room.

Do you have a nightmare consumer? Carolina Gynning. “Laughing and joking” But the answer is “No, I don’t think we have… Em.. No, not really”

Do you work with product placement? Brand Manager: “Yes, but not actively. It is if someone, which it always is, calls us and says “hey, we love your product, can we bring some on the tour? We promise to place it on the stage!” But we don’t call them. Sometimes ‘wrong’ brand ambassador (like Ola) asks and we might just say yes in spite of that he/she doesn’t match our brand. This is because he/she has a broad fan base, which is an attractive target market for us.”

How is your relationship with your consumers? Events, demo in supermarkets, sampling, student ambassador etc. When the selling staff gets feedback about consumers from our consumers, they report it back to us. Younger consumers meet us on Facebook.

SOCIAL MEDIA 1. How much of the total marketing budget is spent on social media? CEO: “Zero. It is not relevant for our consumers. Social Media is not in “their box” when asking about our marketing investments.” 2.

What social media channels are you working with at present? CEO: “We used to have a blog but we ended it when we felt that no one had the time or heart to invest in to it we started the fan page on Facebook in the end of July this summer (2010). “ “We finally took the decision.” They continue by explaining the late start up: “It is always difficult… Lack of time was the main reason at first but foremost the question of how we would be perceived. What questions would show up there? What level should we be on? How personal should we be? Would it be strictly a channel for commercial (buy this, sale, info etc.)? What would the purpose with the Facebook page be?

What do you want to achieve with your Facebook fan page? 59

Brand Manager: “We want the Facebook page to be like a person. There is where consumers can track what type of music, sports event and fashion The Company likes. Also what we think about other people and companies, restaurants etc. This is where the consumer will be able to understand the brand personality. It is those values that are hard to put a word to.” 4.

What kinds of questions do you want the consumers to ask there? Brand Manager: “Facebook is our only meeting point with our consumers where they can ask questions.” (Except from email and phone) CEO: “We want all types of questions and if it is something complex we might call our ‘experts’ to get help answering the consumer’s question.”

How do you handle complaints and negative feedback in social media? Brand Manager: “We will not remove anything (unless it is obscene).” “We will answer it” CEO: “It can be nice or ugly, we will answer anything. Our ambition is to answer within 48 hours.”

Do you surveil social media for comments about you? Brand Manager: “Yes, off course. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, other communities, for example political communities, and so on. You name it”

Do you act on what is written about you in social media? CEO: “Rarely. We often stay out of the social media conversations. It feels rude to intrude. But if it is something that is completely incorrect we might do…” !

Appendix 2 Survey with the Consumers Questions: 1. Demographics: Age and gender 2. Traditional positioning/awareness - Kapferer’s’ top of mind: Can you mention Swedish brand that is young, innovative and good-looking? 3. Traditional positioning/awareness – Kapferer’s’ aided: Can you mention a smart alternative to soda? 4. Traditional positioning/awareness – Kapferer’s’ unaided: Do you recognize The Brand? 5. Brand meaning/image: What image do you have of The Brand? What values does it hold, according to you? 6. Control of the brand: Which of the following channels have affected you picture of The Brand the most? (rank from 1 as the most to 10 as the least) Event/ TV/ Newspapers/ Blogs/ Coffee shops/ Drug stores/ Billboards/ Friends irl/ Facebook, Twitter etc./ Google/ Contact with The Company/ Other (open) 7. Brand Identity/Personality – Kapferer’s identity prism: If the Brand was a celebrity, who would it be? 8. Brand Identity/Reflection and Self-image – Kapferer’s identity prism: What type of people use the brand? 9. Brand Identity/Physique – Kapferer’s identity prism: What do you think of The Brand’s physic/ aesthetic appearance? What values does the product connote?

Question 1: Sex? Male

Female

RIX! LSX!

Question 2: Age? 15-25

26-35

36-45

45-

RX! LX! KSX! LKX!

Question 3: Can you mention a brand that is good-looking, young and inovative?

11,11%

7,94% 6,35% 4,76%

Acne

Spotify

The Brand

4,76%

Odd Molly

4,76%

Absolut

3,17%

Happy socks

WESC

Question 4: Can you mention a smart alternative to soft drinks? 29,85%

19,40% 16,42% 10,45%

8,96% 5,97%

Water

Sparkling Lemonade Water

Juice

The Brand

Alcohol

4,48%

Vitamin Water

1,49%

Energy drinks

Milk drinks

Coffee

Question 5: What do you feel when consuming The Brand? Positivt

Negativt

Ă&#x2013;vrigt

22% 48%

30%

Question 5 continued: What do you feel when consuming the Brand? (Positive) 28,36%

8,96%

Healthy

Fresh

5,97%

4,48%

Tasty

Trendy

Question 5 continued: What do you feel when consuming the Brand? (negative) 17,91%

7,46% 4,48%

Fooled (dont belive in the product)

Just a marketing company

Expensive

Question 5 continued: What do you feel when consuming the Brand? (other) 5,97% 4,48%

4,48% 2,99%

Nothing - I dont buy it

Thirsty

Boring

Happiness/love

1,49%

Untrendy

Unneccessariy

Unhealthy

Question 6: Which of the following channel have influenced your image of the Brand the most? The CompanyÂ´s fanpage on Facebook Twitter Friends on Facebook TV Contact with The Company Bloggs Newspaper/press Work/School Drug Store Events Billboards Coffe Shops Friends IRL Store

1,08 1,09 1,13 1,13 1,23 1,3 1,43 1,45 1,48 1,77 1,96 2,06 2,25 2,35

Question 7: If The Brand would be a celebrity, who would it be like? 29,69% 25,00%

25,00%

10,94%

A trendy/fashinable artist

A blogger

An athlete

Other

9,38%

A masculine person

Question 8: What kind of person is consuming The Brand? 25,25%

14,14%

13,13%

12,12% 8,08%

Healthy

Young

Other

Stureplan

8,08%

Big City Life Fooled by the marketing

7,07%

6,06%

Girl

Trendy

Rich

Question 9: What feelings mediate the shape/colour/language of The Brand? Scandinavian

2,22%

Hoax

2,22%

Young

3,33%

Exclusive

3,33%

Contemporary Boring Trustwhorty content Fresh/cool/refreshing Healthy

5,56% 6,67% 12,22% 14,44% 15,56%

Pure/simple

17,78%

Attractive

17,78%

Stockholm University School of Business 106 91 Stockholm Telephone: +46 (0)8 16 20 00 www.fek.su.se