The Case of the Lululemon Brand Assemblage

Brands as Mediators of Lifestyles – the Case of the Lululemon Brand Assemblage

MASTER THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in Strategic Management

Univ. - Prof. Dr. Andrea HEMETSBERGER Department of Strategic Management, Branding The University of Innsbruck School of Management

Submitted by Selina WIEDMANN

Innsbruck, Mai 2018

Abstract

Brands are constantly changing due to public discourse online and offline. Using netnographic data from the brand Lululemon and conceptualising brands as processes and assemblages of interacting components, this master thesis investigates how brands and other elements of a brand assemblage mediate among stakeholders and culture. This work suggests that the processes cultural tagging, cultural portraying and field language facilitate social mediation between a brand and a cultural field.

Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures ...... IV

1. Introduction ...... 1

1.1. Problem Description ...... 1

1.2. Structure of the Thesis ...... 2

2. Theoretical Background ...... 3

2.1. Brands as Processes ...... 3

2.2. Brands as Assemblages ...... 8

2.2.1. Components of an Assemblage ...... 9

2.2.2. Interactions Among Components ...... 10

2.2.3. Individual and Social Interaction ...... 13

2.3. Social Mediation ...... 13

2.4. Social Mediation Processes ...... 15

2.4.1. Co-Creating Brand Meaning ...... 15

2.4.2. Co-Generating Brand Manifestations ...... 17

2.4.3. Co-Constructing Brand Stakeholders ...... 18

2.5. Cultural Fields ...... 20

3. The Case Lululemon ...... 22

4. Methodology ...... 27

Research Design ...... 28

4.1.1. Research Method ...... 28

4.1.2. Sampling ...... 30

4.1.3. Data Collection ...... 31

Data Analysis ...... 33

5. Findings ...... 34

5.1. Co-creating Brand Meaning ...... 35

5.2. Co-Generating Brand Manifestations ...... 44

5.3. Co-Constructing Stakeholders ...... 53

6. Discussion ...... 60

7. Managerial Implications ...... 63

8. Limitations and Further Research ...... 64

Appendix ...... XXII

III

List of Tables and Figures

Figure 1. Brands as Processes and their Outcomes ...... 4 Figure 2 Brands as Processes: Assemblages at Three Levels of Interaction ...... 12 Figure 3. Lululemon’s Manifesto ...... 23 Table 1. Types of Online Webpages Used for Data Collection ...... XXII Table 2. Quotes Used in the Findings Section ...... XXVII

1. Introduction

1.1.Problem Description

Digitalization is omnipresent in today’s economy and radically changes market conditions with its revolutionary character. Digitalization today represents the third industrial revolution and permanently recreates and changes economic and social conditions. Like during other revolutions, working conditions and lifestyles change massively. Digitalization and social media does not only change organizational communication but in general interactive processes between organisations, customers and markets. (Kreutzer & Land, 2013). Today’s digital technologies allow users to share content, create links, use hashtags or comment posts about brands. Brands are omnipresent in public discourse and brand meaning is constantly altered in the multivocal online and mobile realm. The increased importance of brands in our daily life shows that brands have become a part of our lifestyle culture. Lifestyles that are relevant to stakeholders can be defined as sociological fields (Marquis & Tilcsik, 2016).

The notion of assemblage theory helps to understand how the digital age has changed branding. The assumption of brands as branded goods has changed. Branding entails multiple as well as diverging layers of activity as brands are constantly subject to public discourse online. Assemblage theory suggests that consumers, stakeholders, brands and brand meaning are parts of a bigger brand assemblage that is generated by processes of interaction (Lury, 2009). Stakeholders for example interact with the brand by sharing content or discussing aspects of the brand with other relevant stakeholders.

Researchers (Merz, He & Vargo, 2009; Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2012; Vargo & Lusch, 2004) argue that managing the outcomes of branding is difficult because brands are co-created. This co-creation takes place in an environment that entails an abundance of brand related communications and a lack of attention. Brands are constantly changing due to public discourse online and offline. The increasing importance of certain lifestyles shows that brands have to become cultural intermediaries that connect sociological fields and stakeholders. Therefore, it is important to know how brands mediate between stakeholders and lifestyles or cultures. The perspective of assemblage theory highlights that certain interaction processes generate a brand assemblage.

This master thesis focuses on how brands mediate lifestyles and aims at analysing social mediation processes. Therefore, the research question is the following: How do brands and

other elements of a brand assemblage mediate among stakeholders and culture? The knowledge of social mediation processes helps organisations to proactively manage process outcomes. This can be done by initiating processes and cooperating with stakeholders in order to control these processes.

The brand Lululemon is an interesting example that shows how brands build assemblages of material and expressive elements that mediate between brand and lifestyles. Founded in 1998, Lululemon is a Canadian, technical athletic apparel company that is inspired by yoga (Lululemon athletica (Ed.). (n.d.)a). Lululemon mediates an active lifestyle centred around yoga through different communication strategies, rituals and specific practices. To communicate means to mediate between different perspectives (Jovchelovitch, 1995). Thus, the brand’s communication and social practices are a mediation between desires to lead an active lifestyle and the brands products. This master thesis uses the case of Lululemon to show how brands mediate lifestyles.

1.2.Structure of the Thesis

This master thesis generally investigates how brands and other elements of a brand assemblage mediate among stakeholders and culture. First, a theory review provides an overview of current conceptualizations of branding. The view of brands as processes highlights how the active role of stakeholders affects branding. Assemblage illuminates the processual perspective of branding by comparing components and interactions between them with the three overarching processes of branding. Assemblage theory does not point out how specific interactive processes work. Therefore, the next chapters highlight through which social mediation processes brands connect with certain lifestyles or cultures. The last chapter of the theory review focuses on cultural fields as well as logics of those fields, because brands are mediators between stakeholders and cultures or lifestyles.

Before explaining the course of action of this study, I familiarise the reader with the brand Lululemon. The active lifestyle brand Lululemon is a well-suited case for this master thesis as the brand’s community-based marketing triggers public discourse online, which helps understanding how the brand assemblage works as a cultural intermediary.

The research design includes a case study of the brand Lululemon and a netnography with the goal of analysing social mediation processes online. The data collection concentrates on interactive data stakeholders and the brand create online. Relevant data is then coded based on a grounded theory approach.

The findings section provides an interpretation of the mediation processes online. In the light of assemblage theory, the findings are then used and integrated into the theoretical framework of brands as processes. The theoretical discussion is further utilised to imply how brand managers can integrate the findings of this study into their organisations. Limitations and further research provides an implication on how this thesis leads to new potential investigations.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Brands as Processes

New ideas on the construction and change of brand meaning are emerging that recognise brand meaning as a collective effort between various stakeholders. These new ideas challenge existing notions of branding in the literature, which view brand meaning as an outcome of brand managers’ activities. The concepts of customer co-creation (Merz, He & Vargo, 2009; Vargo & Lusch, 2004) and customer engagement (van Doorn, Lemon, Mittal, Nass et al, 2010) highlight the active role of the customer and view branding as being co-created. The creation of brand meaning does not only involve customers but also multiple other stakeholders (Frow & Payne, 2011; Hult, Mena, Ferrell & Ferrell, 2011; Koll, Woodside & Mühlbacher, 2005; Vargo & Lusch, 2008, Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). The interaction of various stakeholders is interrelated and can be viewed as a complex social exchange that creates value (Neville &Menguc, 2006; Hult et al., 2011). Brands are socially constructed by complex interrelations of stakeholders.

Yet, literature on the social construction of brand value is limited as it focuses either on consumers or on the process of meaning co-construction only (Schau. Muñiz Jr. & Arnould, 2009; Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). As a response to this limitation, Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger (2013) propose that brands are complex social processes that entail processes of co-creation of brand meaning, co-generation of brand manifestations and co-construction of brand stakeholders. Figure 1 illustrates this proposition. Social representation theory suggests that meaning can be created individually as well as socially through discourse and interaction between individuals and groups (Wagner, 1996). Based on social representation theory, Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger (2013) define “brands as processes and outcomes of these processes, respectively” (p.34). Brands as processes are continuous interactions between stakeholders who are involved in certain systems of manifestations, meaning and other stakeholders that unceasingly arise from these processes on a societal, social and individual

level. Brands as outcomes of these processes are systems of interrelated manifestations, meanings and stakeholders that stimulate and frame further ongoing interactions. Brands as interaction processes emerge within a socio-cultural context (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013).

MEANING

Co-Creation Co-Construction

INTERACTION PROCESSES

Co-Generation STAKEHOLDERS MANIFESTATIONS

Figure 1. Brands as Processes and their Outcomes (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013)

Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger (2013) view brand stakeholders as public organisations and institutions as well as individuals who participate in the co-creation of brand meaning, co- generation of brand manifestations and co-construction of other brand stakeholders. Brand stakeholders are individuals who are in some way interested in the brand. Such individuals can be brand managers, consumers, staff, distributors, journalists, supplier, but also fans of competing brands (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013).

Brand meaning can be defined as a dynamic collective system of emotions, knowledge and symbolic interpretations which is intertwined with brand manifestations, brand stakeholders and their communicative interaction processes. Brand meaning constantly changes and is thus not fixed (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). Beliefs and evaluations towards a brand are constantly challenged and discussed in discourse (Moscovivi, 1984) and are activated

depending on their situational context (Barsalou, 1999). Brand meaning comprises a context- independent core, which provides a common ground for interpretative and evaluative interaction, and a context dependent periphery that provides a ground for situation-specific interpretation (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013).

Based on various situations, brands can manifest in several ways. Brand manifestations can be defined as tangible and intangible objectifications of the brand meaning and comprise organisations, people, activities, events, objects and patterns of behaviour. Brand manifestations provide stimuli for social interaction, which in turn also stimulate the reproduction of brand meaning (Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger,2013).

The process perspective of brands involves “(1) the co-creation process of brand meaning, (2) the co-generation […] process of brand manifestations and (3) the co-construction of band stakeholders” (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013, p.36). The three processes are closely interconnected relating content, time and stakeholder participation (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013).

Brand meaning is co-created because stakeholders continuously share their knowledge and communicate their expectations, experience, and evaluations. Consumption patterns, which can also be resistant towards a brand, are visible and thus influential towards other stakeholders (Cova & Dalli, 2009; Kozinets & Handelman; 2004). In general, meaning can be created through processes of anchoring and objectification (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). Anchoring can be compared to familiarising and occurs when unfamiliar practices, thoughts or other elements are introduced to the social reality of a group. Objectification, however, is the process of transforming abstract concepts into something more familiar (Barsalou, 1999). Related to branding, stakeholders transform multifaceted brand meaning into rather simple manifestations, which stakeholders use during discourse that in turn stimulates brand meaning (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). Stakeholders constantly engage in the creation of brand meaning by continuous re-interpretation, varying amount of participation, and actualisation from the moment a brand related stimulus appears. Interested stakeholders that imitate or contrast social practices without further reflection can also create brand meaning. The practices can only be rationalised in later discourse (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013; Weick, 2001). The process of co-creating brand meaning can contain conflicting elements that influence the periphery of brand meaning. Social dynamics between brand stakeholders can also carry conflicting elements over to the shared core of brand meaning (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger,

2013). For example, the VW emissions scandal or Samsung’ exploding smartphones scandal can be detrimental inconsistencies for a brand that results in a loss of relevant stakeholder interests.

Co-construction of relevant stakeholders is another process of branding. Stakeholders communicate with each other in a continuous process of sense-making (Weick, 2001), which identifies and influences other stakeholders during discourse. Participants shape and typify other stakeholders and attach certain meanings to them regarding the generation of brand meaning. Stakeholders constantly re-evaluate other stakeholders. This can lead to stakeholders leaving and entering a brand at different times and to varying extends. Interested actors in a brand can have different roles and interact with other stakeholders differently. The interaction involves an exchange of brand related relevant information in discourse (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger,2013). Stakeholders can share their thoughts either through direct verbal or non- verbal forms of communication like narrations, visualisations, talk, engagement, observation, creation and production or through indirect communication like online communication (Kozinets et al., 2004). The extent to which stakeholders participate in brand-related discourse depends on the perceived emotional association with the brand, the perceived importance of brand manifestations, brand meaning and other stakeholders (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). Some stakeholders identify themselves as members of the brand in order to construct and maintain their own individual and social identity (Muñiz & O’Guinn, 2001). Stakeholder participation can be increased by visible brand manifestations (Dutton, Dukerich & Harquail, 1994) or deep structure identification with representative manifestations, meanings or stakeholders (Rousseau, 1998; Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger (2013) argue that interested actors of the brand create their own brand-related roles and ascribe certain roles to other stakeholders like evangelists, devotees or antagonists. The authors (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013) differentiate between an inner circle and an outer circle of brand stakeholders. The inner circle or figurative nucleus (Hayes, 2000) comprises relevant stakeholders like brand communities, brand managers and sub-cultures of consumption (Cova & Cova, 2001; Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013; Muñiz & Schau, 2005, Wipperfürth, 2005). The core actors are key brand prototypical stakeholders of the brand and serve as ambassadors or representatives. Other stakeholders like employees, celebrities or major users can also be part of the inner circle (Mühlberger & Hemetsberger, 2013). Gyrd-Jones and Kornum (2013) argue that core stakeholders communicate differently than stakeholders of the outer circle because they co-generate brand manifestations, co-create brand meaning and co-

construct other stakeholders more closely towards the brand. Less active brand-related actors exist within the periphery of a brand and participate in the co-creation of brand meaning and in the co-generation of brand manifestations related to a specific context (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). Peripheral stakeholders can engage in negative actions towards the brand and convince other stakeholders of their opinions about the brand (Gyrd-Jones & Kornum, 2013).

Stakeholders continuously co-generate brand manifestations (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). Brand meaning shapes and is also determined by the co-generation of brand manifestations (Dant, 1999). The objectification of brand meaning generates brand manifestations through processes like ritualisation or reification. Brand stakeholders can, for instance, participate in regular brand events, articles can be posted online by newspapers, or the ritual of wearing Nike shoes whilst working out can all develop into manifestations of brand meaning. Brand manifestations can be placed into staged settings, which in turn influences the meaning of a brand. Highly involved stakeholders actively participate in the co-generation of brand manifestations by engaging in innovative brand related activities (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). Consumers or consumer groups can, for example, participate in brand- related services or product innovations whereas retailers can host brand-related events or train their staff a specific behaviour (Luedicke, 2011). Tangible and intangible brand manifestations are characterised by processes of participation and collaboration. Online platforms, for instance, provide a space for stakeholders to share their knowledge of and information about a brand- related topic with other stakeholders. Cooperative practices with other stakeholders can lead to a co-generation of brand manifestations (Hemetsberger, 2012).

The process perspective of brands highlights that branding involves processes of co-creating brand meaning, co-generating brand manifestations and co-constructing brand stakeholders. Brands are ongoing interactions that continuously evolve over time. The processual perspective of branding is a complex and non-linear system with various expressive and material components (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). In the next paragraph, the concept of brand assemblages further enlightens the multi-faceted, processual and complex understanding of branding.

2.2. Brands as Assemblages

Assemblage theory is a helpful concept for explaining how brands as processes are constructed because it provides a framework that considers various material and expressive components that in turn generate non-linear and complex systems that constitute to processes of branding (Lury, 2009).

An assemblage encompasses a group of heterogeneous components that participate in interaction with other components and other assemblages. The key idea of assemblage theory is the interaction among components. A brand as an assemblage involves a huge variety of different components like stakeholders, brand manifestations, brand meaning, markets, or communities. These components connect and relate to each other, which creates a brand assemblage that evolves from continuous interactions of its components. However, an assemblage cannot be reduced to the sum of its component parts because an assemblage is characterised by an on-going interaction between these parts. If there were no interaction between components, the assemblage would simply not exist because these components would just be a collection. It is the process of interaction that provides the assemblage with its identity that is more than the sum of its parts (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015).

Brands as processes encompass the components of the co-creation process if brand meaning, the co-construction of brand stakeholders and the co-generation of brand manifestations (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2013). All three processes are heterogeneous components that interact with each other and change constantly. The components of a brand can be tangible such as brand stakeholders or certain brand manifestations as well as intangible such as other brand manifestations and brand meaning. Assemblage theory can be identified as a multi-level theory because the components of an assemblage are themselves lower-level assemblages that consist of various interacting assemblages (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). In a branding context, this implies that the three main processes, which involve stakeholders, brand manifestations and brand meaning, themselves are assemblages at their own level and include lower level components.

According to DeLanda (2002, 2006, 2011) all elements of an assemblage, independent of what they are defined as at their level (assemblage or component) are characterised by three aspects: properties, tendencies and capacities. Capacities of a component show what it can do as well as what can be done with it. Interactive processes between two components are always affected by their respective capacities. The continuous interaction between components can also create

new capacities. These on-going interactions highlight that assemblages are dynamic, not static and subject to continuous non-linear change. Material or expressive elements of components as well as processes of coding or territorialisation can change an assemblage, or more specifically stabilise or destabilise it. Whether an assemblage is destabilised or stabilised depends on interaction processes (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015).

2.2.1. Components of an Assemblage

Parmentier & Fischer (2014) argue that assemblages are agentic systems that entail various components. The interaction of these components can either influence an assemblage’s identity in a stabilising or destabilising way (DeLanda, 2012). A brand as a social assemblage comprises components that involve people, things, consumers of the brand, physical attributes of the product, as well as technologies that allow consumers to have access to a brand (Parmentier & Fischer, 2014). This aspect rather focuses on tangible elements that can be related with a brand. Parmentier and Fischer (2014) highlight the importance of people, things and consumers of the brands that can be categorised as stakeholders of the brand.

Interaction between entities leads to a certain potential in terms of what they can do. This potential can be defined as capacity. Parmentier and Fischer (2014) argue that brand assemblages can have material and expressive capacities. Deleuze and Guattari (1978) describe material capabilities as the potential for objects, bodies, things, people or brands to interact in an assembly. Material capacities can interact with both non-sentient and sentient elements of another capacity within an assemblage. This interaction can be either explained through mechanical (a cause leads to an effect) or catalytic causation (the given cause just makes a possible effect rather likely by triggering thought, attention and behaviour) (DeLanda, 2006). A sports top with an imprinted motivational quote for instance, can trigger a customer to be more active but does not necessary lead to this effect. Expressive capabilities, however, can be identified as the potential for gestures, facial expressions, emotional tone, sentiments and symbols to interact in an assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari, 1978). For instance, social media platforms provide expressive capabilities to capture gestures and expressions with pictures and emoticons online (Epp et al., 2014; Parmentier & Fischer, 2014). Parmentier and Fischer (2014) refer to advertising campaigns in order to explain this abstract argument. Whenever an ad with an extensive expressive capacity is launched in a brand assemblage, it does not necessarily have a mechanical cause of increasing the demand or altering consumers’ attitudes to buy a certain product but rather makes the purchase decision more likely. Focusing on material and

expressive capacities of brands as assemblages helps to understand the interaction of those capacities (Parmentier & Fischer, 2014). The interaction that occurs between two entities operates through pairs of capacities of the respective entities (DeLanda, 2002). The pairing of capacities during interaction can lead to new capacities (Hoffmann & Novak; 2015).

Besides expressive and material types of capacities, Epp et al. (2014) add the imaginative capacity to Deleuze and Guattari’s (1978) expressive and material capacities. The imaginative capacity can be described as “the potential to creatively envision components interacting in […] [an assemblage]” (Epp et al., 2014, p.88). Imaginative capacity can be important for accomplishing a goal (Chan & Cameron, 2012) and can compensate for material and expressive capacities (Epp et al., 2014).

Assemblages entail components that are not fixed (DeLanda2006). This implies that new components can be added to an assemblages and others can be separated from the assemblage as well (DeLanda2006). This element of assemblage theory has a processual character. Thus, describing brands as assemblages goes hand in hand with the idea of brands as processes.

Woermann (2017) argues that assemblage theory in general has the tendency to focus on the larger scheme of things like historical tendencies and processes or global flows and networks. Various authors (Bajde, 2013; Bettany, 2007; Bettany and Kerrane, 2011) state that networks in the light of assemblage theory are not characterised by boundaries but are enacted by interested parties.

2.2.2. Interactions Among Components

The process of interaction is key to understand assemblages. A brand consists of various components that interact with each other and in turn are the reason for the emergence of the brand. Stakeholders are a necessary and crucial component of a brand because without stakeholders the brand would not really be a brand. Besides multiple components, interactivity is highly important, because it holds the assemblage together. Without interactive processes, there are only people and products but no brand (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015).

Components of assemblages cannot only interact two ways at the same time, but also three, four or even more ways. A two-way interaction can, for instance, involve a consumer and a brand-related event. In contrast, in a three-way interaction, a stakeholder uses a brand manifestation to create brand meaning. A four-way interaction might involve a manager

responding through social media platforms to a brand crisis caused by a product failure (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015).

Assemblage theory supposes that there exist three different ways that entities can interact with each other. The interaction between components can be identified as a within-assemblage interaction. A two or more-way interaction can be considered as a within-assemblage interaction, too. In contrast, a part-whole interaction is the interaction between a component and an assemblage. Assemblage theory allows considering an interaction between a part and a whole that involves the part, because it is a theory of change that occurs over time. A stakeholder of a brand assemblage (the whole) embodies the outcome of the whole history of that stakeholder interacting with various components (like brand manifestations or brand meaning) of the whole. Between-assemblage can be defined as the interaction between an assemblage with another assemblage (DeLanda, 2006). The collaboration between two brand assemblages, for example, is a between-assemblage interaction.

DeLanda (2006) states that assemblages can be part of a macro assemblage by interacting with other assemblages. For branding, this means that a brand as an assemblage also interacts within its network towards other brand assemblages, such as competitors. For example, a brand reacts to a competitor’s product launch by creating a new product. This between-assemblage interaction can lead to a higher-order macro assemblage (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). Assemblage theory is a multi-level theory, which implies that components themselves can be assemblages. Besides higher-order macro assemblages, sub- assemblages can emerge. Figure 2 shows a brand assemblage at three levels of interaction.

Figure 2 Brands as Processes: Assemblages at Three Levels of Interaction (Hoffmann & Novak; 2015)

Figure 2 illustrates three levels of assemblages: assemblages, sub-assemblages as well as macro assemblages. The white circles represent assemblages of interacting components (small coloured circles) but are also components of the light blue rectangle assemblages. The light blue rectangle assemblages are in turn components of the light orange assemblage. In the figure, brands as a process represent the macro-assemblage of the processes of co-creation of brand meaning, co-generation of brand manifestations and co-construction of brand stakeholders. The blue rectangles are sub-assemblages with respect to the orange “brands as processes” rectangle but in turn also macro-assemblages in regards to the white circles. This figure shows that components themselves can be sub-assemblages as well as macro-assemblages. Irrespectively of the level, every group of interacting components can be an assemblage. One component can also exist in more than one assemblage. This co-existence implies that assemblages are not only hierarchical but can also overlap (Hoffmann & Novak; 2015).

Lury (2009) argues that different interactive processes of an assemblage generate a certain value. In branding, this value refers to distinctiveness in branding and can be a trademark for a brand (Lury, 2008).

2.2.3. Individual and Social Interaction

Entities of an assemblage engage in three forms of interactions: within-assemblage, between- assemblage and part-whole. Considering the part-whole interaction, a stakeholder can interact with the whole brand assemblage that involves other social actors, meanings and manifestations of a brand. The involvement of other social actors shows that individual as well as social activity exists.

Sassen (2006) highlights that the interaction between components of an assemblage affects social activity, because decoupling or coupling activities between entities affect collective elements of an assemblage as well as broader social systems. Decoupling and coupling activities form and transform social representations with certain processes that occur within practices (Sassen, 2006).

Various authors (Epp et al., 2014; Reckwitz, 2002; Woermann, 2017) stress the importance of practices that exist within social activity. Epp et al. (2014) introduce assemblage theory to the notion of practice theory which ehlps to understand tangible and intangible elements of a brand assemblage. According to Reckwitz (2002) practices can be defined as behaviours that comprise interconnected components like mental activities, bodily activities, background knowledge or materials. Woermann (2017) uses assemblage theory to explain consumption practices of communities or tribes. The author argues that “[a]t the core of every assembling practice […] lies intelligibility, conceptualized as embodied understanding manifest in concrete bodily, material, teleo-affective, temporal, and spatial performances” (Woermann, 2017, p. 156). The key aspect of every practise is that other social actors are able to understand it. Creating a bridge between individual and social activity is crucial, in order to make sense or create a common understanding. Therefore, the next chapter focuses on social mediation theory, as it constitutes a connection between individual and social activity (Jovchelovic, 1995).

2.3. Social Mediation

Assemblage theory shows that a brand is more than just a social construction. It entails diverging dynamics that lead to certain interaction processes. Jovchelovitch (1995) argues that social mediation processes enable sense making within interaction processes. Social mediation processes form and transform structures of social representations and “[…] are embedded in the communicative and social practices of the public sphere: dialogue, talk, rituals, patterns of work and production, art […]” (Jovchelovich, 1995, p.87). Social mediation processes enable

communication between a world of diverging perspectives, because an individual cannot experience social life immediately. The process of working entails mediation between the material of nature and human needs. The process of developing myths, symbols and rites entails a mediation between the difference of a mysterious world and the sphere of the human mind. All of these processes imply that humans try to make sense and give meaning to their world and their existence (Jovchelovitch, 1995). Thus, Jovchelovitch (1995) asserts that social mediation generates social representations. Social representations are a way to cope with the heterogeneity and dynamics of the world. Social mediation processes of social representations encompass specific forms of objectification and anchoring. Both processes affect and are affected by the social life of a public sphere (Jovchelovitch, 1995). The description of social mediation processes in the next chapter illuminates that objectification and anchoring correspond with processes of familiarising and figuration.

Vygotsky (1978) relates the concept of mediation to the increasing use of technology and argues that the relationship between humans and the world is not experienced directly but mediated by tool use. Technology can be viewed as a means that individuals use in order to act in the world (Kaptelin, 2013). We do not experience the world immediately but our contact to the world is mediated though technological tools like computers or smartphones. Mediation also involves the use of symbolic tools like words or language (Cole & Scribner, 1978). Various authors (Kaptelin, 2013; Vygotksky, 1978; van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991) differentiate between material tools that enable sense making of the external world, whereas symbolic tools enable sense making of the internal world. Symbolic tools such as signs, concepts or words facilitate the creation of abstract thought (Vygotsky, 1978). The focus of Vygotsky’s (1978) thinking is the notion of cultural mediation. The author asserts that psychological processes are created twice: First, they originate between an individual and other individuals (inter-psychological), then the processes are distributed intra-psychologically as a persons’ own emotions and perceptions. This idea underlines that experiences do not emerge internally but rather arise in interpersonal interaction (Vygotsky, 1978).

In conclusion, social mediation processes highlight the interaction between the individual level and their immediate environment and thus create a link between individual and social activity (Jovchelovitch, 1995). This link between individual and social activity is important because brand processes include several forms of social mediation, which refers to brand manifestations, brand meaning and brand stakeholders (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2014).

2.4. Social Mediation Processes

Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger (2014) employ Jovchelovitch’s notion of social mediation processes in order to define how processes on an individual and social level are related and how they influence brands. Social mediation can be found in various forms in brand processes, which relate to Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger‘s (2013) framework of brand stakeholders, brand meaning and brand manifestations. Based on this theoretical insight, Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger (2014) uncovered social mediation processes, which different literature areas do not classify as social mediations, yet. Hemetsberger, Mühlbacher and Arnould (2018) refined some of the processes in their current work and this master thesis focuses on these newest insights.

2.4.1. Co-Creating Brand Meaning

Continuous co-creation of brand meaning arises when stakeholders generate, elaborate, spread and change shared knowledge (Wagner, 1994). There is a constant communication between stakeholders, which influences other stakeholders as well as manifestations of the brand (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2014).

According to Hemetsberger et al. (2018) certain mediation processes guide the creation of brand meaning. As mediation processes facilitate how individuals give meaning to the world, these processes are motivated by the interpretation of brand-related practices concerning individual and social levels. The two categories brand engagement and impression management both focus on the co-creation of brand meaning.

Brand engagement is a multidimensional and dynamic process that generates brand experience (Gambetti & Graffigna, 2010). According to social mediation theory, brand engagement focuses on individual and social level processes that are concerned with the creation of brand meaning. In detail, these processes are familiarising or anchoring, objectification or figuration, documenting and negotiating (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger 2014). Anchoring can be explained in terms of familiarising. Whenever an unfamiliar stimulus enters the social reality of a group, it confronts individuals of the group (Jovchelovitch, 1995). Some stimuli arise interest of actors, which leads to an engagement in social discourse (Holt & Thompson, 2004). Further, anchoring in terms of various cultural aspects such as ideals, religions, gender roles or traditions shape brand meaning (Arnould & Thompson, 2005). Objectification is a central process of social mediation that simplifies abstract information of a stimulus into a figurative

characterisation or manifestation of a brand (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2014). Documenting comprises social mediation processes from several stakeholders that share information with other brand related stakeholders (Fournier & Avery, 2011).

Impression management is the second category that focuses on the co-creation of brand meaning. Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger (2014) use Schlenker’s (1980) definition of impression management: Individuals try to control consciously or unconsciously a certain image within social interactions. Based on this definition, the authors uncover mediation processes that encompass advocating, evangelising, persuading and antagonising. Advocating is a social mediation process that focuses on the recommendation of certain branded goods, services or organisations (Brodie et al. 2013). Persuading is the mediation process when brand stakeholders intent to convey a certain image of a brand in order to foster loyalty (Baggozzi & Dholakia, 2006). Compared to persuading, evangelising is an extreme form of persuasion in order to convert the mind of others by using emotional bonds and feelings (Pichler & Hemetsberger, 2007). According to Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger (2014), antagonising is a social mediation practice that encourages a negative association with the brand.

In the light of assemblage theory, brand meaning is continuously co-created. Brand meaning can be compared to the mass that represents a source of possibilities. This implies that brand meaning is an assemblage that constantly changes and evolves. The brand meaning is a medium in which the movement of multidimensional and variable relations influence its possibilities. These relations can be compared to social mediation processes like engagement or impression management. The multidimensional aspect is represented by their respective sub-categories, which in turn vary due to diverging dynamics and are characterised by their varying relations. In brief, all social mediation processes that constitute to the co-creation of brand meaning represent the concept of assemblage theory. Every brand has specific engagement and impression management processes that are all in relation to each other and influence each other. Like in an assemblage, there are diverging layers of activity that constantly change and evolve (Lury, 2009).

2.4.2. Co-Generating Brand Manifestations

Those who are involved with the brand continuously shape brand manifestations. Stakeholders objectify brand meaning by using processes of ritualisation and reification. Certain rituals like consumer participation in brand-related events can, for instance, create brand meaning. Co- generating brand manifestations entails two different social mediation processes: collaborative co-production and brand use (Hemetsberger et al., 2018).

Collaborative co-production of brand manifestations entails a collaboration between customers and other brand stakeholders and involves social mediation processes of Co-developing, initiating, publishing, advertising, product change and peer collaboration (Vargo & Lusch, 2004; Hemetsberger et al., 2018). Co-developing of brand manifestations is the case when brand stakeholders are involved in collaborating with an organisation (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2014). Initiating activities are processes that appear online and offline. Brand stakeholders take part in an interaction with other stakeholders by participating in collective activities. This way, interested actors of a brand can collectively form and experience brand manifestations (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2014). In the light of social mediation practices, publishing can be defined as the release of brand related visual, audio or textual branded information (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2014). Advertising is a communicative process introduced by brand stakeholders that is not always in compliance with the intended brand meaning projected by an organisation (Berthon et al., 2008). Within product change processes, brand stakeholders extend brand manifestations by using several activities encompassing branded product changes (Fisher & Smith, 2011). Finally, the process of peer collaboration provides independent individuals the chance to develop and create central brand manifestations during interactive processes (Hemetsberger et al, 2018).

The second main part of co-generating brand manifestations is brand use. This activity includes social mediation processes that concentrate on the usage as well as consumption of brand meaning whenever social interaction takes place. Brand use includes practices of ritualisation, personalisation, emplacement and self-presentation (Hemetsberger et al., 2018). Brand stakeholders, who consume or purchase manifestations of a brand with the aim of representing their self, take part in the process of self-presentation (Escalas & Bettman, 2009). Ritualisation activities convey certain cultural meanings and symbols and thus mediate brand manifestations (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2014). Personalisation practices mediate individual meaning and sharing these meanings mediates brand value (Mühlbacher & Hemetsberger, 2014). The

last process of brand use is emplacement. Brand stakeholders use brand manifestations in new frameworks, which lead to emplacement that affects new brand stimuli.

Brand manifestations are continuously co-generated. In perspective of assemblage theory (Lury, 2009), brands are devices that organize sets of multi-dimensional relations in a reflexive way. One set of the multi-dimensional relations is brand manifestation. This manifestation is a social construction that entails several social mediation processes. These processes influence the brand manifestation and co-generation takes place. Brand stakeholders process brand meanings, which lead to a production of tangible and intangible objectifications (Berthon et al., 2015). These objectifications in turn affect further brand-related discourses. This aligns with assemblage theory because brand manifestations form markets in several dimensions but also entail fragments of the world itself (Kwinter 2003).

2.4.3. Co-Constructing Brand Stakeholders

Stakeholders engage in the brand to different degrees and in varying roles. They participate and leave the brand during different periods. Participants define the extent to which stakeholders play a role in the creation of brand meaning. Communication in this process can be either directly verbal/ non-verbal or indirectly. Social mediation processes involve activities of self- affiliation, co-member identification and social networking (Hemetsberger et al., 2018).

Self-affiliation entails a social individual’s autonomous practices relating the social actor with a certain group. Self-identification and internalisation are two processes that characterise this relationship (Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger, 2014). The mediation between social identity and an individual refers to self-identification (Carlson, Suter and Brown, 2008). Internalisation reflects the recognition of same values, beliefs and goals stakeholders can have (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006).

Another main process that results in co-construction of brand stakeholders is co-member identification. This process includes social practices of determination of legitimacy, role assignment, mobilising practices and recruiting (Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger, 2014). Stakeholders identify co-members by determining their legitimacy. Within this process, stakeholders determine whether an individual is a member of the group (Santana, 2012). Another form of social mediation is role assignment that brand stakeholders use to define other stakeholder’s roles (Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger, 2014). Further, mobilising practices are ways of identification practices that help to recognise and organise members (Kozinets and

Handelman, 2004). Brand stakeholders who relate themselves positively to a brand tend to engage in recruiting practices and try to persuade others of the brand (Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger, 2014).

The last main process of stakeholder co-construction is social networking, which focuses on the strengthening of moral and social bonds among brand members and the growth of a communal spirit. Such activities that strengthen communal ties include welcoming, knowledge sharing, empathising, socialising, educating and governing (Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger, 2014). Welcoming is a process of greeting new brand stakeholders (Schau et al., 2009). Bloggers online often use this way of greeting other stakeholders by posting a welcoming sentence in their “blog description” section. Socialising is a form of social mediation that enables brand stakeholders to experience brand values through constant interaction (Cova and Pace, 2006). Practices of knowledge sharing however enable brand stakeholders to share their expertise and information with others (Brodie et al., 2013). Related to the activity of evangelising is the process of educating. Evangelical members tend to engage in the process of educating other brand stakeholders. Finally, empathising practices provide support amongst stakeholders and governing processes reinforce these ties between stakeholders (Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger, 2014).

Brand stakeholders participate in co-constructing processes. By employing anchoring and objectification, they influence their identity and reality. Drawing on the notion that the rational that affects the economy is not a linear system but rather a non-linear system (Lash 2001; Lazzarato 2004), brand stakeholders are part of this rational. Their involvement leads to co- constructing processes of self-affiliation, co-member identification and social networking. Because all these processes of this section influence each other, the generated dynamics are characterised by a non-linear system (Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger, 2014).

This chapter emphasises that branding includes several forms of social mediation processes. Brands are intermediaries between cultural fields and stakeholders and connect to cultural fields in order to shape their own identity. Therefore, the next chapter focuses on cultural fields.

2.5. Cultural Fields

Social mediation processes help brands to embed themselves in cultural fields by tapping into elements that individuals are actually concerned about (Hall, 2017). Bourdieu (1993) focuses on the concept of fields in his work. The shared interest of relevant social actors and the relation between these actors creates and encompasses a social space, which Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) define as fields. An interest is a desire of social actors to participate in a social game. According to the authors (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992), “a field consists of a set of objective, historical relations between positions anchored in certain forms of power [or capital]” (p.16). The relations between actors determine the structure of a field (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992). Bourdieu (1993) views the social world as a relational space. Within the social world various fields exist (Bourdieu, 1993). Various domains, groups, and occupations are fields that each have specific rules. Bourdieu (1984) applies and refines his theory by connecting it to several domains. One of these domains is culture (Bourdieu, 1984). Sociological fields are assemblages that entail components or sub-assemblages like cultural fields. These cultural fields can in turn be assemblages with components or lower level-assemblages like certain sub cultures. Diverse cultural fields entail different social ways of living (Abel et al., 2000). Brands can also be cultural fields and can involve certain lifestyles.

Especially lifestyle brands create their identity by connecting themselves to cultural fields. Lifestyle brands focus their marketing activities on cultures by embodying norms, values, interests and aspirations of a certain cultural field (Kornberger, 2009). Individuals use lifestyles and lifestyle brands to create an emotional connection towards a certain group or culture they want to be associated with (Saviolo & Marazza, 2013). Lifestyle branding is more than just the promotion of a certain lifestyle because it provides consumers with an emotional connection between lifestyles and the brand (Kornberger, 2009). Social mediation processes enable and mediate the connection between certain lifestyles and brands.

Lifestyles have a great impact on the behaviour of stakeholders and brand preferences. Stakeholders tend to select brands that fit to their self-image. Consequently, companies try to fit to the lifestyles of their target customers by positioning their brand in a way that fits best to the brands’ favoured lifestyles (Cătălina & Andreea, 2014). Brands can position themselves and create their identity by interlinking their brand meaning and brand manifestations with several desired lifestyles though social mediation processes. Nike, for instance, created its brand identity by linking its brand towards an athletic cultural field. By means of Nike’s mission

statement to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” (Nike inc. (Ed.), (n.d)), the company is able to sell products for all athletic categories.

The success of a lifestyle brand does not merely depend on a wide range of products but rather on the benefit and symbolic value stakeholders associate with the brand (Saviolo & Marazza, 2013). Social mediation between cultural fields and brands generate the value for stakeholders.

The extent to which certain social mediation processes are crucial for a brand depends on logics that exist within a cultural field or market. Thornton and Ocasio (1999) argue that the environment is influenced by certain logics or material and symbolic organising principles that in turn influence and represent peoples’ and organisations’ thoughts, actions and decisions. The authors further claim that the logics of markets are socially constructed and entail historic patterns of practices, values, assumptions, beliefs and rules. Ertimur and Coskuner-Balli (2015) highlight that it is crucial to understand institutional logics as they guide market dynamics. Markets are organised by different institutional logics that are subjects to change. Thus, a particular logic can be replaced by another logic due to changing dynamics. In the light of assemblage theory, a market contains different unsteady elements that influence each other and change over time. Institutional logics are elements of a bigger assemblage, specifically the assemblage of a market. One example is Vargo and Lusch’s (2004) article about the change in the field of marketing towards a consumer-centred and service dominant logic that is characterised by co-creation processes between organisations and their customers. This example shows that there has been a firm centric and goods dominant logic that prevailed in the market but then it changed towards a different logic that is now dominant. However, there can be only one dominant logic within a market, as well as various different logics or even competing logics. One example of competing logics is the rivalry between care and science logics in the health market. Science logics are based on knowledge gathered through scientific research, which can contradict care logics based on holistic, and preventative patient care (Dunn and Jones, 2010). Such logics provide multiple and, in this case, conflicting directions to stakeholders in the market.

Assemblage theory assumes that components of an assemblage can be conflicting. Thus, the market assemblage involves conflicting logics that are components of the assemblages. When brands connect themselves to specific markets of lifestyles, they are subject to conflicting logics. Consequently, brands as mediators between stakeholders and lifestyles or cultures need

to be aware that a mediation process can be in conflict to another mediation process due to different logics within cultural fields.

3. The Case Lululemon

Before amplifying the course of action of this study, I introduce the reader briefly to the brand Lululemon. The case study of the active lifestyle brand Lululemon serves as a good example to understand how the brand assemblage works as a cultural intermediary (Braun & Clarke, 2006) because the brand actively involves several health clubs, consumers and other stakeholders in its cultural branding approach. The brand became a symbolic icon for a healthy and active lifestyle by practicing community-based marketing. Communicative interactions between the brand and its stakeholders can be discovered online on several social media platforms. These interactions online comprise social mediation processes. The brand Lululemon is a well-suited case for this master thesis as it is involved in public discourse online and the brand is also proactive on various social media platforms and on their website.

Founded in 1998, Lululemon is a Canadian, technical athletic apparel company that is inspired by yoga. The company started off as a design studio during the day and as a yoga studio during the night and quickly evolved into a separate store at the end of 2000. The vision of their store is to not only create a place where people could buy athleisure gear, but where people could share and discuss physical aspects of mindfulness, healthy living and creating a life of possibilities. In their vision statement, the brand highlights that they view their customers as guests. The brand aims at building relationships with their guests by learning what they are passionate about. Lululemon’s vision is to interactively build relationships with their customers or guests in their stores all around the globe. The brand Lululemon started their product line by offering yoga outfits for women. The constant involvement of guests, elite athletes and ambassadors created a demand for athleisure gear far beyond yoga. The company now designs outfits for running, yoga, cycling and training in general. On their website, the company highlights that their designers are also dedicated athletes. The brand’s overall goal is to empower people to lead their best life possible by providing the best tools and resources and encouraging a culture of goal setting, leadership and personal responsibility. Lululemon focuses on their core values of integrity, entrepreneurship, greatness, quality, product, balance and fun (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)a).

In addition to their historical development, Lululemon shares their manifesto on their website. The brand states that their manifesto is one way of sharing their culture with their community. They use their manifesto, which is an evolving collection of bold thoughts, to create real conversations with their community (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)b). The collection of thoughts is influenced by the brand’s community and changes over time depending on the community. Some of their inspirational quotes that create and energise their community are: “A daily hit of athletic-induced endorphins gives you the power to make better decisions, helps you be at peace with yourself, and offsets stress […] Do one thing a day that scares you […] Friends are more important than money […] Breathe deeply and appreciate the moment. Living in the moment could be the meaning of life” (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)b). The company prints the quotes into their clothing and accessories like bags. The manifesto provides a continuity of their brand message by sharing their culture with the community. Inspirational quotes on various products strengthen community building and communication (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)b). The following figure 3 shows Lululemon’s current assembly of quotes. Besides the inspirational quotes, this figure also shows a female doing a specific yoga pose.

Figure 3. Lululemon’s Manifesto (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)b) Their website emphasises the relation between the brand Lululemon and yoga. The company declares that one of the ways they exercise giving without expectation is by sharing their love for yoga. The brand proclaims that they share the gift of yoga in their stores by weekly turning their stores into yoga studios. In addition to that, they share their gift of yoga online by offering

links to Lululemon’s YouTube channel. On their website they give a brief overview of what yoga is, provide a yoga guide and explain benefits of it. The website further highlights how important the right yoga gear and mats are (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)c).

Lululemon’s website also shares the latest news about the company. The brand mainly focuses on their newest products and community- and company-related news. Lululemon shares for example collaborations with Roden Gray, Forster Rohner or Athletic Propulsion Labs. Other posts highlight Lululemon’s inspirations like the Chinese Lunar New Year or the New York City street art. The company’s festivals that surround sports activities like runs underline the community character of their website (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)d).

Besides providing information for their investors, the company focuses their strategic sales on partnerships with athletes and local entrepreneurs who are enthusiastic about elevating their communities. The brand underlines that their partners get up every morning for something greater than themselves and motivate others with their performance and enthusiasm. The wholesale program of the company concentrates on partnerships with gyms and studios that provide yoga, Pilates and fitness classes. The goal of the partnerships is to build relationships with communities in order to offer products to athletic people and yogis locally. The brand’s studio essentials program focuses on developing relationships with thriving communities centred on healthy living by providing quality essentials like mats. Lastly, Lululemon offers a team program that provides aspiring teams with clothes for trainings and competitions (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)e).

The website of Lululemon also provides information about stories of their community that inspires the brand. The stories are blog posts that range from workout tips, travel advice, to Lululemon products in action. The authors of the blog posts are ambassadors, partners and Lululemon itself (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)f). Apart from sharing stories of their community, the brand also shares information about their ambassadors. The company divides ambassadors into store ambassadors and global yoga ambassadors. The website shows a profile of every ambassador internationally and provides information about him or her. Lululemon partners with store ambassadors who are influencers in their local community (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)g). Global yoga ambassadors are partners of the brand who bring yoga knowledge and experience to the community. These ambassadors focus on helping the Lululemon community by sharing their talent (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)h).

Lululemon hosts festivals, retreats and “sweat with us” events for their community in order to connect with them and share a good time. The Lululemon website shares locations and dates of several festivals and retreats the brand hosts. “Sweat with us” are events hosted by partners that Lululemon cooperates with (Lululemon Athletica (Ed.), (n.d.)i).

The active lifestyle brand Lululemon actively communicates with their stakeholders by using several social media platforms. The company is active on Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. More than 1.09 million people follow Lululemon’s Twitter account that promotes the brand’s products. The account’s main message is that the Lululemon products guide transformational experiences for people to have a happy life. The company creates public discourse by sharing the hashtag “#theseweatlife” (Lululemon, 2018a). The company regularly posts about their products and the healthy, active lifestyle that surrounds their image. Colourful and aesthetic pictures that represent an active lifestyle regularly accompany their posts on Twitter. Some posts include a voting that asks the company’s stakeholders a question about a heathy lifestyle-related topic (Lululemon, 2018a). On the social media platform Pinterest, over two million people follow the Lululemon’s account. Mood boards represent specific categories, like “gifts for mom”, “yoga”, “run”, “sweat”, “do anywhere workouts” or “pre & post-sweat meals” (Lululemon, 2018b). The Lululemon Pinterest page mainly shows pictures about the brand’s products and a healthy lifestyle. Their pictures are rich in colour and either promote an activity or show an inspirational quote (Lululemon, 2018b). On YouTube, over 48,000 people have subscribed for Lululemon’s content. The brand’s channel features videos and playlists about their company, yoga, their products, ambassadors, meditation, culture, community and sports in general. On the social media platform YouTube, the brand states that their mission is to create components for people to have a healthy, fun and long life (Lululemon (Ed.), (n.d.)a). The Facebook feed of the company looks similar to the account the company shares on Twitter. Several colourful pictures as well as inspiring captions promote the brand’s products and an active lifestyle. Over two million people like Lululemon’s Facebook page and 1.9 million people follow this page (Lululemon (Ed.), (n.d.)b). Lastly, the company uses the social media platform Instagram to share pictures online. They mainly share pictures of people wearing their clothes, who participate in an active lifestyle. Over 2.4 million people follow Lululemon’s Instagram account that shares the following message in their profile biography: “Yoga is on the mat. It's off the mat. It's everywhere. How does it show up in your life? #thisisyoga […]” (Lululemon (Ed.), (n.d.)c).

Besides hashtags on several social media platforms, blogs, online newspapers or forums also create discourse that relates to the brand Lululemon. Blogs, online newspaper or forums provide users the possibility to share and discuss information about the brand Lululemon. This way of sharing and discussing information is not initiated by the brand Lululemon but still creates public discourse. The case of Lululemon shows that the brand is omnipresent to the broad public online. This visibility indicates that the company is continuously subject to interactive communicative processes due to public discourse.

The context of the case Lululemon shows the brand’s visibility online and provides a starting point for the course of action. After examining the historical development and branding of Lululemon, I elaborate on the socio-cultural context of the brand. The brand started off in the yoga market and still sets its focus on this market. This specific market comprises certain dynamics and logics that influence interactive processes of branding. Thus, it is from great aid to know, how the yoga market has developed and what those dynamics are composed of.

Multiple logics and processes create, guide and sustain the yoga market. Also various definitions, beliefs and practices are associated with yoga, which makes the yoga market highly complex but, therefore, so well suited for the research of mediation processes and public discourse. It is a multiplicity of worldviews, goals and tendencies that influence the yoga market of the Western world. (De Michelis, 2008; Singleton & Byrne, 2008; Ertimur & Coskuner- Balli, 2015). Yoga has its origins in Hindu spiritualism and was later inscribed with medical and fitness domains by the Western world (Askeegard & Eckhardt, 2012; De Michelis 2008).

Ertimur and Coskuner-Balli (2015) argue that there are four influencing factors for a shift in market logics: “(1) cultural capital of market actors, (2) legitimization of plural logics, (3) emergence of generalist and specialist brands, and (4) tensions among institutional logics” (p.46-47). These factors help to understand mediating processes of branding because both factors and processes are influenced by the logics of the market they are currently in. The concept of plural logics aligns with the brand assemblage perspective, as components of assemblages can also be conflicting towards each other.

Certain dynamics within the yoga market lead to multiple practices, beliefs and rule systems. These dynamics lead to conflicting logics that exist within a socio-cultural context. Understanding how social mediation processes work requires knowledge about their socio- cultural context. This context provides a space in which mediation processes take place.

The brand Lululemon started with the pure focus on the spiritual domain of yoga. Over time, the commercialisation of the yoga market by the Western world led to a shift towards medical and fitness domains. This shift is also traceable in Lululemon’s marketing activities. The brand slowly started to highlight fitness and medical aspects of yoga. After a short period, the brand enhanced its target market to other fitness domains beyond yoga. Besides still focusing on the yoga market, the brand now targets other fitness-related domains like running, cycling and training in general. In 2017, the brand released a video that showed footage of activities from surfing to singing but did not involve yoga at all. The video accurately illustrates that the brand does not entirely focus its marketing activities on yoga but rather involves itself in almost every fitness-related activity. The video emphasises how breadth, self-discipline, meditation and other aspects of yoga translate into other fitness domains and how yoga can be a part of everyone’s daily life (Pasquarelli, 2018). The video further illuminates that the brand Lululemon tries to create a link to not only the cultural field of yoga, but also to other cultural fields like cycling, running or training.

4. Methodology

This master thesis aims to answer the following research question:

How do brands and other elements of a brand assemblage mediate among stakeholders and culture?

Methodologically, assemblage theory and social mediation theory suggest a social constructivist view. Social constructivism is devoted to the nature of knowledge and how it is constructed. Within society both subjective as well as objective reality exist. Shared meaning creates a taken for granted reality (Andrews, 2012). Social constructivism supposes that there is no perfect world in which we all have the same interpretations of what is true, false or wrong (Yarusso, 1992).

This thesis applies a qualitative interpretive approach in order to generate in-depth data that which do not interfere with participants’ perspectives (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). I use a case study approach in order to understand the complex social phenomenon of social mediation in regards to branding. The research question aims at describing how social mediation works between stakeholders of a brand and a lifestyle. (Yin, 1994).

Lululemon is used as a single case study because the brand connects to certain lifestyles and cultural fields. The community-based marketing strategy of the company makes public discourse visible online. The visibility online gives the investigator the opportunity to observe and analyse social mediation processes that have previously not been accessible due to technological circumstances (Yin, 2018).

Research Design

The research design of this master thesis involves a case study of the brand Lululemon and a netnography in order to identify interactive processes online. Both, the case study and the netnography aim to uncover and understand how social mediation works. The data collection focuses on interactive content communities create online and on content the brand Lululemon shares or publicises. The collected relevant content is then coded based on a grounded theory approach. The next chapter further highlights why a single-case study design in combination with a netnography approach was chosen.

4.1.1. Research Method

This master thesis employs the single-case study approach in order to conduct social science research. Yin (1994) suggests that a single-case study design is appropriate “to confirm, challenge, or extend the theory” (p. 38). Further, a case study design is of great help when the investigator asks a "how" or "why" research question about a “contemporary set of events, over which the investigator has little or no control” (Yin, 2014 p. 13). The case of the brand Lululemon is used in this thesis to address the research question of how brands and other elements of a brand assemblage mediate among stakeholders and culture.

The brand Lululemon uses community-based marketing and creates public discourse that is visible online. Various social media platforms and webpages create a space where public discourse takes place. The word “webpage” is an overarching term for websites and various social media platforms (Chandler & Munday, 2011). Compared to a multiple-case study, the single-case study design allows revealing certain social mediation processes. The single-case study includes more than one unit of analysis as it focuses on the analysis of material and expressive elements of the Lululemon brand assemblage. The focus of the Lululemon case study is on social mediation processes within the real-life context of the respective brand. The case study research method allows investigating into the mediation processes and how they connect the Lululemon brand assemblage to particular cultural fields and lifestyles. This

approach grants the investigation to retain meaningful and holistic characteristics (Yin, 2018) of a real-life case that involves certain processes. The case study inquiry profits from the prior theoretical development of social mediation processes which guides data collection and analysis. The case of Lululemon deals with an extensive real-life context and a richness of interesting processes of the phenomenon of social mediation that can be analysed. To investigate the broad array of processes suggested by literature, multiple sources of evidence are consulted in order to converge data from different angles (Yin, 1994).

The empirical part of this thesis uses a netnographic approach as a research method in order to cover the extensive and prevalent online communication and discourse among brand stakeholders. Netnography is an excellent method to learn about cultures and communities online (Kozinets, 2010). The case study of the Lululemon brand assemblage focuses on certain cultural fields or lifestyles that connect to the brand through social mediation processes. Kozinets (2010) states that “Online communities form or manifest cultures, the learned beliefs, values and customs that serve to order, guide and direct the behavior of a particular society or group” (p. 12). Netnography is an adapted version of ethnography and it modifies general participant-observation ethnographic practices to the particular contingencies of mediated social interaction online (Kozinets, 2010). Unique contingencies that arose due to digitalisation are alteration, anonymity, accessibility and archiving. The contingency of anonymity is another advantage of netnography because people tend to be more honest compared to in a direct interview situation (Kozinets, 2010). Kozinets (2002) specifies ethnography as an anthropological approach that relates “both to fieldwork, or the study of the distinctive meanings, practices and artefacts of particular social groups, and to the representations based on such a study” (p.63). The increased visibility and accessibility of the brand Lululemon online enables public discourse to take place and communities to form. Mediation processes are visible online through interactive communication on blogs, newspaper articles, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. Stakeholders can share, comment and in general communicate with regards to a specific brand online. Therefore, netnography is a suitable research method for revealing interactive processes online that are elements of a brand assemblage.

The next chapter explains which data is used for the netnography and how the data sampling and collection is done for the netnography.

4.1.2. Sampling

For the sampling of data, I chose to apply theoretical sampling as a grounded theory technique. This way of sampling allows the researcher to jointly collect, code and analyse the data. It also enables the investigator to decide where to find the data (Glaser and Strauss, 1967).

Social mediation processes among stakeholders can be collected on several sites and platforms. The data sampling of this thesis, thus, includes a multitude of different locations online that imply blogs, online articles, forums, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook and the Lululemon website. Several types of search engines can be utilised to locate various interactional and social information online. For this thesis, the most familiar search engine Google is used in order to locate websites, blogs, online newspapers and social networking sites related to the brand assemblage Lululemon.

To choose specific sites, I use the following characteristics proposed by Kozinets (2015) that a site should have: First, the site needs to be relevant for the research question. Second, the netnographic site needs to have a larger amount of relevant data, which can be in the form of text, visuals, audio files, graphics or pictures. Third, participation should be significant. Fourth, the webpage needs to have a sense of liveliness and activity. Fifth, postings or data should generally be up to date but this depends on whether the currency of data is relevant to the investigator. For this master thesis, relevant data is collected independent of the time they were posted as a brand assemblage includes several mediation processes from several points of time. Sixth, interactions that occur on the site need to be descriptively rich. Lastly, the sites need to provide a rather welcoming atmosphere to allow for interactive communication to take place.

Based on Kozinet’s (2015) seven characteristics of webpages or sites online and based on the goal of this thesis, I choose to collect data from blogs, online articles, forums, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook and the official website of Lululemon. Table 1 that is attached in the appendix summarises all online sources, including the webpage is used for data collection, describes this webpage, provides a link to its source and explains how each webpage was found.

Blogs are user-generated websites that individuals use to provide commentary information in chronological order. They often function as a personal online diary. A typical blog usually contains images, texts and links to other webpages or blogs. The majority of shared information is textual data (Weber, 2009). Online articles can be shared from online newspapers but also from various company websites. The content involves majorly textual data. An online forum 30

provides users the possibility to collectively discuss a certain topic without meeting on the same geographic place. Forums usually involve communication via textual data but can also include pictures and other attachments. A dialogue between two or more users is called a thread and usually focuses on a specific topic. All threads and topics together create a forum (Wiedl, 2014). Instagram and Pinterest are both photo-sharing sites. On Instagram, users can either post their pictures for the world to see or to post them on a private account where only pre-approved followers can see the pictures. The data is, thus, only collected from public Instagram accounts. Pinterest requires users to sign in and, therefore, data is only collected from pictures that are available without logging in. Twitter is a social media page, where users in real time post mainly texts, but also pictures. The video-based site YouTube allows users to share videos that are public to everyone online. Facebook is a personal networking site where users mainly create private profiles. Facebook also provides companies the possibility to create public Facebook pages (Fine, 2010). All sites that are described in this paragraph do not only provide the option to share information but also to participate in public discourse by commenting, liking or creating links. In addition to these sites, the official Lululemon website is used for data sampling as it provides data that influences public discourse.

4.1.3. Data Collection

According to Kozinets (2010), netnographic data collection can take three forms: first, data can be collected directly without participation from webpages that entail for instance comments. Second, data can be gathered by capturing and recording events and interactions of online communities. Third, the researcher takes field notes by noting down features of an observation like certain behaviours or activities (Kozinets, 2010). This thesis focuses on direct data collection. The advantage of collecting data directly is that the interaction process between at least two individuals is preserved online in its initial state. Another advantage is that direct collection without online participation of the investigator does not interfere with the willingness of individuals to honestly participate in communication. The data collection started by using the google search engine and searching for “Lululemon blog”. Relevant blogs are listed in the description part of the table. Online newspaper articles are often shared on social media but did not create a lot of public interaction. Still, online articles are used for data collection as relevant stakeholders such as journalists generate a public discourse by sharing brand-related data. Thus, journalists co-create brand meaning through certain social mediation processes like publishing or documenting. The search engine google

was used and the words “Lululemon online newspaper” guided the examination. The specific results are again listed in the description part of the table. Whenever online newspapers could be found through the search for “Lululemon blog[s]”, I noted it in the “how the webpage was found” section. The same procedure was used to find relevant fora.

For data collection on Instagram, I chose the official Lululemon Instagram account, the Lululemon's "lululemonmen" account as well as various hashtags with the word "Lululemon" in it that have over 40,000 shared pictures online. The amount of pictures with more than 40,000 shares shows that these hashtags are sites where a lot of public discourse takes place.

I used the extended search option to collect data on Twitter. Twitter's search engine allows to type in "word to be searched" and "hashtag". I filled both options with the word "lululemon" and chose English as the language for the results. Twitter gives the options to choose between “top”, “newest”, “persons”, “pictures”, “videos”, “news” and “live videos”. I chose to focus on the results of the "top" option, as this provides the most brand-related data. The results of this option showed accounts and tweets that relate to the word “Lululemon”. I focused on the Lululemon ambassador accounts and on the Twitter top feed and left out Lululemon's regional accounts. The main Lululemon Twitter account retweets other official Lululemon accounts. Using regional accounts as well as the official Lululemon account would lead to overlapping data. The data collection focused on the Lululemon ambassador accounts by collecting data from accounts with over 2,000 followers as these provide the greatest platforms for public discourse.

Pinterest provides the option to type in a word in the search box as well as further define the search options by the buttons "all pins", "your pins", "people" and "boards". For this master thesis data generated from profiles ("people") with over 500 followers and mood boards with over 1,000 followers was used. The option "all pins" are left out as they represent a mixture between "people" and "boards" content and would overlap with already collected data. YouTube provides a search bar as well as additional filters to specify the results. I chose to type in "lululemon" and use the filter "view count" in order to find the sites with more interactive communication. A high view count usually indicates that interactive communication is also present. For the data collection I used the results of the previous mentioned search. The first ten results were used to collect data as they created the biggest interaction between stakeholders online. One result includes the official Lululemon website. Besides data collection from the official Lululemon channel, three featured channels (GabrielleBernstein, Blissology Yoga,

baptiste Yoga) on the Lululemon profile were used. These three featured channels predominantly entail expressive capacities that convey cultural aspects of the yoga lifestyle.

Various Facebook sites and groups entail public discourse that involves the brand Lululemon. However, the data collection focuses on the official Lululemon Facebook page. The page creates a constant newsfeed, has over 2 million followers and includes content about the brand's events and products.

Lastly, Lululemon’s official website encompasses company-created content and communication. This site mainly features intentionally initiated social mediation processes by the company. Specifically, the online shop and the company description reveal interesting insights into initiating, documenting and mobilising mediation processes.

The collected data implies textual and non-textual data. Textual data conveys information via letters and numbers. But not all information is captured in words and numbers. Visual data can be graphics, drawings, photography, emoticons, videos and audio formats. This kind of data can reveal interesting facets of culture (Kozinets, 2010). Expressive capabilities such as gestures, expressions and symbols can be found in pictures, videos and emoticons. Videos can entail imaginative capacities such as people dreaming of working out in nature. The material capacity can be seen mostly in interactive discourse such as comments. Imaginative, material and expressive capacities of data guide social mediation processes. For this master thesis, I captured visual data by describing relevant aspects of it that appear to be crucial for answering the research question. The textualisation of visual data allows comparing it to textual data directly.

Data Analysis

The empirical investigation uses a mix of inductive and deductive research approaches. The deductive approach involves a systematic analysis of textual data, based on prior theory and the conceptualisation of social mediation processes in branding (Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger 2014). An inductive approach allows to systematically search for new themes or patterns that emerge from open coding (O'Reilly, 2012).

The interpretation of the data seeks to explain and enlighten how brands as mediators of lifestyles work. The analytical procedure of open coding is used to interpret the collected data. The grounded theory-based coding procedure enables the investigator to explore social phenomena without making assumptions (Kozinets, 2010). Instead, grounded theory and open

coding allows the investigator to view human action within a social environment by adopting a more neutral view on it (Simmons, 2006). The first step of the analysis is going through the data and dividing it into small passages. The passages are then examined closely in order to find relations, contrasts and similarities (Böhm, 2004). For answering the research question, this implies that practices, rituals, talk or social mediation processes (Jovchelovitch, 1995) are identified and then explained. During the analysis I focused on stakeholders’ roles, intentions, relations to the brand and practices that enable social mediation.

In coding, the background knowledge of the brand Lululemon and the yoga market is used to analyse textual and non-textual relevant data. Further, theoretical knowledge about brand assemblages and social mediation theory guides the analytical thinking of the investigation. The labelling of any important information leads to certain codes. Codes are then sorted into categories to provide a structure. Open coding can be defined as an expanding procedure that adds interpretations to the small textual and non-textual passages (Böhm, 2004).

A detailed table that shows the coding sheet and the collected data can be found on the CD (Table 3 Coding sheet for the analysis). The findings of the empirical research are presented in the next chapter and refer to table 2 of the appendix.

5. Findings

Briefly summarised, the findings reveal that the process of emplacement is the overarching process that facilitates social mediation online. The process is connected to and overlaps with various other processes. The processes storytelling, romanticising and comparing further enable emplacement processes.

In addition, the findings of the data analysis reveal that textual and non-textual data enable mediation between the brand Lululemon and certain lifestyles. Textual data involves emoticons and field language, whereas non-textual data involves pictures and videos. Field language and certain figures of speech help stakeholders to make sense of brand meaning. Emoticons as well as pictures have an expressive capacity that helps to connect the brand to certain lifestyles.

The following three chapters provide an analysis of how brands mediate between stakeholders and a lifestyle. The co-creation of brand meaning involves processes that are mainly characterised by the use of figures of speech and emoticons, whereas brand manifestation processes are predominantly facilitated by the use of hashtags and pictures. Stakeholder co-

construction processes in turn, involves all three main processes of hashtagging, portraying and the use of field language. Processes within one of these three overarching processes tend to connect to processes of the same category. Thus, the findings are divided into the findings of the three chapters co-creating brand meaning, co-generating brand manifestations and co- constructing brand stakeholders

5.1. Co-creating Brand Meaning

The netnography uncovered the process of figuration in a forum post. The following dialogue shows this process:

“[lululoser]: […] I get the impression that they cater to the yuppie, soccer mom types. No offense.

[sounds sketchy]: The have some great stuff that is worth every penny, and some crap stuff that is overpriced for soccer moms. […]

[slacker!]: Geez! What's with all the stereotypes?

I'm a cazy busy "soccer mom" (you can play over 10 sports and a couple instuments with all the contents in my car) and I still log about 55 mpw on my easy weeks, manage a household and get dinner on the table. I personally don't think it's anything to roll your eyes at. And considering I weigh about the same as I did when I graduated high school, I'm proud of the fact that I am super fit after having children! […]” (lululoser, sounds sketchy, slacker!., 2012)

The abstract that stakeholders try to simplify during this conversation is the target group of Lululemon. All participants use the word “soccer mom” in order to describe the type of stakeholder that buys Lululemon clothing. The usage of stereotypes helps stakeholders to negotiate and determine who Lululemon’s customers are. The simplified image of a specific type of person facilitates the mediation (figuration) between a lifestyle that is associated with stereotypes and the brand. The interaction between the stakeholders in the quote above creates a value in the form of simplified concepts such as stereotypes. The creation of stereotypes is also interlinked with the process of role assignment. Generally speaking, the netnography did not reveal any other insight for the figuration process. As a matter of fact, the mediation process familiarising could not be uncovered in the data of this study. This implies that familiarising exclusively and figuration partly might be more likely to take place in a face-to-face discourse such as word of mouth interactions. 35

A social mediation process that the netnography uncovered is documenting. Mostly the Lululemon website engages in documenting processes and they provide an abundance of information to other stakeholders by sharing blog posts about their company and letting ambassadors participate. Apart from the company’s website, various blogs participate in the mediation process of documenting. Blogs that were analysed relating the brand Lululemon are mainly interested in an active lifestyle. The thematic focus on an active lifestyle goes hand in hand with sharing information about the respective lifestyle. Photographs are often used in blogs in order to document certain information about a lifestyle topic. A good example for textual data that includes the social mediation process documenting is the following: “so i see now why all you canadian girls rave...they just opened up a boutique in my nearest big city. i am never buying nike again. [emoji heart]” (ilzabet., 2006). The stakeholder posts this comment in a forum online. The word “rave” is a sign of excitement, enthusiasm and admiration and represents a cultural field by using informal youth language. The second passage of the quote includes the word boutique. Interestingly, instead of using the word store or shop, the stakeholder uses the word boutique to describe the newly opened facility in the city. A boutique is a French word and describes a small store that sells high fashion luxury clothing and accessories. The author uses language to mediate between the brand and a luxurious high fashion lifestyle. By using the term boutique, the stakeholder makes sense (Jovchelovitch, 1995) of Lululemon as a high-priced athleisure brand. Language has an expressive capacity (Deleuze & Guattari, 1978) that enables the mediation between the brand and a lifestyle. The last passage of the quote includes a statement about the author not buying items of the brand Nike again. Thereby the author of the quote is also a stakeholder of Nike and participates in an advocating process towards Lululemon and in an antagonising process towards Nike. Both processes of advocating and antagonising can be categorised into an overarching process category of comparing. The emoticon “heart” has an expressive capacity (Deleuze & Guattari, 1978) that gives the entire quotation a meaning in the sense of brand love (Batra, Ahuvia & Bagozzi, 2012).

The next process, negotiation, could mainly be found in fora and in comments on the social media platform YouTube. Fora are sites online that are mainly used to discuss certain topics between individuals. Therefore, fora represent platforms where negotiations can take place. Compared to other social media platforms like Instagram or Pinterest, YouTube allows users to mainly share videos. Pictures and short texts convey less informational content than videos do. YouTube is, thus, a platform that provides the most visual stimuli and informational content,

which in turn triggers communicative participation in the form of negotiation. A meaningful example of a negotiation process found in the comment section between three stakeholders:

“I'm Canadian and have bee[n] buying Lululemon for years. The quality has got down hill over the years. The fabrics have gotten thinner and the fit has changed. That being said, there are still a few items that are my go-tos as I can't find a better equivalent elsewhere. I'd say they're pretty much priced the same as other performance wear like UA, Nike, etc.

[daniellissima] Same, I used to defend lululemon like crazy because my short/capris/tanks have been going strong for years now, and I don't baby them at all. But I recently tried some new capris and I was super disappointed by the quality decrease.” (Jbstargazer, daniellissima., 2013).

This example shows how two stakeholders of the brand collectively interpret their experiences with the brand’s products. The first comment shares aspects of quality related to a product and the second comment agrees on the change in quality. Collectively both individuals participate in a discursive interpretation about how the quality of the brand has changed over the years. The first comment argues by using the words “for years” and “go-tos”. Buying clothes of the same brand for years refers to ritualisation as this buying behaviour is repetitive. The same argument can be found in the third sentence with the word “go-tos”. This word refers to items that are worn again and again over time. Thus, the process of negotiation involves ritualisation as an argumentation. Besides ritualisation, the first author compares the brand to other brands and thereby participates as a stakeholder of another brand in the process of comparison. In this example, the author uses comparison in order to make sense of the world. A particular brand is used as a reference point for another brand that is usually on the same perceived quality and price level as the referring brand. The figure of speech “simile” in textual data is involved in the process of comparison. The second statement uses personalisation such as “[clothes] going strong” or “baby [clothes]” in order to highlight the personal attachment to the clothes. Thus, language is an important tool that facilitates social mediation. This example shows that negotiation is a process of discursive interpretation but does not necessarily imply that there need to be opposing views. Different experiences with a similar outcome towards the perception of brand meaning can also be a negotiation. Strikingly all uncovered discursive interactions online did not aim at having a consensus. In general, various social media sites were used as a platform to promote the participant’s own idea of the brand meaning and focused on the goal

of self-representation. Stereotypes such as “soccer mums” also occurred during negotiating practices. Using stereotypes in relation to a brand shows that other stakeholders determine the legitimacy of others. It is a way of simplifying an image of another stakeholder, simply speaking figuration. Thus, the process of negotiation entails processes of comparison, ritualisation, self- representation and figuration. Relating this aspect to the concept of brand assemblage implies that negotiating is an assemblage that engages in a part-whole interaction between the components of comparison, ritualisation, self-presentation and figuration (DeLanda, 2006). Assemblage theory also asserts that components can exist more than one time (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). Negotiating can be an assemblage and entail components as well as be a component itself and directly interact with these components.

The netnography also uncovered the process of storytelling. Yet, storytelling has not been classified as a social mediation process. Storytelling is a mediation process that enables individuals to make sense of the world. It allows brand stakeholders to share norms and values, develop commitment and trust, share tacit knowledge, facilitates unlearning and generates emotional connections (Sole & Wilson, 2002). A story can appear in the form of verbal, textual and visual communication (Denning, 2000). Mühlbacher and Hemetsberger (2018) already mentioned a narrating process in their article. In order to differentiate storytelling and narrating I use the metaphor of a pearl necklace: “If stories are each like a pearl, then narrative is the necklace or string of pearls” (Margolis, 2018). This quote illuminates that a brand can use several stories of stakeholders in order to connect to certain cultural fields. The stories would in turn contribute to the big picture of the brand narrative. The process of storytelling could be found online mainly in blogs but also in online articles, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and Facebook. Blogs have a narrative character, similar to a diary, added with the publication of the story told. The process of storytelling often occurs in blog posts that were sponsored by the brand Lululemon. Such blog posts usually involve a description of an activity like hiking that can be done outdoors:

“Winter hiking is incredibly underrated. Most people are scared off by the chilly temps, but here’s the dirty little secret: you can have at least as much fun on the trail when it’s chilly as when it’s balmy. Here are some tips to guarantee you’ll have a great time on your next cold weather adventure. [the blog post continues here and provides information and pictures of a women wearing Lululemon clothes for hiking]” (Agent Athletica., 2016).

Vivid language such as “cold weather adventure” appeals to the human senses and creates an impression in the mind of the reader. Through the use of vivid language, the process of storytelling mediates between a brand and a lifestyle. The analysed data showed that storytelling usually did not involve an active mentioning of the brand name but rather primed people associating the brand to a certain lifestyle through photographs of the blogger wearing Lululemon clothes and participating in the activity the post is about. Thus, pictures have an expressive capacity (Deleuze & Guattari, 1978) and mediate between cultural fields, stakeholders and the brand through telling a story about the brand.

The netnography revealed romanticising as a new process. Romanticising relates to an idealised imagination of something instead of thinking about something in a realistic way. The following interaction could be found as a response to a picture featuring an ambassador wearing Lululemon board shorts (he holds a fishing rod in his hand and is about to put it into the trunk of a pickup car):

“[dimitri_i]: I want a pair! [...]

[lululemonmen@dimitri_i]: With serious storage options and a breathable waistband that's staying put while you do your thing, we don't blame you. What goals do you see yourself crushing in them? [...]

[dimitri_i@lululemonmen] summer is about to kick off in our parts of the world. Surfing, running, long walks on islands and coastal areas that end up in the with a dip in the sea, playing with the kids or just relaxing on the beach, sailing... I am also flirting with the idea of SUP surfing, so a pair of comfortable board shorts comes in handy” (lululemonmen., 2018).

The interaction between the Lululemon men Instagram profile and an Instragram user starts with a post of a picture that represents a coastal lifestyle. Lululemon purposefully posts a picture including one of their ambassadors, illustrating a coastal lifestyle scene. The brand connects to the coastal lifestyle through the expressive capacity of the picture. By posting a triggering question, the brand asks the user to share how he would use the product. The user provides a romanticised answer and relates the product to his coastal lifestyle. The Instagram user connects activities like surfing, running, long walks, playing and relaxing with the summer. He relates these activities to love as he uses the term flirting. This is an exaggerated depiction of his lifestyle as he only relates ideal images of activities with summer and the board shorts. Thus, a figure of speech that can facilitate romanticising is a hyperbole. The Instagram user generates

emotional connections between summer and a Lululemon board shorts by telling a story of how it could be used. Thus, romanticising also involves the process of storytelling that uses vivid language as well as fantasising. The example shows very well that storytelling fits to the category of engagement because the Instagram user creates a bond between the brand and him by daydreaming of using the product in a particular setting. The response alone of the comment towards the Lululemon men Instagram account is a form of engagement. The involvement of other processes within the social mediation process of romanticising shows that the group of heterogeneous components that participate in interaction with other components and the whole assemblage, creates sense making between the brand and certain lifestyles (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). Romanticising can also be seen in YouTube videos. The expressive capacity of videos underlines the storytelling process that is used by the videographer. For example, scenes of a man driving a vintage car or sitting around the table with his family are connected with images of outdoor activities such as skiing. Thus, videos that entail footages from the “good old days” and deeply rooted values such as family loyalty trigger romanticising or fantasising processes. Romanticising is a social mediation process that stakeholders use to create a connection between a brand and a certain lifestyle, specifically through the imaginative capacity of this process.

The process of advocating could be uncovered in the data of blogs, forums, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook and the Lululemon website. YouTube and blogs were the major sources for the process. An example that represents many of the other comments is the following:

“[Christie Lee] they're literally not just yoga pants tho.. they're such good qualities and people who normally go ask for refund are actually lying. I own so many lululemon pants and none of them are see through. If you have a see through one it's either 10000 years old or it's fake lulu that you got on ebay lol” (Christie Lee., 2016).

This comment shows that the woman not only likes the Lululemon yoga pants but actively recommend the brand’s products by arguing that there is no way that Lululemon produces bad quality products. The first passage involves informal language such as the words “literally” and “tho”. Literally is informally used to put an emphasis on something that is in not literally true and thus represents the figurative speech act of metonymy. The last passage, “it’s either 10000 years old” is a figurative speech act that can be identified as a hyperbole. The exaggeration of using the expression 100,000 years puts an emphasis on the argument the author makes. The word “lulu” is the short form of the brand name Lululemon and represents a community or field

language. Stakeholders use a specific kind of language to establish that they are legitimate members of the community. Thus, the process of determination of legitimacy is involved in this statement. The acronym “lol” at the end of the quote is a short form for laughing out loud and is an informal speech act. The process of mobilising can be linked closely to the process of advocating because many passages that advocated brand-related aspects also tried to mobilise other people to either buy the products or at least try them on. The interaction between two processes relates to the concept of brand assemblage (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015) and creates a value, in the form of stakeholder co-construction. Some textual passages also include emoticons such as smiling faces that expresses the feeling of a person. The smiling emoticon shows a sense of happiness and facilitates the mediation process of advocating. Other textual passages use juxtaposition as a figure of speech in order to highlight an argument by providing a contrast to it. The data also revealed that it is more likely to have a product advocating process rather than a brand advocating process due to the fact that brand advocating requires an iterative purchase that generally occurs after product advocating. In general, the process of advocating mediates between a certain lifestyle and a brand through the use of field language, figures of speech and emoticons. The data showed that only textual data (including emoticons) facilitate the advocating process. The expressive capacity of textual data, thus, enables communication between a world of diverging perspectives (Jovchelovitch, 1995) through the use of language, which in turn results in the process of advocating.

Another process is persuading. This process was mainly found on blogs, but also on YouTube and fora. Comments that carry the social mediation process persuading are mainly from external stakeholders. Blogs facilitate persuading processes because they are personal, individual and rather authentic. A good example that highlights this aspect is the following interaction:

“[blogpost] As the “naked sensation” implies, aligns don’t have any compression. The fabric is quite flattering, but it isn’t going to hold anything in. Since it’s so lightweight, the fabric is fairly revealing, so you’ll need seamless undergarments (or none at all if that’s your thing)

Lately, my favorite places to wear my align crops has been my aerial silks class and light/moderate intensity hikes. For hot days, the breathable, light feel of the nulu fabric is fantastic. I’m glad I finally have another color to rotate in with my alberta lake pair.

[response, Priya]: Love this outfit! I’ve had the same crops in my cart for ages now and as always AA, you are my enabler:-). Will comfortably be pulling the trigger today” (Agent Athletica. (2017).

The blog post includes 16 pictures of a woman wearing a Lululemon sports bra and Lululemon tights. She stands barefoot on a small path in the middle of the forest. She comments below the pictures about how she bought the product, when, why and how she likes it. She starts the blog post by telling a story about why she decided to buy the product. Then, she continuously compares the product’s features to those of other products. By pointing out “some women seem to prefer […]” many times she wants to give other stakeholders the impression that she understands what athletic gear women prefer. In the paragraph of the quote above the author of the blog post points out advantages and disadvantages of the product. Providing both positive and negative aspects of a product conveys trustworthiness and facilitates the process of persuasion. In the next paragraph the blogger points out her favourite places for wearing the product. The places relate to a certain lifestyle, specifically an active lifestyle including hiking and aerial silk classes. The persuasive process is, thus, facilitated through textual data including storytelling, comparisons and sharing activities as well as non-textual data in the form of pictures. Both data represent a certain lifestyle and through posting them mediation between the lifestyle and the brand takes place. Another stakeholder’s response to the blog post involves the metaphor “pulling the trigger” as well as community language by shortening the blog name to “AA”. Thus, the blog post leads to a purchasing decision of another stakeholder through the process of persuading. In general, there were only a few persuading processes that could be found online. This implies that persuading is a very strong form of advocating that simply does not occur often because it is fairly difficult for a brand to evoke such strong feelings. The continuous interplay between two processes highlights that there is constant interaction between components of a brand assemblage (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). Persuading is an attempt to control images by actively sharing brand-related content in form of pictures and texts. This data has an expressive capacity (Deleuze & Guattari, 1978) and enables sensemaking (Jovchelovitch, 1995).

The next social mediation process to be examined is called evangelising. This process could be found on blogs, online articles, fora, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and the Lululemon website. The various platforms that individuals used in order to communicate evangelising shows that whenever stakeholders are really convinced of a product they do not hesitate to share how much they like it. The following comment exemplifies the process of evangelising:

“I love these pants and i could preach for years about how great they are but you should go get some yourself. They also have other great stuff like their shorts and jackets and t-shirts. My whole wardrobe is lululemon now, don't worry though, thats after lots of saving and time. but seriously go to the store and try them on! You'll love them to death!!!” (lululoverr., 2015).

The comment involves strong emotional words such as “love”, “preach” and “death”. The phrase “love to death” means that the stakeholder has an extremely strong affection to the product. This phrase is typically used during interaction between persons, which implies that the comment holds the process of personalisation. The term “preach” implies delivering a holy or sacred message towards a group of people. This hyperbole facilitates evangelising and mediates between the brand and lifestyles. The usage of three exclamation marks further highlights that the author has very strong feelings about the brand. Evangelising is a way of making sense of the world through strong emotional connections that language conveys. The data also showed that evangelising includes processes of personalisation (Lululemon described as “bae”), and determination of legitimacy (stakeholder as believers). Thus, the process evangelising is an assemblage with components of personalisation and determination of legitimacy. The pure existence and the great usage of the hashtag #lululemonaddict on social media shows that many stakeholders evangelise the brand and its products and use the hashtag to identify themselves with the brand.

Antagonising is a process that could be found in blogs, online articles, forums, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. The amount of data that uncovered the process of antagonizing can be related back to the diverging logics of the yoga market. Different stakeholders explain their world with different logics. The current meaning of the brand can contain certain logics that do not correspond with logics of other stakeholders. These logics refer to certain lifestyles that stakeholders relate to. The nonconformity between lifestyles of stakeholders and brands can then result in antagonising processes. This reaction towards a YouTube video about the see- through yoga pants scandal effectively shows the process of antagonising: “A lot of schools are banning female students from wearing Lululemon yoga pants because they're too form fitting, and just when you thought it couldn't go any further, they've come up with something even more revealing” (Jimmy Kimmel Live., 2014). This textual data involves a climatic statement that expresses the discomposure of the author towards the brand. The data generally showed that language was used to create an antagonising process. Mainly stakeholders participate in antagonising processes because the brand meaning or brand manifestations does not correspond

to the image or lifestyle of themselves. Informal language that sometimes contains swearwords and the concept of hate expresses a stakeholders’ non-conformity towards a brand. This nonconformity either results because of current scandals about the brand or because of diverging logics. Antagonizing is mostly facilitated through the use of language but also through sarcasm in videos. Specifically, the “Spray on Pants” video (Jimmy Kimmel Live., 2014) on YouTube includes sarcasm that is expressed through the spoken word in the video. Sarcasm highly depends on the context of the brand scandal. The brand Lululemon is highly commercialised which is in conflict with spiritual principles of yoga such as simplicity. Related to consumerism, this principle means that individuals should not indulge in spending a lot of money on products. The diverging logics of the yoga market highlight that a market assemblage can include opposing components (DeLanda, 2006) such as consumerism versus spiritualism. Antagonising itself is a process that is in contrast to advocating or evangelising.

To summarise, processes relating to the co-creation of brand meaning used textual as well as non-textual data such as videos or pictures to mediate between lifestyles and the brand Lululemon. Textual data involves the use of language and with it the use of figures of speech. Language has a expressive capability because it uses figures of speech to create a certain image in the mind of stakeholders. This image is ideally the lifestyle that the brand wants to connect to. Textual data also encompasses emoticons that mediate certain emotions between a lifestyle and a brand. Non-textual data such as pictures and videos express certain lifestyles though expressive capacities. Generally, most data passages involved more than one process, which underlines the interaction between every component of a brand assemblage. The processes romanticising and storytelling facilitate the mediation between the brand and cultural fields through primarily telling stories or using expressive capacities of videos.

5.2. Co-Generating Brand Manifestations

Referring to Hemetberger et al.’s (2018) findings regarding social mediation processes, both processes of product change and peer collaboration were not uncovered. This might be due to the fact that the company does not offer customising processes for their products like the shoe customisation Nike ID or co-working processes for product innovations alike Gore-Tex. However, a brand assemblage is dynamic and subject to continuous non-linear change. This implies that new components can arise and depart in a brand assemblage that can stabilise or destabilise an assemblage (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). Processes in the core of the brand are rather rigid but can also be influenced from changes of the periphery.

Product change and peer collaboration both focus on the co-generation of central brand manifestations. If, for instance, a trend towards more individuality created a high demand of customers wanting individualised workout gear, Lululemon could offer customisation options for their products. The high price of the products also prevents customers from independently altering their products without any input from the company. The only way stakeholders influence brand manifestations is during in-store events. However, these events are not created in absence of the company as ambassadors and store employees are also involved and, therefore, are able to control and guide the events.

Co-developing processes have mainly been found on Instagram and the Lululemon website but also on blogs, online articles, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. Ambassadors are primarily engaged in this process because co-developing is a form of collaboration between a brand and its stakeholders. The collaboration with ambassadors also explains that the processes could be found on various social media platforms of ambassadors. The fact that this process could be uncovered various times highlights that this process is company-steered. Another rationale that explains the huge interaction with co-developing processes is the usage of the hashtag #lululemonambassador. The hashtag creates a platform for public discourse. The following quote depicted from an online article illustrates a co-developing process:

“The store partnered with FreeRide Studio, an indoor cycling studio, for an outdoor cycling event Nov. 4 at the Pinnacle Hills Courtyard. This week, Lululemon is partnering with Crossfit Reverence for a class in their Rogers location. The staff is anticipating more collaborative workout classes and activities with other business in the future, Franky said” (The Arkansas Traveler., 2017).

The quote of the article shows that the brand Lululemon is engaged in collaborations with FreeRide Studio and Crossfit Reverence in order to create manifestations in form of events. In the example, the co-developing process leads to a cycling event and a Crossfit event. Stakeholders who participate in such events create intangible manifestations of the brand meaning by engaging in patterns of behaviour such as going to the events of a Crossfit class. The brand Lululemon mediates between the active lifestyle Crossfit and its stakeholders by collectively creating the event. The characteristics of the event are in agreement with assemblage theory’s statement, which asserts that without interaction of components in an assemblage, the assemblage itself would not exist (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). In this example this means, without stakeholders attending the class and without

collaboration of Lululemon and the Crossfit company, the event would simply not exist. Customers, Lululemon and the Crossfit company would merely co-exist but they would not interact with each other much less they would not engage in a co-developing process. Thus, sharing textual information online and events that lead to participative patterns of behaviour facilitate co-developing processes. Events represent aspects of a certain lifestyle and facilitate mediation between the lifestyle and the brand. The process of co-developing is mainly uncovered on ambassadors’ social media platforms. The platforms included textual passages that used the words sponsoring and partnering to a considerable degree. Ambassadors, on the one hand, are obligated by law to mark a sponsored post on social media as advertisement. On the other hand, ambassadors use strong emotional words such as family or love, engage in storytelling, share meaningful quotes from the brand’s manifesto and make use of emoticons such as praying hands, symbols of nature and hearts. Further, ambassadors as well as other stakeholders share hashtags such as #lululemon or #lululemonambassador. On Instagram, for instance, the hashtag creates an assemblage of pictures and is visible to the broad public. This assemblage creates a vivid, visual expressive representation of the lifestyle that Lululemon is connected with. Stakeholders use the hashtag to associate themselves with the brand Lululemon and its lifestyle. Besides using hashtags, stakeholders who participated in events shared posts with the reference @[ambassador name] in order to associate themselves with the lifestyle of the ambassador. Lululemon’s website shows that their ambassadors do not only practice yoga but all kinds of athletic sports. The brand mediates between active lifestyles and stakeholders by using ambassadors and the cultural fields they are related to, which in turn creates all kinds of interactive processes online. An active lifestyle is a specific cultural field that can be linked to the brand Lululemon with the help of emoticons, language and hashtags. The collaboration of the brand and its ambassadors influences manifestations of the brand. This is especially the case for events and the resulting public discourse. Whenever stakeholders interact in such events or with ambassadors, they make sense of the brand Lululemon through their interactions.

The process initiating could mainly be found on blogs and fora because these platforms create space online for communicative processes. Some processes could also be found on Instagram and Twitter posts. Initiating processes are often posts that ask a question to other stakeholders and create space for participation. Blogs, accounts and fora all create a platform that provides space for public discourse online. Blogs that focus solely on the brand Lululemon provide a comment section underneath each post that enables public discourse. Whereas a blog is a platform that is less used to create links to other sites, on the contrary Instagram is largely used

to create and share links. These links can initiate a conversation. A post on Instagram shows a picture of a male yogi and the following caption:

“[victorchauyoga] @keepiris had me twisted in #marichyasana C. This is one of my favourite #seatedpose s with a deep #spinaltwist and shoulder opening. But I find it harder and harder to do this kind of bind as my legs are getting bigger from various trainings. Do you have the same problem...? 

• • • • • #yoga #yogalove #yogalife #yogainspiration #yogaeverywhere #igyoga #instayoga #yogapractice #yogaaddict #iloveyoga #lululemonambassador #menatyoga #victorchauyoga #boysofyoga #fitness #primaryseries #ashtangayoga #beijing #performingarts #throwback” (victorchauyoga., 2018).

The initiating activity that provides space online is the shared post but also the hashtags that the stakeholder used. Hashtags create links and are basically own sites that facilitate public discourse. By asking his followers and other stakeholders if they have the same problem, the public can experience aspects of the brand together. The created space is an independent brand manifestation that is created without input of the brand. Activities such as posting and sharing facilitate the process initiating. Often questions in intention to trigger participation are used as an initiating tool. The initiation is done by textual passages that relate to processes of welcoming and non-textual expressive data such as pictures on Instagram. The stakeholder who initiates a conversation represents a certain lifestyle. A Lululemon ambassador who is a yogi shared the quote above on Instagram. The post of the picture alone is an initiative process that provides an online space to experience the brand together with committed stakeholders. Hashtags further create a space that is visible for everyone and relates to the lifestyle the brand is related with. The interaction between components of an assemblage, in this case the interaction of Lululemon stakeholders, creates new capacities (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). Stakeholders, for example, use hashtags in relation to the brand Lululemon. A hashtag alone without a link would just be a symbol combined with a word. The link creates a new space that has the capacity to connect a certain lifestyle and to the brand Lululemon.

Besides initiating, the analysis uncovered the process of publishing. This process could be found on all webpages in the data set because any information or data that could be collected has once been published. This example of a blog post exemplifies the process of publishing:

“Goodmorning darling readers! Today I had the pleasure of partnering with one of my favorite brands—Lululemon—to show you all that the darling brand is not only about 47

comfort, but also about lots of style. Before I was approached by the activewear company, I simply adored Lululemon for my flawless yoga pants, my favorite workout tank, and everything else having to do with getting sweaty and staying comfortable. And after looking through the downtown Austin Lululemon selection (6th and Lamar), I realized there was so much more to the activewear clothier.” (Jessi Afshin., 2017a).

The blog post does not only release the relevant textual branded information but also shows various pictures of a girl wearing a Lululemon top and pants. The processes of publishing and initiating are interlinked as publishing brand-related data online most often also creates a space where other stakeholders can participate in interactive communication. This relation shows that also the capacities of initiating and publishing processes are intertwined. Publishing processes can influence the brand meaning in a positive and negative way. It can involve advocating or evangelising processes but also antagonising processes. Thus, publishing can contain sub- assemblages (other processes), be an assemblage itself and be a component of the whole brand assemblage (Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). Publishing mediates between a lifestyle and a brand through stakeholders sharing their lifestyle and relations to the brand.

Advertising is a social mediation process that could be found online in blogs, fora, Instagram and Twitter. Mainly customers and fans of the brand participated in this process. This shows that brand manifestations are created by a collective co-production. Most of the comments focused on advertising the brand’s products such as the following comment on Instagram: “[julie.juliet] @bestfitblogs Thank you! All their sportswear is such a good quality👌🏼 I’m absolutely in love with this one at the moment” (julie.juliet., 2018). The user comment is coherent to Lululemon’s intended brand meaning. The author uses an emoticon that shows a gesture that represents something is correct or good. The emoticon has an expressive capacity that helps the stakeholder to convey her feelings during the process of advertising. The word “love” expresses a strong emotional bond or feeling towards the product. Other textual data reveals storytelling as well as words that relate to the stakeholder’s emotions. Both aspects facilitate the mediation process advertising. Every cultural field has its own stories. The process of advertising connects the brand to a certain lifestyle by telling stories that convey norms and values. Ambassadors such as Olympians advertise the brand by thanking them for making it possible to succeed in their sports. They create a connection by tagging the brand (@lululemon) in their posts. The advertising process creates exposure of the brand online and stakeholders connect the lifestyle of the ambassador with the brand Lululemon. Advertising was also uncovered in non-textual data such as pictures on Instagram. Stakeholders regularly share

pictures of themselves doing yoga or other sports, always centred around an active lifestyle. They connect the lifestyle by using hashtags that relate to the brand Lululemon and by wearing Lululemon gear in the photo. The expressive capability (Parmentier & Fischer, 2014) of pictures conveys a lifestyle that hashtags in turn link to the brand.

Most self-presentation processes can be found on Instagram and blogs, but also on Twitter and YouTube. Social media platforms extraordinarily provide an easily accessible and eligible space where individuals can represent and showcase themselves online. The data revealed that consumers of the brand participate in self-presentation processes in online posts. The data analysis showed that Instagram users often used hashtags as a caption of their blog post to present themselves more strikingly online:

“[julie.juliet] #sportswear #fitnessblogger #healthylifestyle #fitfoodie #thebodtcoach #eatclean #healthychoice #gymshark #cleaneating #leanin15 #healthyfood #gymoutfit #superfoods #lululemon #sportsbra #healthyfoodblogger #foodblogger #londonblogger #gymaddict #flashsale #australian #fatloss #giveaway #mondaymotivation” (julie.juliet. 2018).

The picture that relates to the quote or caption shows a girl wearing a sports bra and leggings from a competitor brand of Lululemon. It is astonishing that the stakeholder posts a caption including the hashtag #lululemon, even though she does not promote any product in the picture. Self-presentation is interrelated with the process of initiating, because the hashtag creates a space where other stakeholders can see pictures and captions of the user. She uses Instagram as a platform to make a statement about herself by linking her cycling lifestyle to the brand Lululemon. The other hashtags represent the lifestyle the author wants to be associated with and simultaneously identifies the lifestyle that is connected to the brand Lululemon. The other hashtags besides #lululemon represent an active lifestyle that centres on healthy eating and sports in general. The process of self-presentation involves stakeholders staging themselves by publishing a picture that involves their lifestyle. Self-presentation is a process and an assemblage that involves several components such as initiating and publishing processes. The interaction between stakeholders of a brand assemblage affects assemblage as a whole (Sassen, 2006). This implies that the lifestyle stakeholders try to relate to the brand influences the brand meaning. For example, when increasingly more stakeholders of other sports use the brand and its products to present themselves online, the brand meaning will slowly change over time as other lifestyles than yoga are attached to it.

The process of ritualisation was found on blogs, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and the Lululemon website. An adequate example of a ritualisation process is this blog post: “No, Lululemon is not just work-out clothes, and no, I have never worked out in these clothes. They are simply those cosy pants that I want to throw on literally every single day of my life” (Jessi Afshin., 2017b). The quote shows the ritualisation of wearing the brand’s clothes every day for years. The world literally is an informal way of putting an emphasis on something, in this case wearing the same pants every day. In this quote ritualisation is represented by a hyperbole. The process of ritualisation is usually combined with a statement of devotion. Ritualisation processes also take place offline as the Lululemon website states:

“THE GIFT OF YOGA IN OUR STORES Every week, our stores and showrooms push their products aside, unroll yoga mats and turn their spaces into instant yoga studios. Classes are complimentary and lead by instructors from local studios in your community. Find your local store info HERE.” (Lululemon., 2018).

The expressive process of offering weekly yoga classes steadily re-affirms the cultural order of the brand and unquestionable represents a certain lifestyle. Textual data that refers to the process of ritualisation uses weekly, monthly or daily references. The process of ritualisation involves stories about dedication, a long-term relationship with the brand and its products and dedication to the brand. The term lifestyle or cultural field itself represents a long-term dedication to something that is valuable to stakeholders. The brand Lululemon connects to the long-term characteristic of lifestyles by hosting events regularly such as the aforementioned yoga classes in their stores. The ritual of practising yoga gets associated with the ritual of buying and wearing Lululemon clothes. Whenever formal ritualisation processes such as regular classes are interrupted or terminated by the brand, the community of stakeholders participates in antagonising processes online. Ritualisation processes and antagonising processes are closely interlinked because rituals are deeply embedded in cultures and represent values and basic assumptions. The violation of such rituals, therefore, leads to antagonising processes. Mediation between stakeholders and cultural fields fostered by ritualisation processes can be seen in textual data but mostly in offline experiences such as regular events. A brand assemblage can be destabilised (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015) when former ritualisation processes are terminated. Social mediation processes are embedded in rituals and, therefore, the practice of rituals facilitates them (Jovchelovitch, 1995).

The next process, personalisation was found in an online article and a forum. The data analysis uncovered the following quote originated from a forum online:

“OMG OMG OMG ! I am the biggest Lulu fan ever ! I used to only buy their stuff cause I thought it was cute.. but then I started doing hot yoga and it all made sense ! I actually collect the scuba hoodies.. I gotta post my collection some time ! :graucho:” (ayla., 2007).

The customer is so devoted to the brand that she started a collection of Lululemon’s scuba hoodies. The hoodies carry individual meaning for her, which leads to the goal of owning every hoodie of this product line. The stakeholder uses capital letters and repeats the short form for “oh my god” three times, which expresses excitement. All sentences finish with an exclamation mark, which highlights the importance of the sentence and again the excitement. The emoticon at the end of the sentence moves the eyebrows up and down, which is a sign of greeting or welcoming to see the collection of hoodies. The emotional excitement that the language carries demonstrates the superb experience that the stakeholder made with the brand. By sharing the post online, the author connects the brand to her lifestyle by the process of personalisation. Further, other stakeholders can see that the author is devoted to the cultural field of yoga and the brand.

Processes of emplacement could be found in every data source but mainly on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Lululemon does not focus solely on yoga as a cultural field anymore but is now involved in virtually every active lifestyle. The brand sponsors many Olympic medallists of different sports such as curling, football, surfing or speed skating. The exposure of the brand to many different kinds of sports leads to more public discourse. Therefore, manifestations like products are used in new contexts. These new contexts are several active lifestyles in which ambassadors and customers use the brand’s products in diverse sports. Especially pictures showing how the products are used for any kind of sports provide visual stimuli in a new context. Stakeholders also use hashtags on various social media platforms in order to create emplacement. This could be seen in the following Instagram caption: “#skinthecat #straightarmstrength #calisthenics #skill #farmgirlyogi #bloklondon #shoreditch #clapton #hackney #lunchtimeworkout #lululemon #tuesday #tipstuesday #pt #training #igfitness #instafit #strength #agility” (farmgirlyogi., 2018). The stakeholder did not only use the hashtag #lululemon but various hashtags like #training or #fitness, which helps creating spill-over- effects. The brand mediates between an active lifestyle and stakeholders by emplacing the brand

name into other fitness domains. Hashtags create a link between the posted picture and a site that only involves content of the hashtag. The link of the hashtag puts the picture with usually a person wearing Lululemon clothes into another cultural field. The exposure of the picture to other cultural fields adds new layers to the meaning of the brand. The post of a brand-related picture can be linked to another cultural field simply by tagging it. This shows that a brand assemblage is dynamic and subject to continuous change (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015) as new layers of brand meaning and links to certain lifestyles are continuously created online. The exposure of a brand-related picture also helps stakeholders to give meaning to a brand. Stakeholders facilitate emplacement by saving brand-related pictures on Pinterest to their own boards. The collection of pictures that already exists in a board represents a cultural field or a lifestyle. By placing a brand-related picture to a collection, the brand is placed into a cultural field. Overall, hashtagging and using pictures (portraying) facilitate the process of emplacement. If a brand is now defined as a component with certain capacities (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015), another brand can interact with these capacities and connect to those by interacting with the cultural field of the other brand.

Lastly, the analysis uncovered comparing as a social mediation process. Comparing means to find differences or similarities between two or more people or objects (Oxford University Press, 2018). The analysis showed that brand stakeholders tend to extensively compare brand manifestations online, specifically on blogs and fora. Whereas the process of familiarising refers to the co-creation of brand meaning, comparing can be related to the co-generation of brand manifestations. The following example shows how brand manifestations can be co- generated with the process of comparing:

“lululemon athletica is a company based on community and innovation, notions we, at Oatbox, also strongly value. Since health and wellness play a huge part in both our companies’ cultures, it was no surprise that it was love at first sight when we met, more than a year ago. Ever since, we have partnered in events that reflect our ideals and that allow us to share our mindset with the community” (Oat Box. (2016).

The company that partnered with Lululemon compared the brand’s values and culture with its own. The comparison leads to events that can be identified as brand manifestations. Assemblage theory asserts that components relate and connect to each other. Two brands, for instance, can be each sub-assemblages (Hoffmann & Novak; 2015) of a market assemblage. The comparison

between two components such as two different brands helps consumers to make sense and create brand meaning.

To summarise, the findings of this chapter revealed that textual as well as non-textual data facilitate mediation processes. Specifically, processes of hashtagging and processes of portraying help the brand Lululemon to mediate between its stakeholders and various cultural fields. The process emplacement predominantly involves hashtagging and portraying processes. The interaction and connection between processes highlight that components of an assemblage interact continuously and may change over time. The analysis further uncovered the process of comparing in which brand stakeholders compare and evaluate brand manifestations online. The next chapter focuses on the findings of co-construction stakeholders.

5.3. Co-Constructing Stakeholders

Self-identification processes mainly could be found on Instagram, but also on various blogs, Twitter and Pinterest. Stakeholders tend to affiliate themselves with other brand stakeholders online by using the hashtag #lululemon: “Flat me for @BMOVanMarathon relay Tomorow. Excited and nervous at the same time. Just one day, one race and it’s about fun. Let’s do this!! #endurancetap #squirrelsnutbutter #lululemon #brooks #momentumjewelry #vancityocr #bmomarathonrelay” (Charity Fick., 2018). The stakeholder shares a post that shows her excitement about a marathon run that she is going to compete in. She identifies herself with the brand Lululemon and its stakeholders by adding the hashtag #lululemon to the post. The hashtag creates exposure of the post to the site of #lululemon on Twitter. This exposure leads to public discourse and fosters the intrinsic connection of the publisher with other Lululemon stakeholders. Other stakeholders of the brand Lululemon, for instance, also share posts with the same hashtag #lululemon and can look up the #lululemon site in order to see posts of interest. In this way a stakeholder participates in a process of associating himself or herself with the Lululemon group. Especially using a hashtag actively creates a sense of belongingness towards a brand-related group. A brand-related hashtag is usually used in combination with other hashtags the stakeholder identifies himself or herself with. This implies that self-identification is not a linear assemblage process (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015) but is comprised of many cultural elements that can be represented in the form of hashtagging. The textual data reveals that stakeholders use inspirational quotes from certain lifestyles and emoticons such as a person doing yoga in combination with a brand-related hashtag. Stakeholders use language from a cultural field such as “come flow with me” (victoriapulla03.,

2018) in order to affiliate themselves with a certain lifestyle. Lululemon ambassadors proudly present themselves as representatives of the company. Both ambassadors and customers engage in self-identification processes by the use of field language such as defining themselves as enthusiasts, warriors or yogis. Self-identification is also facilitated by expressive capacities of videos and pictures featuring athletes wearing Lululemon clothing. The logo of the brand Lululemon can be seen in some pictures. The purposeful staging of pictures is a way of creating self-identification, which can be defined as portraying. Pictures on Pinterest can be saved to a personal board, which also fosters the process of self-identification. Some pictures, for example, express traveling as a lifestyle. When stakeholders save a picture of a woman wearing Lululemon clothing whilst traveling, the stakeholders identify themselves with the lifestyle and in turn make sense of the brand Lululemon as a travelling lifestyle brand.

Besides self-identification, the process of internalisation could be uncovered. This process could be found on blogs, a website, Instagram and YouTube. Mainly partners and ambassadors share posts online that convey the process of internalisation. A lot of ambassadors do not directly advertise the brand's products but internalise the brand's goals, values and beliefs in their posts:

“[_abbychan_Ughh] it’s feels so good to finally flow again! My back was super sad last week (nothing a little bit of rolling and hip mob-ing couldn’t fix). Because really... not doing an upward facing dog really sucks. It fells TOO good to be back in my body in my flow. 🤘🏽

[_abbychan_] #flowstate #movementislife #movementartist #yogaeverydamnday #vinyasaflow #vinyasa #RYT #yoga #movementismedicine #Flagstaff #AZ #armbalance #lululemonambassador #lululemon #thesweatlife #thisisyoga” (_abbychan_., 2018).

In the post above, a Lululemon brand ambassador shares how she is finally doing yoga again and uses the hashtags #lululemonambassador and #lululemon in order to show her commitment to the brand’s stakeholder group. The stakeholder uses hashtags in order to connect to a certain cultural field. In the quote, for instance, the words “vinyasa” “flowstate” and “thisisyoga” relate to the cultural field of yoga. The stakeholder internalises her goal by using the hashtag “#yogaeverydamnday”. Values such as “#movementislife” or “#thesweatlife” show a deeper connection to the cultural field. Storytelling and the use of emotional emoticons further deepen internalisation processes. In the quote, the author uses a “sign of the horns” emoticon. In

Hinduism, this gesture is known as a psychic gesture of life force (Apaña Mudra). The yogic gesture deepens internalisation during meditation (Carroll & Carroll, 2014). The data also showed that partners of the brand Lululemon shared a comparison of their own values and Lululemon’s brand values online. The post creates awareness of the congruent values and in turn deepens self-affiliation. The connection between processes of internalisation and comparing highlights that components in a brand assemblage are related to each other and influence each other (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015).

The process of determination of legitimacy could be found mostly on blogs, fora, online articles, Instagram and YouTube. An online article strongly depicts the determination of legitimacy: “Employees at Lululemon typically live an active lifestyle that the brand promotes, employee Emily Hartley said” (The Arkansas Traveler., 2017). The stakeholder of the quote determines other employees by referring to their active lifestyle. According to the author, true members of the Lululemon sales team typically live an active lifestyle. The way stakeholders determine others as a true member of a cultural field depends on how “well” they represent this particular cultural field and on the stakeholder’s perception who determines the legitimacy. Stakeholders determine other stakeholders’ legitimacy by creating a link (@[ambassador name]) to this person and using a hashtag (#lululemon) that refers to the lifestyle of the stakeholder. The stakeholder first determines the person who should be legitimised and then provides a reference of the cultural field or lifestyle the individual is a member of. Stakeholders also use negative perceived stereotypes in order to determine the legitimacy of other stakeholders such as yuppies, soccer moms or non-serious runner types. This rather negative determination of legitimacy involves antagonising processes and can influence the meaning of the brand. Thus, a brand assemblage can involve contrasting components such as different stakeholder groups. Overall, stereotyping, hashtagging and linking to cultural fields influence the process of determination of legitimacy.

Another process that the analysis exposed is role assignment. The process could be found predominantly on blogs, but also in an online article, on Instagram and Twitter. The social mediation process role assignment is mostly visible in posts that relate to ambassadors. For example: “[robbietubajon] Loved the workout this am with lululemon ambassadors @dntjukemjuice and @robbytreadwell at @unionperformance in OKC. Movement, mobility, strength = lots of sweat. #thesweatlife #lululemonmen #ambassadorlove” (robbietubajon., 2018). In this post the brand stakeholder creates discourse by tagging other relevant stakeholders and attaching the role of being an ambassador to them. The stakeholder actively

shares that he participated in a workout and specifically exposes the ambassadors. Assigning certain roles to other stakeholders also leads to a determination of legitimacy. Thus, both processes are closely intertwined. The hashtag #ambassadorlove signals strong emotional feeling towards a member of the brand Lululemon. Stakeholders, who assign roles to other members and publicly share this assignment, are devoted to the brand and actively search a connection to legitimised brand members. The process of role assignment embodies a desire to belong to a certain cultural field. The data also uncovered that stakeholders assign the role of being an influencer towards bloggers by commenting to a sponsored blog post. Other stakeholders refer to certain lifestyles by addressing bloggers as fitness or athletic apparel bloggers. Stakeholders make sense of the brand Lululemon by assigning roles to other stakeholders and relating to their lifestyle. Some individuals who commented a blog post even acted like fans of another stakeholder.

The next process to be analysed is mobilising. Ambassadors or partners of Lululemon contributed to this process by motivating others to participate in certain workouts, yoga sessions or marathons. Customers of the brand rather focused on mobilising others to share their information and experience with the brand. Therefore, the process of mobilising can be defined as stimulating other stakeholders to share knowledge about the brand. One example that represents many mobilising processes is this quote:

“I want to get some Lululemon gear, but I'd like to get some feedback first before I spend all of that $$$. I've heard about some quality issues with Lululemon pants. Have any of you experienced that? Are they too thin?” (Jbstargazer., 2013).

This quote excerpted from a bodybuilding forum shows how a stakeholder of the Lululemon brand tries to gather information about the quality of the pants by mobilising social actors. He used the thread “Thoughts on Lululemon” and asked brand-related questions, which created a specific discourse. The sharing of experiences on fora influences the way stakeholders create brand meaning. Product-related discourse was mainly shared on fora, whereas brand and event- related data was shared on social media platforms. On Instagram, for instance, ambassadors share pictures of doing a yoga pose. The expressive capacity of the picture relates the activity to the brand as the person in the photograph usually wears branded clothes. A question or request to participate in a branded activity is usually accompanied by field language such as “Come flow with me!” (victoriapulla03., 2018), which relates to yoga. Hashtags such as #getitdone or #marichyasana relate to specific lifestyles or cultural fields. The process of

ritualisation is interrelated to the process of mobilising, as many stakeholders motivate others regularly to participate in weekly or monthly brand-related events. The interaction between two processes can influence brand manifestations such as events.

Another process the data revealed is recruiting. Recruiting activities could be found on blogs, Instagram and Twitter. A meaningful example of recruiting is the following comment found on a blog:

“So common guys, what are you waiting for! Stop scrolling through random websites, and stop texting her friends for ideas and instead head out to Lululemon! You will find the perfect gift that will have your girl falling even more in love with you. I mean let's be honest, a happy girlfriend makes for a happy life and the only way to do that is by heading to Lululemon and spoiling them.” (Emily D., 2017).

This quote is a direct appeal to other stakeholders to buy Lululemon clothing by referring to private moments and strong emotions such as love. The hyperbole or exaggeration that the only way to make a girlfriend happy is to buy Lululemon clothing facilitates the process of recruiting. Other data showed that stakeholders link their friends’ profile names to certain brand-related pictures and claim that their friends have to buy certain clothing items. Recruiting online involves an active speech act in the form of a post or comment that stimulate other stakeholders to relate the brand to a certain lifestyle through expressive capacities of pictures, hashtags or stories. Brand-related interaction between two or more individuals can cause the generation of more stakeholders because recruiting processes lead to more brand-related involvement. The component stakeholder can interact with another stakeholder and, thus, influence the brand assemblage as a whole (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015).

The process of welcoming was found mainly on blogs that are related to the brand Lululemon but also on Instagram, YouTube and the official Lululemon website. A blog post of the blog “Lululemonexpert” shared the following welcoming statement: “Welcome, no mater how you say it, it’s a warm invitation to come on in! I want to take the time to invite people to my blog and let people know what this blog is about. Thanks for being here!” (lululemonexpert., 2014). The author later explains that most of the content is focused on the brand Lululemon. The quote shows that the author actively recognises other actors as qualified stakeholders by inviting them to participate and read the blog. Welcoming is a way of forming communal ties between relevant stakeholders. The process of welcoming is one of the first interactive communication processes and is thereby related to the process of initiating. Welcoming other stakeholders is

also an indirect way of mobilising them to participate in an interactive discourse in an online space that is created through an initiating process. Welcoming can also be associated with processes of storytelling because the author of a welcoming post uses explanations and narratives in order to connect to a certain lifestyle. The belonging to a certain cultural field can be expressed through the process of self-identification. Overall, the data showed that welcoming as an assemblage involves components of storytelling, initiating, mobilising and self-identification, which influence each other as well as the welcoming assemblage and the macro-brand-assemblage (DeLanda, 2006).

Socialising is another process that could be found on blogs and fora. Mainly customers participate in this process by sharing and discussing about brand-related aspects such as quality of the products. The interaction leads to public discourse and to some extent to a shared community language. The following blog post shows the use of community language:

“You might have noticed I use some terms on the blog you are unfamiliar with. Here is a guide and some insight on core Lulu pieces for you to get started building your lulu collection:

[…] Luon (Full On Luon), Luxtreme (iPlux, Full On Luxtreme), Circle Mesh, Swiftly, Running Luon (aka RULU), Swift, etc. - Lululemon technical fabrics. Check out their website for descriptions.

Angel - someone who will go to one of their local stores to buy lulu for you (since your store doesn't have it or you don't live near one) and mail it to you.“ (luluaddict., 2018a).

The author of the blog post introduces a community language that developed through the collective interaction of public discourse related to Lululemon. Short forms for specific product-related aspects are used and the legitimacy of group members is defined by giving an exact definition. The community language helps stakeholders to make sense of the brand and it also mediates a certain lifestyle that is represented by the community. Stakeholders experience the brand through exchange of knowledge online and field language. Therefore, the component socialising has the capacity (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015) of creating field language that facilitates mediation between a brand and a certain lifestyle.

The next process the analysis revealed is knowledge sharing. This process could be found mostly on blogs, but also in online articles, Pinterest and YouTube. Blogs are primarily used to share knowledge online among brand stakeholders. Knowledge sharing mainly arises between

customers and focuses on sharing product-relevant information like this comment on a blog exemplifies:

“I've tried on the men's stuff before and it never looks right - it's big in the shoulders, tight in the chest, loose in the waist, tight in the hips, and looks very manly, not cute on. I'll just cross my fingers something will come out in circle mesh for women.” (luluaddict., 2018b).

The author of the comment shares personal information about the fit of men’s clothing. By posting her comment online as a response to a blog post, she shares knowledge with other brand stakeholders. With the help of the comment she participates in social networking. Stakeholders share knowledge by providing textual data, usually in the form of a story for other stakeholders. Storytelling gives the message a more personal character and influences other stakeholders’ perception of brand meaning. Compared to other processes, stakeholders do not use hashtags or many pictures when they share knowledge. This implies that primarily textual data in form of stories carries the process of knowledge sharing. Again, the interaction between processes of storytelling and knowledge sharing fosters sense making of stakeholders relating the brand Lululemon.

Educating is another social mediation process that the analysis uncovered. The process of transferring knowledge from one stakeholder to another could be found mainly on blogs and fora but also on YouTube and the Lululemon website. The example of a blog post represents the process of educating: “I’ve learned a lot in the process, and what I’ve learned will help you find gear for your workouts that’s the best of both functional and stylish” (Agent Athletica., 2017). This brief statement is followed by information about clothes and expresses the author’s goal of mentoring new brand stakeholders in how to find the perfect workout gear. Educating is a process in which stakeholders actively participate by sharing brand-related information publicly online. The exchange of knowledge also involves processes of self-identification, self- presentation and publishing. Textual data facilitates the process of educating and similar to the process of knowledge sharing, textual data transfers knowledge. Educating does not use a lot of field language, which highlights that the goal of this process is also attracting new stakeholders. The extensive use of field language excludes non-members of the cultural field because it requires to already having an understanding of the language. Educating, thus, influences the creation and figuration of brand meaning. New capacities of components (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015) such as brand meaning can arise due

to interaction between existing and new stakeholders of the brand. Mentoring creates communal ties and, therefore, facilitates the co-construction of brand stakeholders.

The process empathising could be found online on blogs, fora, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Stakeholders participated in this process by agreeing on others’ statements. This way of giving support can be seen in the following interaction on Instagram: “thollier92@kirstengeyer feel free to grab me these when you see them ! […] kirstengeyer@thollier92 sure thing! What size” (lululemonmen, thollier92., 2018). The quote shows that the replying user is willing to give the asking user physical support by picking up a Lululemon product. Linking another user’s profile to a specific picture or site facilitates the process of empathising. Emoticons such as hearts, clapping hands, strong arms and the heart-eyes face symbolise emotional support. Stakeholders comment “goals” or “love” to a picture related to the brand Lululemon that approves brand- related behaviour of other stakeholders. Thus, empathising creates a social network and approves the legitimacy of stakeholders. The social mediation process empathising is a form of validation of stakeholders engaging in self-presentation, self-identification, publishing, advocating, knowledge sharing, educating and emplacement processes. All these processes can be seen as sub-assemblages of the empathising process. Emphasising is a process of validation with the help of emoticons and words of approval, which can lead to higher loyalty of stakeholders, as they feel confirmed in their sense making of the brand and its connection to cultural fields.

To review, the analysis of processes of co-constructing stakeholders revealed that stakeholders sharing hashtags and pictures mainly influence self-affiliation. Thus, hashtagging and portraying can be identified as mediation processes that connect certain lifestyles with brands. Co-member identification includes hashtagging, portraying and the use of field language that helps the brand to connect to certain lifestyles. In contrast, social networking rather focuses on exchanging information through textual data. Thus, this process encompasses storytelling and the usage of field language.

6. Discussion

The assemblage theory perspective provided a helpful framework for the analysis of the collected data. The findings uncovered that the process of emplacement is the overarching process that facilitates social mediation online. Emplacement is related to various other processes as it utilises these processes to connect the brand to a certain lifestyle. Assemblage

theory is a multi-level theory, which asserts that components do not only exist within one assemblage but can also exist in another assemblage at the same time (Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). For instance, the findings highlighted that advocating and antagonising processes can be categorised into an overarching process category of comparing, but both processes are simultaneously components of the brand assemblage Lululemon.

Social mediation processes are components of a brand assemblage. The findings showed that several processes could be found within one passage. This implies, that social mediation processes have overlapping capacities. The overlapping of capacities in turn highlights that components of an assemblage interact with each other. If there were no interactive processes between components, the assemblage would simply not exist (DeLanda, 2002, 2006, 2011; Hoffmann & Novak; 2015). The interaction between components of the brand Lululemon proves that the active lifestyle brand is an assemblage of processes.

Emplacement, as an overarching category, interacts with several social mediation processes. The social mediation process comparing defines stakeholders as not only stakeholders of one brand but at least two or more. Stakeholders tend to compare meanings and manifestations of a brand in order to make sense of both brands. A particular brand is then used as a benchmark to compare meaning and manifestations to other brands. Brand manifestations are usually compared through the usage of textual data.

The findings further uncovered that many processes involve storytelling as a process that enables mediation between two perspectives. Hemetsberger et al. (2018) suggest that narrating is an important managerial tool, but do not define narrating as a mediation process. I assert that a brand narrative involves several storytelling processes that a brand can use in order to connect to a certain cultural field. Margolis (2018) uses the metaphor of a pearl necklace in order to differentiate storytelling and narrating: “If stories are each like a pearl, then narrative is the necklace or string of pearls” (Margolis, 2018). This quote highlights that mediation is assisted through processes of storytelling and the narrative of a brand is comprised of several stories. Stakeholders share stories through textual data online.

Another process that the findings revealed is romanticising. This process relates to an ideal image of something instead of thinking about it in a realistic way. Epp et al. (2014) add the imaginative capacity to the material and expressive capacities of a component. Romanticising can be defined as a component of a brand assemblage that has an imaginative capacity. Imagination or fantasising is caused by certain images in stakeholders’ minds. Romanticising

mainly involves storytelling and portraying in form of pictures or videos. The processes storytelling, romanticising and comparing further enable emplacement processes and, thereby, can be added to Hemetsberger et al.’s (2018) overview of social mediation processes.

The findings of the data analysis showed that textual and non-textual data assist the process of mediation between the brand Lululemon and certain lifestyles. Textual data involves field language and certain figures of speech that stakeholders use in order to make sense of brand meaning. Emoticons are textual symbols that have expressive capacities, which connect to a certain lifestyle and, thus, support mediation processes between the brand and lifestyles. Stakeholders frequently use hashtags and pictures to connect themselves, other stakeholders and the brand to a certain lifestyle. In the light of assemblage theory, hashtagging, portraying and the use of language can be categorised as social mediation processes.

Hashtagging refers to the use of a pound sign (#) in combination with a word or phrase (Johnston & Taylor, 2018). Hashtags are like beacons that stakeholders use to find or follow certain topics (Schaefer, 2014). Hashtagging can be related to the system of folksonomy. In this system individuals apply public tags to online items (Peters, 2009). Social tagging is a form of knowledge acquisition, which certain communities use in order to find specific content (Held & Cress, 2009). In the context of the brand Lululemon, hashtags refer to certain cultural fields. Thus, the process hashtagging can be further defined as cultural tagging. This process enables stakeholders interested in a certain cultural field to share content such as pictures or textual data online. The creation of a cultural tag leads to exposure to other stakeholders of the brand. Therefore, cultural tagging also influences the process of brand meaning co-creation. Mediation between a brand and a cultural lifestyle can benefit from cultural tagging. The process helps stakeholders to make sense of the world and, therefore, co-creates brand meaning.

The process of portraying is usually associated with stakeholders wanting to create a specific image of themselves on social media (Cunningham, 2014). But images and videos can also represent a certain cultural field or lifestyle. Therefore, portraying can be specified as the social mediation process of cultural portraying. Stakeholders use brand-related pictures and videos, post them online and, thus, facilitate cultural portraying. Other stakeholders can see pictures and videos online that provide a bridge between a brand and its lifestyle. If, for instance, more and more pictures portray a new lifestyle that has not been associated with the brand yet, the meaning of the brand assemblage changes slightly over time.

The use of language can be identified as a process of using field language. Steels (2012) argues that language evolves through culture. Different language systems or paradigms influence the use of certain terms or expressions (Steels, 2012). In relation to field theory (Bourdieu, 1993), the process of using field language can be defined as stakeholders using language from certain cultural fields and integrating it into brand-related interaction processes. Certain terms of a language can represent a lifestyle or cultural field. In relation to brand assemblages, such terms have expressive capacities that can influence the meaning of a brand. Adding new processes such as using field language to a brand assemblage goes in line with DeLanda’s (2006) assumption that components can be added to and separated from an assemblage.

Overall, the findings of the netnography highlight that brands mediate between stakeholders and lifestyles or culture through processes that are facilitated through cultural tagging, portraying and the use of field language. All three processes involve several other social mediation processes that Hemetsberger et al. (2018) mention in their paper. The brand assemblage highlights that the constant interaction between the processes or components are influenced by their expressive, imaginative and material capacities.

7. Managerial Implications

Managing social mediation processes proactively enables brands to sophisticatedly connect to cultural fields. Brands can use the connection in order to differentiate themselves from their competitors and also have an impact on cultural trends and issues (Hall, 2017).

The process of cultural tagging creates sites that revolve around a certain cultural field and a brand. Interested stakeholders participate in this process by sharing brand-related information. Brands can analyse such cultural tags and grasp what constitutes to their brand meaning. Each cultural tag represents a lifestyle with certain values, norms and rules, which in turn influence the demand of customers. Analysing cultural tags is a way of better comprehending your customers and the lifestyle they associate with a certain brand. After the analysis of cultural tags, brand managers can use this information to target new customers as new cultural fields arise. Cultural tags also enable companies to proactively promote or even create a certain cultural field, for instance, through ambassadors.

Pictures and videos create cultural portraying of a certain lifestyle. Managers can analyse pictures and videos that stakeholders post online, which relate to their brand. These pictures do not only represent an individual stakeholder but also express a whole lifestyle the stakeholder

feels connected to. Managers cannot only analyse the lifestyle that is associated with the brand but can also craft an association by using ambassadors, who post pictures and videos online. It is advisable to constantly observe cultural portraying processes as lifestyles or cultural fields are continuously subject to change and diverging logics in the market.

The use of field language can be identified through the analysis of cultural tagging. The knowledge of field language helps managers to improve the brand’s connection to certain cultural fields or to initiate a connection to a certain cultural field. Field language connects brands and lifestyles. Managers can use this process in order to create a sense of belonging towards their brand.

Overall, lifestyle brand managers should monitor, initiate and facilitate relevant social mediation processes in order to connect to cultural fields.

8. Limitations and Further Research

Further research could be done that focuses on the use of figures of speech in cultural fields. This master thesis focuses on Lululemon and, thus, reveals speech acts that relate to cultural fields the company is connected to. This implies that figures of speech can be limited to the brand and also the lifestyles it mediates. An investigation of another active lifestyle brand or another brand of an unrelated industry could reveal other figures of speech.

The netnography focuses on cultural interaction online. This method does not collect data from the offline world. Therefore, the findings are limited to data collected online. Further research could, for instance, investigate interactive processes during events in stores. Especially the process of ritualisation can be thoroughly examined during weekly events.

This master thesis focuses on the active lifestyle brand Lululemon. The findings might apply to other lifestyle brands but do not necessarily have to. Further research could reveal how social mediation processes differ for several lifestyle brands.

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Lululemon Athletica (Ed.). (n.d.)a. History. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from https://info.lululemon.com/about/our-story/history

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Appendix

Table 1 Types of Online Webpages Used for Data Collection

Type of Desciption Link How the online webpage was webpage found Blogs

Lululemon Addict - The oldest http://www.luluaddict.com/ google search for and most widely read blog for "Lululemon blog" Lululemon Athletica fans. Reviews, photos, and news. Agent Athletica - Fitness Fashion http://www.agentathletica.co google search for Blog m/ "Lululemon blog" lululemon expert - Lululemon, https://lululemonexpert.com/ google search for Health and Fitness, Beauty and "Lululemon blog" Daily Discoveries. Yogabycandace - An international https://www.yogabycandace. google search for yoga instructor writes a healthy com/ "Lululemon blog" living blog sharing yoga tips and videos. The Darling Detail - Austin https://www.thedarlingdetail. google search for Fashion Blog com "Lululemon blog" Blue Fountain Media - A digital https://www.bluefountainme google search for agency focused on creating dia.com/blog/lululemon- "Lululemon blog" custom websites, mobile apps & success-online/ digital marketing to grow brands online. Jil's Blog - A Hamburg based http://jilsblog.com google search for blog focused on film critics, travel "Lululemon blog" journier and much nore. Liz Hammong - A Vancouver http://www.lizjhammond.co google search for based writer. m/lululemon-blog/ "Lululemon blog"

Oatbox - Blog about Natural, https://www.oatbox.com/en/b google search for Healthy and Tasty Breakfast log/living-in-harmony-with- "Lululemon blog" lululemon/ Coco Collmann - Blog about https://coco-collmann.de/pre- google search for fitness trends, workouts, recipes opening-lululemon-atheltica- "Lululemon blog" for clean eating, paleo based and hamburg/ vegan nutrition and travelling for dog owners. Barre Body - Blog about a https://barrebody.com.au/blo google search for gorgeous fusion of vinyasa yoga, g/ "Lululemon blog" Pilates and ballet barre conditioning, designed to work your entire body, sculpting longer, leaner muscles. MTL Blog - the leading English https://www.mtlblog.com/life google search for publisher in Montreal and the de style/things-every-good- "Lululemon blog" facto reference for anyone looking boyfriend-needs-to-know- for lifestyle, trending news, things about-lululemon

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to do and Best Of Montreal content, updated daily.

Online articles Financial post - This woman has http://business.financialpost.c google search for spent $15000 on Lululemon and om/business-insider/this- "Lululemon blog" doesn't even do yoga woman-has-spent-15000-on- lululemon-and-doesnt-even- do-yoga news.com.au - Obsessed http://www.news.com.au/life google search for Lululemon fans are paying style/fashion/designers/obses "Lululemon hundreds for sold-out styles sed-lululemon-fans-are- online online paying-hundreds-for-soldout- newspaper" styles-online/news- story/cb4d1577a60368ebe8d 39fe2b47c22e5 Huffington Post - People Are https://www.huffingtonpost.c google search for Paying Hundreds Of Dollars For om/2015/03/16/lululemon- "Lululemon Secondhand Lululemon Clothes, resale- online Racked Discovers market_n_6878356.html newspaper"

The Arkansas Traveler - New http://www.uatrav.com/the_c google search for Lululemon Athletica Store Opens ompanion/article_84745d5a- "Lululemon in Rogers c3d4-11e7-8c0d- online 03f2d4265551.html newspaper" Kamloops This Week - http://www.kamloopsthiswee google search for Lululemon to set up shop in k.com/news/lululemon-to- "Lululemon Kamloops; store opening in set-up-shop-in-kamloops- online December store-opening-in-december- newspaper" 1.23222926 CBC - Lululemon recalls pants http://www.cbc.ca/news/busi google search for for being see-through ness/lululemon-recalls-pants- "Lululemon for-being-see-through- online 1.1347288 newspaper"

Huffington Post - Lululemon’s https://www.huffingtonpost.c google search for Cult Culture: Get Fit or Die om/elizabeth- "Lululemon Trying licorish/lululemon-cult- forum" culture_b_3690378.html Racked - https://www.racked.com/201 google search for Lululemon Will No Longer Push 5/10/26/9616536/lululemon- "Lululemon Employees to Attend Self-Help landmark-forum-self-help forum" Classes Fora

Bodybuilding.com - Forum and https://forum.bodybuilding.c google search for online store about fitness. om/showthread.php?t=15625 "Lululemon 2183&pagenumber=1 forum"

XXIII

Vinted - Forum and website for https://www.vinted.com/foru google search for buying, selling and swapping m/life-advice/776818-is- "Lululemon clothing , accessories, beauty lululemon-worth-the-price forum" items and so much more pre- loved! Purseforum - the World's Largest https://forum.purseblog.com/ google search for Designer Fashion Community threads/lululemon.187122/pa "Lululemon Today and Let the Obsession ge-14 forum" Begin! LetsRun.com -LetsRun.com is http://www.letsrun.com/foru google search for dedicated to covering and m/flat_read.php?thread=4425 "Lululemon promoting the world’s greatest 398 forum" and purest sport – running. Styleforum - Styleforum is your https://www.styleforum.net/t google search for place for men's fashion and style hreads/lululemon-athletica- "Lululemon discussion. their-workout-clothes-any- forum" good.193451/ Slowtwitch - Online triathlon https://forum.slowtwitch.com google search for magazine with product reviews, a /forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_ "Lululemon bike fit guide, training tips, and C1/The_Womens_F7/A_lette forum" several regular columnists. r_to_Lululemon_P4866730/ YouLookFab - Style Advice for https://youlookfab.com/welo google search for Fashion Lovers okfab/topic/lululemon-yoga- "Lululemon pants-flap-what-do-you-think forum" Instagra m

lululemon account (over https://www.instagram.com Instagram search 2,4million followers) /lululemon/?hl=de for "Lululemon"

lululemonmen (over 169000 https://www.instagram.com/l Instagram search followers) ululemonmen/?hl=de for "Lululemon" #thisisyoga (found on Lululemon https://www.instagram.com/e Instagram search instagram page) (over 89500 xplore/tags/thisisyoga/?hl=de for "Lululemon" shared pictures) #lululemon (over 2 million shared https://www.instagram.com/e Instagram search pictures) xplore/tags/lululemon/?hl=de for "Lululemon"

#lululemonembassador (over https://www.instagram.com/e Instagram search 56000 shared pictures) xplore/tags/lululemonambass for "Lululemon" ador/?hl=de #lululemonathletica (over 40000 https://www.instagram.com/e Instagram search shared pictures) xplore/tags/lululemonathletic for "Lululemon" a/?hl=de #lululemonmen (over 45000 https://www.instagram.com/l Instagram search shared pictures) ululemonmen/?hl=de for "Lululemon"

#lululemonaddict (over 42000 https://www.instagram.com/e Instagram search shared pictures) xplore/tags/lululemonaddict/ for "Lululemon" ?hl=de Twitter

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lululemon account (over 1,09 https://twitter.com/lululemon Twitter search for million followers) ?lang=de "lululemon, #lululemon" Leslie Osborne account https://twitter.com/LeslieOsb Twitter search for (ambassador, over 27000 orne12?lang=de "lululemon, followers) #lululemon" Stephanie Labbé account ( elite https://twitter.com/stephlabb Twitter search for ambassador, over 25000 e1?lang=de "lululemon, followers) #lululemon" Gilmore Junio account (elite https://twitter.com/cdnhappy Twitter search for ambassador, over 7000 followers) gilmore?lang=de "lululemon, #lululemon" Justin Kripps account https://twitter.com/justinkrip Twitter search for (ambassador, over 8300 ps?lang=de "lululemon, followers) #lululemon" Anastasia Bucsis account https://twitter.com/anastasure Twitter search for (ambassador, over 4200 ?lang=de "lululemon, followers) #lululemon" Team Jacobs account ( https://twitter.com/TeamBrad Twitter search for ambassador, over 3900 followers) Jacobs?lang=de "lululemon, #lululemon" Malia Manuel account ( athlete, https://twitter.com/maliaman Twitter search for over 38200 followers) uel?lang=de "lululemon, #lululemon" Casey Patterson account https://twitter.com/caseypatt? Twitter search for (ambassador, over 10900 lang=de "lululemon, followers) #lululemon" Jake Golic account (ambassador, https://twitter.com/JGolic88? Twitter search for over 36000 followers) lang=de "lululemon, #lululemon" Kandace Hudspeth account https://twitter.com/KandaceH Twitter search for (ambassador, over 2600 udspeth?lang=de "lululemon,

followers) #lululemon" HeatherFURR account (manager, https://twitter.com/HeatherFu Twitter search for over 5500 followers) rr?lang=de "lululemon, #lululemon" J E S S the B E S T account https://twitter.com/JessTappi Twitter search for (ambassador, over 2200 n?lang=de "lululemon, followers) #lululemon" Joe Eppele account (ambassador, https://twitter.com/JoeEppele Twitter search for over 2000 followers) 59?lang=de "lululemon, #lululemon" Harry Jones account (ambassador, https://twitter.com/jonesharry Twitter search for over 2200 followers) 3?lang=de "lululemon, #lululemon" Twitter top feed (various mixed https://twitter.com/search?ve Twitter search for accounts using #lululemon or rtical=default&q=lululemon "lululemon, @lululemon references) %20%23lululemon&src=typ #lululemon" d&lang=de Pinterest

People: lululemon (22 boards, https://www.pinterest.at/lulul Pinterest search over 2,2 million followers) emon/ for "lululemon" People: lululemon cheap (8 https://www.pinterest.at/lulul Pinterest search boards, 962 followers) emoncheap/ for "lululemon"

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People: lululemon lab (11 boards, https://www.pinterest.at/lulul Pinterest search 499 followers) emonlabyvr/ for "lululemon" People: Lululemon & Lucy (52 https://www.pinterest.at/lulua Pinterest search boards, 577 followers) ndlucy/ for "lululemon" Boards: lululemon - Jenifer https://www.pinterest.at/jenfi Pinterest search Garcia (over 1100 followers) t10/lululemon/ for "lululemon" Boards: Lululemon - nicole (over https://www.pinterest.at/cole Pinterest search 1400 followers) y763/lululemon/ for "lululemon" Boards: Lululemon - Stacey https://www.pinterest.at/Scar Pinterest search Carrick (over 4100 followers) rick23/lululemon/ for "lululemon" Boards: Lululemon - Eastwood https://www.pinterest.at/east Pinterest search Towne Center (over 1000 woodtwnctr/lululemon/ for "lululemon" followers9 Boards: lululemon: ann mcgil https://www.pinterest.at/pack Pinterest search (over 1000 followers) mcgill/lululemon/ for "lululemon" YouTube

Lululemon Pledge -- Spray on https://www.youtube.com/wa Youtube search Pants (channel: Jimmy Kimmel tch?v=hZkSFhfL-hM for "lululemon" Live, 5.4million views) lululemon | #givepresence https://www.youtube.com/wa Youtube search (channel: lululemon, 3,6 million tch?v=86qAkvaCgso for "lululemon" views) lululemon - Shit Yogis Say https://www.youtube.com/wa Youtube search (channel: lululemon, 2,9 million tch?v=IMC1_RH_b3k for "lululemon" views) Sheer Lululemon Yogy Pants https://www.youtube.com/wa Youtube search That Cost $100? (channel: Ana tch?v=GRTir5x0wBU for "lululemon" Kasparian, 1.3 million views) Lululemon Hates Fat People Too https://www.youtube.com/wa Youtube search (channel: blndsundoll4mj, 994000 tch?v=PcCAJqOXeIM for "lululemon" views) how-to wear your lululemon https://www.youtube.com/wa Youtube search vinyasa scarf (10 ways) (channel: tch?v=CY8ZtcLrpL0 for "lululemon" lululemon: 945000 views) LULULEMON COLLECTION- https://www.youtube.com/wa Youtube search TRY ON! tch?v=ElYzMOCkiEE for "lululemon"

lululemon Mother's Day https://www.youtube.com/wa Youtube search #appreciatetheMOMent (channel: tch?v=_oQqnKm0jqM for "lululemon" lululemon, 517000 views) Lululemon asks see-through yoga https://www.youtube.com/wa Youtube search pant owners to go into downward tch?v=OH5ZLcybP9U for "lululemon" dog Lululemon's official YouTube https://www.youtube.com/us Youtube search channel er/lululemon for "lululemon"

Featured channel: Gabriele https://www.youtube.com/us Featured channel Bernstein er/GabrielleBernstein on the official Lululemon YouTube channel Featured channel: Blissology https://www.youtube.com/us Featured channel Yoga er/oceanworshipper on the official Lululemon YouTube channel

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Featured channel: Baptiste Yoga https://www.youtube.com/us Featured channel er/BaptisteYoga on the official Lululemon YouTube channel Facebook

lululemon's official Facebook https://de- Google search for page de.facebook.com/lululemon/ "facebook lululemon" Website of Lululemo n Community: Stories: all stories https://shop.lululemon.com/f official eatures/_/N- Lululemon 1z141e0?mnid=mn;en-US- website JSON;community;stories Community: Ambassadors: all https://shop.lululemon.com/a official mbassadors/_/N- Lululemon 1z141e2?mnid=mn;en- website US;community;ambassadors Community: Events: all https://shop.lululemon.com/c official ommunity/_/N- Lululemon 1z13zib?mnid=mn;en-US- website JSON;community;events Lululemon: Shop https://shop.lululemon.com official Lululemon website About us https://info.lululemon.com/ab official out Lululemon website Design https://shop.lululemon.com/d official esigns Lululemon website

Table 2 Quotes Used in the Findings Section

Processes Example Link Reference

Co- Creating Brand Meaning

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Engagem Figuration “[lululoser]: […] I get the impression http://ww lululoser, sounds ent (objectifica that they cater to the yuppie, soccer w.letsrun. sketchy, slacker!. tion) mom types. No offense. com/foru (2012). Women [sounds sketchy]: The have some great m/flat_rea of LetsRun: stuff that is worth every penny, and d.php?thr What's so great some crap stuff that is overpriced for ead=4425 about Lululemon? soccer moms. […] 398 [Blog comment]. [slacker!]: Geez! What's with all the Retrieved from stereotypes? http://www.letsru I'm a cazy busy "soccer mom" (you can n.com/forum/flat_ play over 10 sports and a couple read.php?thread= instuments with all the contents in my 4425398 car) and I still log about 55 mpw on my easy weeks, manage a household and get dinner on the table. I personally don't think it's anything to roll your eyes at. And considering I weigh about the same as I did when I graduated high school, I'm proud of the fact that I am super fit after having children! […]” Documenti "so i see now why all you canadian girls https://for ilzabet. (2006). ng rave...they just opened up a boutique in um.purseb lululemon! my nearest big city. i am never buying log.com/t [Forum nike again. :heart:" hreads/lul comment]. ulemon.1 Retrieved from 87122/ https://forum.purs eblog.com/threads /lululemon.18712 2/ Negotiatin "I'm Canadian and have bee buying https://for Jbstargazer, g Lululemon for years. The quality has um.bodyb daniellissima. got down hill over the years. The uilding.co (2013). Thoughts fabrics have gotten thinner and the fit m/showth on Lululemon? has changed. That being said, there are read.php?t [Forum still a few items that are my go-tos as I =1562521 comment]. can't find a better equivalent elsewhere. 83&pagen Retrieved from I'd say they're pretty much priced the umber=1 https://forum.bod same as other performance wear like ybuilding.com/sh UA, Nike, etc. owthread.php?t=1 daniellissima: Same, I used to defend 56252183&pagen lululemon like crazy because my umber=1 short/capris/tanks have been going strong for years now, and I don't baby them at all. But I recently tried some new capris and I was super disappointed by the quality decrease." "Winter hiking is incredibly underrated. http://ww Agent Athletica. Most people are scared off by the chilly w.agentat (2016). How to temps, but here’s the dirty little secret: hletica.co have an amazing you can have at least as much fun on the m/winter- winter hike [Blog trail when it’s chilly as when it’s balmy. hiking- post] Retrieved Here are some tips to guarantee you’ll tips/ from have a great time on your next cold http://www.agent weather adventure. [blog post provides athletica.com/win ter-hiking-tips/ XXVIII

information and pictures about hiking and includes the brand Lululemon]"

Romanticis “[dimitri_i]: I want a pair! [...] https://w lululemonmen. ing [lululemonmen@dimitri_i]: With ww.instag (2018). I'm happy serious storage options and a ram.com/ to say these ... breathable waistband that's staying put p/Bicmrf [Instagram post]. while you do your thing, we don't Dnl_S/?ta Retrieved from blame you. What goals do you see ken- https://www.insta yourself crushing in them? [...] by=lulule gram.com/p/Bicm [dimitri_i@lululemonmen] summer is monmen rfDnl_S/?taken- about to kick off in our parts of the by=lululemonmen world. Surfing, running, long walks on islands and coastal areas that end up in the with a dip in the sea, playing with the kids or just relaxing on the beach, sailing... I am also flirting with the idea of SUP surfing, so a pair of comfortable board shorts comes in

handy” Impressio Advocatin "Christie Lee: they're literally not just https://w Christie Lee. n g yoga pants tho.. they're such good ww.youtu (2016) RE: Managem qualities and people who normally go be.com/w Lululemon asks ent ask for refund are actually lying. I own atch?v=O see-through yoga so many lululemon pants and none of H5ZLcyb pant owners to go them are see through. If you have a see P9U into downward through one it's either 10000 years old dog [video file] or it's fake lulu that you got on ebay Retrieved from lol" https://www.yout ube.com/watch?v =OH5ZLcybP9U Persuading “[blogpost] As the “naked sensation” http://ww Agent Athletica. implies, aligns don’t have any w.agentat (2017). compression. The fabric is quite hletica.co Lululemon Free flattering, but it isn’t going to hold m/lululem To Be Serene Bra anything in. Since it’s so lightweight, on-free- + Boysenberry the fabric is fairly revealing, so you’ll serene- Align Crops need seamless undergarments (or none bra- [Blog post] at all if that’s your thing) boysenber Retrieved from Lately, my favorite places to wear my ry-align- http://www.agent align crops has been my aerial silks crops/ athletica.com/lulu class and light/moderate intensity lemon-free- hikes. For hot days, the breathable, serene-bra- light feel of the nulu fabric is fantastic. boysenberry- I’m glad I finally have another color to align-crops/ rotate in with my alberta lake pair. [response, Priya]: Love this outfit! I’ve had the same crops in my cart for ages now and as always AA, you are my

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enabler:-). Will comfortably be pulling the trigger today.

Evangelizi "I love these pants and i could preach http://ww lululoverr. (2015). ng for years about how great they are but w.letsrun. RE: Women of you should go get some yourself. They com/foru LetsRun: What's also have other great stuff like their m/flat_rea so great about shorts and jackets and t-shirts. My d.php?thr Lululemon? whole wardrobe is lululemon now, ead=4425 [Forum don't worry though, thats after lots of 398&page comment]. saving and time. but seriously go to the =1 Retrieved from store and try them on! You'll love http://www.letsru them to death!!!" n.com/forum/flat_ read.php?thread= 4425398&page=1 Antagonizi "A lot of schools are banning female https://w Jimmy Kimmel ng students from wearing Lululemon ww.youtu Live. (2014) yoga pants because they're too form be.com/w Lululemon Pledge fitting, and just when you thought it atch?v=h -- Spray on Pants couldn't go any further, they've come ZkSFhfL- [video file] up with something even more hM Retrieved from revealing." https://www.yout ube.com/watch?v =hZkSFhfL-hM video: Lululemon Pledge - Spray on https://w Jimmy Kimmel Pants, the video ironically highlights ww.youtu Live. (2014) advantages of spray on pants and be.com/w Lululemon Pledge refers to the issue of Lululemon pants atch?v=h -- Spray on Pants that were seethrough ZkSFhfL- [video file] hM Retrieved from https://www.yout ube.com/watch?v =hZkSFhfL-hM Co- "The store partnered with FreeRide http://ww The Arkansas developing Studio, an indoor cycling studio, for an w.uatrav.c Traveler. (2017) outdoor cycling event Nov. 4 at the om/the_c New Lululemon Pinnacle Hills Courtyard. This week, ompanion Athletica Store Lululemon is partnering with Crossfit /article_8 Opens in Rogers Reverence for a class in their Rogers 4745d5a- [newspaper location. The staff is anticipating more c3d4- article] Retrieved collaborative workout classes and 11e7- from activities with other business in the 8c0d- http://www.uatrav future, Franky said" 03f2d426 .com/the_compan 5551.html ion/article_84745

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Co- Initiating "victorchauyoga@keepiris had me https://w victorchauyoga. generatin twisted in #marichyasana C. This is ww.instag (2018). @keepiris g Brand one of my favourite #seatedpose s with ram.com/ had me twisted in Manifest a deep #spinaltwist and shoulder p/BihOlR ... [Instagram ations opening. But I find it harder and harder clq3j/?tag post]. Retrieved to do this kind of bind as my legs are ged=lulul from getting bigger from various trainings. emonamb https://www.insta Do you have the same problem...? assador gram.com/p/BihO  lRclq3j/?tagged=l • • • • • #yoga #yogalove #yogalife ululemonambassa #yogainspiration #yogaeverywhere dor #igyoga #instayoga #yogapractice #yogaaddict #iloveyoga #lululemonambassador #menatyoga #victorchauyoga #boysofyoga #fitness #primaryseries #ashtangayoga #beijing #performingarts #throwback" Collabora Publishing "Goodmorning darling readers! Today https://w Jessi Afshin. tive Co- I had the pleasure of partnering with ww.thedar (2017a). Getting Productio one of my favorite brands— lingdetail. Glam x n Lululemon—to show you all that the com/getti LuluLemon [Blog darling brand is not only about ng-glam- post]. Retrieved comfort, but also about lots of style. x- from Before I was approached by the lululemon https://www.theda activewear company, I simply adored / rlingdetail.com/ge Lululemon for my flawless yoga pants, tting-glam-x- my favorite workout tank, and lululemon/ everything else having to do with getting sweaty and staying comfortable. And after looking through the downtown Austin Lululemon selection (6th and Lamar), I realized there was so much more to the activewear clothier." Advertisin "julie.juliet@bestfitblogs Thank you! https://w julie.juliet. g All their sportswear is such a good ww.instag (2018). Had the quality👌🏼 I’m absolutely in love with ram.com/ best time at ... this one at the moment" p/BifPssq [Instagram post]. F7Pe/?tag Retrieved from ged=lulul https://www.insta emon gram.com/p/BifPs

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sqF7Pe/?tagged=l ululemon

Brand use Ritualizati "No, Lululemon is not just work-out https://w Jessi Afshin. on clothes, and no, I have never worked ww.thedar (2017b). out in these clothes. They are simply lingdetail. Lululemon, those cozy pants that I want to throw com/lulul Darling [Blog on literally every single day of my emon- post]. Retrieved life." darling/ from https://www.theda rlingdetail.com/lu lulemon-darling/ “THE GIFT OF YOGA IN OUR https://inf Lululemon. STORES o.lululem (2018). Every week, our stores and showrooms on.com/ab Lululemon and push their products aside, unroll yoga out/our- Yoga. Retrieved mats and turn their spaces into instant story/lulul from yoga studios. Classes are emon- https://info.lulule complimentary and lead by instructors yoga mon.com/about/o from local studios in your community. ur- Find your local store info HERE.” story/lululemon- yoga Personaliz "OMG OMG OMG ! I am the biggest https://for ayla. (2007). ation Lulu fan ever ! I used to only buy their um.purseb lululemon! stuff cause I thought it was cute.. but log.com/t [Forum then I started doing hot yoga and it all hreads/lul comment]. made sense ! ulemon.1 Retrieved from I actually collect the scuba hoodies.. I 87122/pa https://forum.purs gotta post my collection some time ! ge-2 eblog.com/threads :graucho:" /lululemon.18712 2/page-2 Emplacem “#skinthecat #straightarmstrength https://w farmgirlyogi. ent #calisthenics #skill #farmgirlyogi ww.instag (2018) skin the #bloklondon #shoreditch #clapton ram.com/ cat ... [Instagram #hackney #lunchtimeworkout p/BihIHf5 post]. Retrieved #lululemon #tuesday #tipstuesday #pt APon/?ta from #training #igfitness #instafit #strength gged=lulu https://www.insta #agility” lemon gram.com/p/BihI Hf5APon/?tagged =lululemon Comparin "lululemon athletica is a company https://w Oat Box. (2016) g based on community and innovation, ww.oatbo Living in notions we, at Oatbox, also strongly x.com/en/ harmony with value. Since health and wellness play a blog/livin Lululemon [Blog huge part in both our companies’ g-in- post]. Retrieved cultures, it was no surprise that it was harmony- from love at first sight when we met, more with- https://www.oatb than a year ago. Ever since, we have lululemon ox.com/en/blog/li partnered in events that reflect our / ving-in-harmony- with-lululemon/

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ideals and that allow us to share our mindset with the community."

Co- Self- "Flat me for @BMOVanMarathon https://twi Charity Fick. Construc Identificati relay Tomorow. Excited and nervous tter.com/g (2018). Flat me ting on at the same time. Just one day, one omommy for Stakehol race and it’s about fun. Let’s do this!! go13/statu @BMOVanMarat ders #endurancetap #squirrelsnutbutter s/9929824 hon ... [tweet]. #lululemon #brooks 69832982 Retrieved from #momentumjewelry #vancityocr 528 https://twitter.com #bmomarathonrelay" /gomommygo13/s tatus/9929824698 32982528 Self- "victoriapulla03If you wait until https://w victoriapulla03. Affiliation you’re ready, you will be waiting for ww.instag (2018). If you the rest of your life 🧘🏻‍♀️ ram.com/ wait until you’re • I’m not sure I’m ready but I’m p/BihnVQ ... [Instagram teaching my first deep flow class yhknc/?ta post]. Retrieved tonight! Come flow with me! gged=this from • #yoga #yogi #pycoshawa isyoga https://www.insta #fromwhereisweat #poweryoga gram.com/p/Bihn #baptiste #vinyasa #warrior VQyhknc/?tagged #handstand #inversion #flow =thisisyoga #yogaeverydamnday #thisisyoga #motivation #teacher #ytt #progress #strength #happiness #balance #mindfulness #toronto #practice #fitness #yogalife #yogafit #lululemon #inspire #namaste" Internalisa "_abbychan_Ughh it’s feels so good to https://w _abbychan_. tion finally flow again! My back was super ww.instag (2018). Ughh it’s sad last week (nothing a little bit of ram.com/ feels so good ... rolling and hip mob-ing couldn’t fix). p/BihrNk [Instagram post]. Because really... not doing an upward vFFop/?ta Retrieved from facing dog really sucks. It fells TOO gged=this https://www.insta good to be back in my body in my isyoga gram.com/p/Bihr flow. 🤘🏽 NkvFFop/?tagged _abbychan_#flowstate =thisisyoga #movementislife #movementartist #yogaeverydamnday #vinyasaflow #vinyasa #RYT #yoga #movementismedicine #Flagstaff #AZ #armbalance #lululemonambassador #lululemon #thesweatlife #thisisyoga"

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Determina "Employees at Lululemon typically http://ww The Arkansas tion of live an active lifestyle that the brand w.uatrav.c Traveler. (2017) legitimacy promotes, employee Emily Hartley om/the_c New Lululemon said." ompanion Athletica Store /article_8 Opens in Rogers 4745d5a- [newspaper c3d4- article] Retrieved 11e7- from 8c0d- http://www.uatrav 03f2d426 .com/the_compan 5551.html ion/article_84745 d5a-c3d4-11e7- 8c0d- 03f2d4265551.ht ml Comembe Role "robbietubajon Loved the workout this https://w robbietubajon. r assignment am with lululemon ambassadors ww.instag (2018). Loved the identificat @dntjukemjuice and @robbytreadwell ram.com/ workout this ... ion at @unionperformance in OKC. p/Bh9V3 [Instagram post]. Movement, mobility, strength = lots of UIFACG/ Retrieved from sweat. #thesweatlife #lululemonmen ?tagged=l https://www.insta #ambassadorlove" ululemon gram.com/p/Bh9 men V3UIFACG/?tagg ed=lululemonmen Mobilizing "I want to get some Lululemon gear, https://for Jbstargazer. but I'd like to get some feedback first um.bodyb (2013). Thoughts before I spend all of that $$$. uilding.co on Lululemon? I've heard about some quality issues m/showth [Forum with Lululemon pants. Have any of read.php?t comment]. you experienced that? Are they too =1562521 Retrieved from thin?" 83&pagen https://forum.bod umber=1 ybuilding.com/sh owthread.php?t=1 56252183&pagen umber=1 Recruiting "So common guys, what are you https://w Emily D. (2017). waiting for! Stop scrolling through ww.mtlbl 17 Things Every random websites, and stop texting her og.com/lif "Good Boyfriend" friends for ideas and instead head out estyle/thin Needs To Know to Lululemon! You will find the gs-every- About Lululemon perfect gift that will have your girl good- [Blog post]. falling even more in love with you. I boyfriend Retrieved from mean let's be honest, a happy girlfriend -needs-to- https://www.mtlbl makes for a happy life and the only know- og.com/lifestyle/t way to do that is by heading to about- hings-every-good- Lululemon and spoiling them." lululemon boyfriend-needs- to-know-about- lululemon Welcoming "Welcome, no mater how you say it, https://lul lululemonexpert. it’s a warm invitation to come on in! I ulemonex (2014). About want to take the time to invite people pert.com/ This Blog [Blog to my blog and let people know what about- post]. Retrieved this blog is about. Thanks for being this-blog/ from here! " https://lululemone

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xpert.com/about- this-blog/

Social Socializing "You might have noticed I use some http://ww luluaddict. networkin terms on the blog you are unfamiliar w.luluadd (2018). g with. Here is a guide and some insight ict.com/p/ Lululemon on core Lulu pieces for you to get lulu- Newbie? Start started building your lulu newbie- Here. [Blog post]. collection:[…] Luon (Full On Luon), start- Retrieved from Luxtreme (iPlux, Full On Luxtreme), here.html http://www.luluad Circle Mesh, Swiftly, Running Luon dict.com/p/lulu- (aka RULU), Swift, etc. - Lululemon newbie-start- technical fabrics. Check out their here.html website for descriptions. Angel - someone who will go to one of their local stores to buy lulu for you (since your store doesn't have it or you don't live near one) and mail it to you." Knowledge "I've tried on the men's stuff before http://ww luluaddict. sharing and it never looks right - it's big in the w.luluadd (2018). In-Store shoulders, tight in the chest, loose in ict.com/2 Photos: the waist, tight in the hips, and looks 018/04/in- Hanakotoba very manly, not cute on. I'll just cross store- Starlight Fast and my fingers something will come out in photos- Frees, Breeze By circle mesh for women." hanakotob SS, Men's a- Runway SS, and starlight.h More [Blog post]. tml Retrieved from http://www.luluad dict.com/2018/04/ in-store-photos- hanakotoba- starlight.html Educating "I’ve learned a lot in the process, and http://ww Agent Athletica. what I’ve learned will help you find w.agentat (2017). About gear for your workouts that’s the best hletica.co [Blog post] of both functional and stylish." m/about/ Retrieved from http://www.agent athletica.com/abo ut/ Empathizi "thollier92@kirstengeyer feel free to https://w lululemonmen, ng grab me these when you see them ! ww.instag thollier92. (2018). […] kirstengeyer@thollier92 sure ram.com/ lululemonmen T- thing! What size" p/BiZ2v0 minus 7 weeks 6HHjm/?t until the official aken- [Instagram by=lulule comment]. monmen Retrieved from https://www.insta gram.com/p/BiZ2

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v06HHjm/?taken- by=lululemonmen

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