Your brand is not
your brand
Contents
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
The future of brand
management
The opportunity for savvy
brands
HOW TO CO-CREATE VALUE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
© Emerald Publishing 2017
Your brand is not
your brand
Do you know how to manage the growing power that consumers wield
over your brand? If you don’t, you can say goodbye to the value of your
brand, and your value as a marketer, as consumer influence continues
to rise.
Contents
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
We all know that social media has changed things in a big way. This white
paper shows how social media has facilitated a paradigm shift not only in
how brands and communities interact, but in where value is fundamentally
created.
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
Your brand is not your brand anymore. Now more than ever, your marketing
team needs to understand that the role of consumers in the value-exchange
process has permanently shifted.
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
Whether this change is for the better or the worse is up to you.
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
Who should read this
Marketing strategists, social media managers, brand managers, and brand
executives – this is valuable insight you all need.
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
What you will learn
This white paper builds on the latest academic research and case studies of
leading brands to show you:
• How selfies can damage your brand image
• What motivates consumers to generate content about your brand
• How leading brands convert user-generated content into brand value
• How the paradigm shift towards social-led co-creation changes the game
for all marketers.
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
The future of brand
management
The opportunity for savvy
brands
Links to related listicles, video, infographics, and other interactive
#RealWorldResearch content
Links to research articles on emeraldinsight.com – the platform to
access all our publications
1.
2.
© Emerald Publishing 2017
Your brand is not
your brand
Contents
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
1.
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
I
How social media changes
things for brands
mage is important for all brands. For
luxury brands, it is paramount. More
than anyone else, luxury brands are
required to maintain an ‘aura’, and an
aesthetic that befits that aura.
Key takeaways:
Premium brands must at all times
present an image that consistently
communicates those often intangible
attributes that create a sense of
exclusivity. With the rise of social media,
this has become an increasingly difficult
task.
• The days of top-down branding are over – consumers now play a
fundamental role in defining brands
• Consumer selfies are shaping your brand image, whether you like
it or not
• Your brand community is everything – engage with them or perish
Key research:
• ‘Heterotopian selfies: how social media destabilizes brand
assemblages’, published in European Journal of Marketing
• ‘Brand selfies: consumer experiences and marketplace
conversations’, published in European Journal of Marketing
3.
4.
Read
now:
the
research
on how
selfies
can
damage
brands
While luxury brands meticulously
craft their image on official social
media platforms, a daily proliferation
of consumer generated content can
seem to fly in the face of their efforts,
as Rokka and Canniford’s recent study
of three premium champagne brands
demonstrates.
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
The importance of
image
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
The champagne
industry presents an
acute case of the
challenges that face
luxury brands today,
especially on the major
social networking
platforms. An exclusive
product by definition,
champagne comes
from a strictly defined
geographical location
in the wine growing
region in France,
where all producers
must subscribe to the
méthode champenoise
enshrined in French
law.
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
The future of brand
management
The opportunity for savvy
brands
4.
© Emerald Publishing 2017
Heritage and class are essential
to champagne branding, with
champagne brands some of
the oldest in existence (Moët
& Chandon was established
in 1743). For centuries, these
brands made themselves
symbols of privilege and
opulence, connecting the
product with royal families,
nobilities, and military officers.
The connection with class
was only strengthened by the
French Revolution in 1789, after
which champagne became
something of a ritual at social
gatherings and celebrations for
an emerging bourgeoisie.
An image from Moet and Chandon’s official brand
account @moetchandon – the artful composition stands
in stark contrast with many user generated photos
Another subtly potent element
of champagne branding is the
imagery of magic. While all the
leading champagne brands
reference this imagery to some
extent, Dom Pérignon go so far
as to trace their heritage to the
myth of a monk by the same
name, who allegedly invented
5.
the “magical elixir” at the abbey
d’Hautvilliers. History proves this
heady concoction of heritage,
class and magic a recipe for
brand success.
Until now.
The selfie phenomenon
Thanks to the selfie
phenomenon, and brand selfies
in particular, the stories told by
hashtags like #moet #veuve
and #domperignon show that
the way consumers interact
with brands on social media
does not always square up with
official brand stories.
Read
now:
the
research
on the
power
of brand
selfies
Of course, it is possible for
consumer generated selfies to
reinforce brand meanings, and
sometimes they do. But while a
relatively small number of brand
selfies provide an unproblematic
interpretation of the brand,
others, as Presi et al explain,
destabilise brands’ meanings,
creating “symbolic clashes.”
A far cry from the artfully
composed shots of champagne
flutes, pristine beaches, and
summer lawns that we
find on the official social
accounts of premium
champagne brands, consumer
generated brand selfies feature
nightclubs, conspicuous
displays of multiple luxury
brand items, and other objects
from pets, to cars, to big TVs,
“The
magnitude of
the brand selfie
trend has made
it a mainstream
phenomenon
of mediated
brand culture,
nourishing
consumer
tribes and
confirming or
contradicting
marketercontrolled
institutions and
spaces.”
– Presi et al
to drugs. Consumer
generated images
display champagne in
plastic cups and coffee
mugs, mixed with juice,
soda, or ice cream.
Some consumers even
tag or depict these
brands ironically –
effectively ‘trolling’
them by pulling faces,
and incorporating
humorous,
inappropriate or
irrelevant hashtags.
Brands like Veuve
Clicquot can do
everything in their
power to maintain
a pristine Instagram
profile. But what
can they do when
a consumer comes
along, takes a selfie
in the banality of the
supermarket, and tags
it ‘“Make the douchiest
face plus duckface”
#veuveclicquot
#springbreak #rkoi
#notreally”’?
What’s a brand
manager to do?
It would seem that
brand management
is becoming an
increasingly difficult
job. And the situation
that champagne brands
face suggests that the control
that marketers once enjoyed
over the aura and aesthetics of
their brand may be becoming a
thing of the past.
Your brand is not
your brand
Contents
So what’s a brand manager
to do in this brave new world
of consumer influence and
power? If the leading brands
are anything to go by, it would
seem that at least part of the
answer is about letting go,
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
One user-generated image from Rokka and
Canniford’s study (above) featured the caption
‘Cruise trip turn up yeh. Pat: “Make the douchiest
face plus duckface.” #veuvecliquot #springbreak
#rkoi #notreally’ Illustration credit: Maria Federley
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
relinquishing a bit of control,
and embracing what the
customer is trying to say.
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
The future of brand
management
The truth is that consumers
have played an important part
in shaping brand meanings
for many years. Decades of
research show that consumers
not only activate new brand
meanings, but challenge
The opportunity for savvy
brands
6.
© Emerald Publishing 2017
Your brand is not
your brand
Contents
2.
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
Key takeaways:
meanings that firms and
advertisers have designed. While
a brand can do their best to
construct a desired meaning,
the way that their messages are
ultimately received is beyond
their control.
This is why Rokka and
Canniford understand the
problem through the concept
of ‘assemblages’ – the idea that
brands, in reality, constitute a
diverse range of expressive and
material components. Some
of these components serve to
stabilise the brand identity –
others do just the opposite.
The jury is still out on exactly
how brand selfies are affecting
brands today. The research
7.
“Brands are
composed of
heterogeneous
elements that
interact in ways
that can either
stabilize or
destabilize an
assemblage’s
identity.”
– Rokka and
Canniford
continues. What is clear,
however, is that brands
are beginning to find ways
to work with the brand
meanings that consumers
create, sometimes to
powerful effect.
As ever, it appears that
the overarching task of
the marketer is to listen
to and respond to what
customers are saying. In
so doing, radically new
forms of interaction for
brands and consumers
start to emerge.
Welcome to the era of
brand co-creation.
• Consumer content generates huge value for savvy brands that
manage co-creation effectively
• People engage with brands that share their values and connect
emotionally
• Brands must clearly communicate their values to consumers
through social media
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
Key research:
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
• ‘Storygiving as a co-creation tool for luxury brands in the age
of the internet: a love story by Tiffany and thousands of lovers’,
published in Journal of Product & Brand Management
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
• ‘Emotionally engaging customers in the digital age: the case study
of “Burberry love”’, published in Journal of Fashion Marketing and
Management
The future of brand
management
The opportunity for savvy
brands
• ‘How TOMS’ “one day without shoes” campaign brings
stakeholders together and co-creates value for the brand
using Instagram as a platform’, published in Journal of Fashion
Marketing and Management
5.
8.
© Emerald Publishing 2017
What is brand co-creation?
Read
now:
the
research
on cocreation
and
brand
equity
C
o-creation is the process
of consumers and brands
interacting, learning, and sharing
information to create value.
The concept itself is not new.
First described by Prahalad and
Ramaswamy as early as 2004, marketing
theorists and practitioners alike have
understood and practiced co-creation
for well over a decade.
But it remains big news. According to
Prahalad and Ramaswamy, the new
co-creation paradigm represents a
fundamental shift in the basis of value.
Whereas markets used to exchange
value from producers to consumers,
with co-creation, the line becomes
blurred. In the co-creation paradigm,
consumers both define and
create value.
9.
As Kristal et al’s table shows,
at product level, firms have been
co-creating with consumers for
a few years now. In particular,
this has involved encouraging
customers to participate in the
development of new products.
What the latest research
examines is the pivotal role
that social media has played in
facilitating the co-creation of
value for brands.
Consumers increasingly choose
to engage with brands that they
perceive as compatible with
their personality, and congruent
with their values.
“Consumers now
seek to exercise
their influence in
every part of the
business system…
Increasingly,
consumers engage
in the processes
of both defining
and creating value.
The co-creation
experience of the
consumer becomes
the very basis of
value.”
– Prahalad and
Ramaswamy
Your brand is not
your brand
As relationships between
consumers and brands have
become richer and more
personal, more than ever
consumers are using brands
to build their self-identity. This
gives consumers a powerful
reason to interact with firms
on social media, and opens the
door for mutually beneficial
value co-creation.
Contents
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
It is here that savvy brands are
building equity, by harnessing
consumer desire to build their
own identity through brands.
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
This is how brands co-create
value.
Brand
Offering
Description
Date
Threadless
T-shirts
Designing own t-shirts
Since 2000
Starbucks
Tea and coffee
Generating ideas for beverages and food
Since 2008
LEGO
Toys
Generating ideas for a combination of bricks
Since 2008
Coach
Tote bags
Designing a new tote bag
2008
Coca-Cola
Soft drinks
Designing a new can
2011
Volvic
Water
Designing a new on-the-go bottle
2011
Oral B
Electric toothbrush
Creation of an interactive toothbrush
2012
Hugo Boss
Fragrances
Designing new product packaging
2012
Citroen
Cars
Generating ideas for the Citroen DS3 design
2012
Nescafe
Instant coffee
Creation of a new coffee product
2013
Kellogg’s
Cereals
Creation of a new cereal product
2015
Florette
Salad meals
Creation of a new salad meal
2015
MMA
Insurance service
Creation of new services to be offered
2015
Kit Kat
Chocolate bar
Designing new product packaging
2015
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
The future of brand
management
The opportunity for savvy
brands
Table from Kristal et al, “Is co-creation really a booster for brand equity?
The role of co-creation in observer-based brand equity (OBBE)”
10.
© Emerald Publishing 2017
Case study 1 – Tiffany & Co:
What Makes Love True?
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
Your brand is not
your brand
Contents
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
T
iffany & Co’s luxury
jewellery products are
given and received
at special occasions like
celebrations, weddings, or
valentine’s day – putting the
brand in an excellent position
to connect themselves with the
most talked about of all human
emotions: love.
For the What Makes Love
True? campaign Tiffany & Co
encouraged their community to
share stories about how, when
and where they experienced
true love, through the microsite
whatmakeslovetrue.com.
Hosting the so-called
“storygiving” experience on the
medium of a microsite notably
enabled brand managers to
keep an amount of control over
consumer generated
content, sidestepping the
potential pitfalls of hosting
the campaign on a social
networking platform like
11.
Read now:
how Tiffany’s used true
love stories to boost its
brand
“The
relationship
between seller
and the buyer
has progressed
from a
commercial
transaction
to a personal
connection
with the values
that brands
champion.”
– Hughes et al
T
here was a time when
Burberry were struggling
with an incoherent
global marketing strategy. So
in 2006, they set a strategic
emphasis on utilising digital
platforms to reach their
millennial target market with
a coherent message. The aim
was to enable customers to
access Burberry on any device,
creating the same feeling from
the brand regardless of where,
when and how they accessed
it.
Instagram. At the same
time, it presented the
community with an
enticing opportunity to be
featured on the brand’s
website.
The true love stories
generated by the
community fed into what
Hughes et al describe
as the “experiential and
symbolic dimensions that
add to the function of a
product and make a luxury
brand.” Customers found
value in the platform
which allowed them
to share some of their
most heartfelt memories,
and enhance their selfidentification with the
brand. In turn, symbolic
meanings around the
brand were co-created,
generating value for the
brand.
Read
now:
the
research
on how
Burberry
use
emotion
As a result, we have seen
several innovative campaigns
from the iconic trench coat
brand in recent months, which
Straker and Wrigley have
analysed in depth. Perhaps the
most remarkable of these is
the Burberry Kisses campaign,
which enabled users to send
and receive a kiss with loved
ones around the world. As part
of Google’s Art, Copy & Code
initiative, “kiss recognition
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
technology” gave users the sense
that they were sending kisses by
way of desktop cameras and touch
screen devices.
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
On the co-creation front have
Burberry also been rather savvy.
The Art of the Trench is the brand’s
“living document”, hosted on the
microblogging site Tumblr, which
features curated user generated
content from around the world.
The ongoing initiative encourages
consumers around the world
– often in collaboration with
professional photographers – to
submit photos of “the trench coat
and the people who wear it.”
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
Burberry’s Art of the Trench
evidently shares with Tiffany’s
What Makes Love True the trick
of hosting content on what is
effectively a microsite – enabling
brand managers to benefit from
co-creation, while maintaining
ultimate control over what gets
published.
The future of brand
management
The opportunity for savvy
brands
12.
© Emerald Publishing 2017
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
Your brand is not
your brand
Contents
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
A user generated Instagram post from the
#OneDayWithoutShoes campaign – credit @urbanluxcz
L
uxury brands are not the
only ones harnessing the
power of co-creation.
TOMS are an example of a
regular consumer brand who
braved Instagram with a cocreation initiative, and to
powerful effect.
Since 2015, TOMS annually
challenge Instagrammers
to post a photo of their
bare feet as part of the
#OneDayWithoutShoes
campaign. For each photo
tagged on Instagram, the firm
gives a new pair of shoes to a
child in need. As TOMS’ founder
Blake Mycoskie points out, the
campaign means that even
individuals who are not TOMS
customers can simply take a
photo and post #withoutshoes
to make sure a child in need
gets a new pair.
It’s a co-creation initiative that
clearly works both ways. What
TOMS do is provide a vehicle
13.
for Instagrammers
to get behind a
common cause, and
express their values. In
turn, as Roncha and
Radclyffe-Thomas
note, the narrative
allows TOMS to
experience a feedback
loop of positive
outcomes, increasing
their support, their
effectiveness, and their
profitability.
#OneDayWithoutShoes
has been met with
acclaim in the
marketing community,
and with good reason.
A veritable coup for
TOMS, it shows how
a well-conceived cocreation initiative can
offer immense value for
consumers and brands
alike, creating an
upward spiral of winwin effects.
“With the
proliferation of
social networks,
the dynamic
between brand
and consumers
has changed,
through allowing
the consumer
to actively
participate in
the construction
of the brand
identity, bringing
the brand
closer to the
consumer.”
– Roncha and
Radclyffe-Thomas
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
3.
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
The future of brand
management
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
Key takeaways:
• Consumers increasingly seek to influence every part of the
business system
• Brand managers must be more responsive than ever
• Used well, social media benefits brands and consumers alike
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
Key research:
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
• ‘Is co-creation really a booster for brand equity? The role of cocreation in observer-based brand equity (OBBE)’, published in
Journal of Product & Brand Management
The future of brand
management
The opportunity for savvy
brands
• ‘Co-creating unique value with customers,’ published in Strategy &
Leadership
14.
© Emerald Publishing 2017
Learn more about the Marketing eJournal
Collection
T
he importance of
having a meaningful
two-way relationship
with customers continues to
increase. It becomes clear that
consumers are able not only
to help firms create better
products, but also to add
value through social media
engagement.
But it is the marketers who respond
quickly and effectively to this
change who put their brands at a
distinct advantage.
Here’s the challenge. As consumers
increasingly expect meaningful
social interactions with brands, and
“seek to exercise their influence in
every part of the business system,”
as Prahalad and Ramaswamy put
it, brand managers must be ever
more responsive. The job of brand
managers is not going to get any
easier.
“Consumers empowered by
digital technology are no
longer passive recipients of
corporate communication,
but active participants and
co-creators of marketplace
conversations.”
– Presi et al
The marketing guru Philip Kotler
famously said that “markets
change faster than marketing.”
The development of brand value
co-creation over the last few
years seems to prove the point.
Social media has spelled all
sorts of change for marketers.
15.
Read
now:
Kotler’s
11 best
quotes
Here’s the opportunity. Social
media enables greater interaction,
learning, and the sharing of
information between consumers
and brands than ever before. This
improved communication has the
potential to benefit us all, creating
more empowered consumers,
better informed brands, and value
for both consumers and society.
Your brand is not
your brand
A leading library of
23 marketing journals
reporting on the key
developments in
marketing theory and
practice for over 50
years. Featuring the
latest thinking from
globally recognized
authors, including Philip
Kotler, Jagdish Sheth
and Christian Grönroos,
this collection advances
into new areas such
as sports marketing,
Islamic marketing and
social marketing. With ten titles accepted in JCR, 91% ranked by
Scopus and 4.9 million downloads in 2016 the journals in this
portfolio boast both quality and relevance.
Contents
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
Learn how Emerald can help you
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
Nurturing FRESH thinking
that MAKES an impact
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
Emerald Publishing was founded in 1967 to champion new ideas
that would advance the research and practice of business and
management. Today, we continue to nurture fresh thinking in
applied fields where we feel we can make a real difference, now
also including health and social care, education and engineering.
We publish over 300 journals, more than 2,500 books and
over 1,500 case studies, via our dedicated research platform
emeraldinsight.com
The future of brand
management
The opportunity for savvy
brands
16.
© Emerald Publishing 2017
Your brand is not
your brand
Contents
Introduction
How social media
changes things
for brands
Are ‘brand selfies’ good or bad
news for your brand?
Brand co-creation –
a new paradigm
How brands can succeed in
the brave new world of
consumer power
Case study 1 – Tiffany
& Co: What Makes Love
True?
How the luxury jewellers play
on our heart strings using
UGC
Case study 2 – Burberry:
The Art of the Trench
How Burberry built emotional
connection with millennials
Case study 3 – TOMS:
#OneDayWithoutShoes
A case study in the power of
Instagram for brands
The future of brand
management
The opportunity for savvy
brands
© Emerald Publishing 2017