The Value Creation in Brand Public
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The value creation in brand public by [Hongwei Han, Zana Rama] [May 2018] Master’s Programme in [International Marketing & Brand Management] Supervisor: [Clara Gustafsson ] Examiner: [Mats Urde ] Abstract Purpose: Brand public is a new theory developed as a brand communication on social media. The aim of this thesis is to reveal the value creation of brand public in contrast to the values created by brand community Methodology: We apply a postmodern perspective and our study is constructionistic, therefore we have selected the qualitative approach called netnography. Theoretical We draw on relevant literature on brand public, perspectives: brand communities, crowds, social status game and micro-celebrities. Empirical Our data consists of 20775 tweets in the timespan from 2017-12-01 Foundation: to 2018-04-09 in relation to the hashtag #HM. Through the tweets, we have been able to study the Twitter content in terms of hashtags, tweets and @replies. Conclusion: Supported by our findings, we have discerned that brand public is probably able to develop the connective actions. Second, we have discussed how to create crowds by means of affectivity on Twitter. Third, through relentless publics, the Twitter users can become micro-celebrity, which is marked by the number of retweets and @replies. Fourth, we have revealed the role played by brand public in the multidimensional social game on Twitter. Keywords: Brand public, brand community, crowd, affectivity, connective action, social status game, micro-celebrity. Acknowledgments This thesis was developed within the Master of Science (MSc) program in International Marketing & Brand Management 2017/2018. We would like to use this opportunity to show our gratefulness to our supervisor, Clara Gustafsson. The guidance and advice provided by her have driven us to improve the thesis continually during the ten-week process. We would also like to thank Lund University and the Professors and Administration in the International Marketing & Brand Management program for the valuable knowledge and experience provided during the program. Lund University, Sweden, 28th of May 2018 ___________________________________ Hongwei Han ___________________________________ Zana Rama Table of Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 5 1.1 Background .............................................................................................................................. 7 2 Literature stream .............................................................................................................. 10 2.1 Brand public........................................................................................................................... 10 2.1.1 The rise of communities .................................................................................................................. 10 2.1.2 Brand community and the online environment ................................................................................ 12 2.1.3 The rise of brand public ................................................................................................................... 13 2.1.4 Summary of brand community and brand public.............................................................................. 14 2.1.5 Value-creation in brand public vs. brand community........................................................................ 15 2.2 Brand public on Twitter ......................................................................................................... 18 2.2.1 Affectivity, the vehicle of the value creation of brand public ............................................................ 18 2.2.2 Micro-celebrity on Twitter ............................................................................................................... 20 2.3 The theory of tastes ............................................................................................................... 23 2.3.1 Bourdieu’s theory of tastes .............................................................................................................. 23 2.3.2 The problems with Bourdieu’s theory of tastes ................................................................................ 25 2.3.3 Adjusted theory of tastes ................................................................................................................ 26 2.3.4 The theory of taste and Twitter ....................................................................................................... 28 3 Method chapter ................................................................................................................ 29 3.1 Qualitative Approach ............................................................................................................. 29 3.1.1 Research philosophy: Postmodernism ............................................................................................. 29 3.1.2 Constructionism and qualitative study ............................................................................................. 30 3.2 Netnography .......................................................................................................................... 31 3.3 Twitter ................................................................................................................................... 32 3.3.1 Anonymity on Twitter ...................................................................................................................... 33 3.3.2 Sharing on Twitter ........................................................................................................................... 33 3.4 Trustworthiness ..................................................................................................................... 34 3.5 Data collection ....................................................................................................................... 35 3.6 Data analysis .......................................................................................................................... 38 4 Findings and analysis ........................................................................................................ 41 4.1 Analyzing the content of the most frequently mentioned tweets ......................................... 41 4.1.1 The topic: HM’s stock price .............................................................................................................. 42 4.1.2 The topic: General fashion information ............................................................................................ 43 4.1.3 The topic: Information about the new season .................................................................................. 43 1 4.1.4 The topic: Nicki Minaj ...................................................................................................................... 44 4.1.5 The topic: Holiday Sale .................................................................................................................... 45 4.1.6 The topic: Sale of New Season ......................................................................................................... 46 4.1.7 The topic: Capitalism of H&M .......................................................................................................... 47 4.1.8 The topic: H&M vs. Street Art .......................................................................................................... 48 4.1.9 The topic: Outfit of the Day ............................................................................................................. 48 4.1.10 The topic: Racist Commercial....................................................................................................... 49 4.1.11 The topic: Vandalistic news ......................................................................................................... 50 4.2 The traffic volume of the #hm hashtag .................................................................................. 50 4.2.1 The relationship between the traffic volume of the #hm hashtag and the top 5 popular co-hashtag list 52 4.3 The value process in the connective action ........................................................................... 55 4.3.1 Self-organiZing network and retweets .............................................................................................. 55 4.3.2 Collective identity in a connective network ...................................................................................... 56 4.3.3 Driving further meaning to the brand .............................................................................................. 57 4.3.4 The power of connective action ....................................................................................................... 58 4.3.5 Not acting properly to the direction of the connective network ....................................................... 59 4.3.6 Connective action in the category of self-presentation ..................................................................... 60 4.3.7 Summary of the value-creation process of Connective Action .......................................................... 60 4.4 Affectivity .............................................................................................................................. 62 4.4.1 The different characteristics of affect .............................................................................................