What is in a Story? A Content Analysis of Brands Co-Creating
Stories with Stakeholders on Social Media
Harriet Butterfield 10986790
Master’s Thesis Graduate School of Communications Master’s Programme Communication Science Supervisor: Lise Van Oortmerssen 24.06.2016
Abstract
In recent times, there has been a rise in popularity of social media for branding purposes. This is due to its real-time interactional functions and abilities to access the masses, however brands still struggle with how best to utilise it. Although co-creational branding and
storytelling have become two well recognised branding processes on social media, they require further study and exploration. Thus, this study begins by exploring and examining the four main concepts: branding, co-creation, storytelling and social media. Then, via a
qualitative content analysis, this study examines the narrative that develops around co-creational storytelling campaigns with a grounded theory approach to three Fast Moving Consumer Goods campaigns conducted on social media. The findings resulted in two opposing patterns that were recurrent across all three campaigns. On the one hand, stakeholders were likely to engage with other stakeholders and the brand using
confrontational and conflictual language, predominantly aimed at the brand or campaign but also to other actors in the brand community. This resulted in segregational divides between stakeholders and the brand. On the other hand, the analysis discovered the integration of actors in the brand community, namely stakeholders and the brand, to be a prominent result of co-creational storytelling campaigns. This integration of identities came in four types: publics seeking to better themselves professionally due to the campaigns’ content, publics aspiring to future endeavours spurred on by the brands, publics mimicking the style of
writing and narrative embodied by the campaigns and finally, both the brands and the publics amalgamating their identities through camaraderie and persona collective identification. This study provides a strong basis for the main patterns that emerge from these different
campaigns to help brand managers to fully understand the outcomes of co-creational storytelling campaigns conducted on social media.
What is in a Story? A Content Analysis of Brands Co-Creating Stories with Stakeholders on Social Media
Social media are considered paramount in facilitating brands with the means to get ahead in today’s competitive markets. For so many brands social media is the most efficient way to construct brand identity and brand meaning because it provides brands with the best means to understand what the publics want from their brand (Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012; Kohli, De Vries & Carlson, 2014). Public perception and endorsement of a brand is
considered highly important to the creation and survival of a brand because a brand’s identity is an amalgamation of how society perceives it and the way in which they perceive
themselves (Hatch & Schultz, 2003). Brand management has traditionally been created in a firm-centric manner that recognises stakeholders as passive recipients of brand meaning (Iglesias & Bonet, 2012; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004). However, the active role that multiple stakeholders play in brand management has become increasingly more prominent in branding literature, especially since the rise of social media. Social media provides brands with an arena for stakeholders to dynamically interact with each other through linguistic and textual interaction, subsequently co-creating brand meaning together in line with their expectations and perceptions of the brand (Vallaster & Wallpach, 2012). There is an
incessant need for brand managers to understand the dynamic process that unfolds on social media because it contributes to building awareness, comprehension, empathy, recognition and recall; it allows brands to socially negotiate their brand meaning with multiple actors in society (De Vries & Carlson, 2014).
The value that organisations assign to co-creational branding activities is considered to develop mainly on social media due to the copious opportunity for stakeholders to
participate in brand-related conversations and to integrate their own personal experiences into the brand story (De Vries & Carlson, 2014). Subsequently, this contributes to the co-creation of a brand’s identity, which is essentially a linguistic construct made up of multiple relevant narratives their stakeholders associate with them, which appear in documents, conversational format and electronic media (Healy & McDonagh, 2013). Thus, the narrative that develops on social media between stakeholders and brands is contributing to the brand’s identity because what people read in relation to a brand contributes to the meaning that they behold about the organisation. Therefore, it is deemed that the most vital role for brand managers at
the moment is to “to expend resources to create, populate and maintain the village” (the brand community) (Boyle, 2007, p.125).
Users on social media are considered pivotal authors of a brand’s story due to the easy sharing mechanism facilitated by the communication and interaction that arises from the new dynamic social media networks (De Vries & Carlson, 2014). Storytelling, in the more
traditional sense, is seen as a one-way dissemination of information from organisations to their stakeholders (Hatch & Schultz, 2010; Colliander, Dahlen & Modig, 2015). Today, storytelling has emerged as a co-creational strategy especially since the rise of social media, which provides brands with a conversationalist space for stakeholders to react to and interpret a message or content (Hatch & Schultz, 2003). Although theorists recognise the benefits of co-creational branding and storytelling separately, the significance of these concepts being used in combination is an understudied topic (Liu, Liu, Chen, Lin, & Chen, 2011; Boyle, 2007) and there is an incessant need for theorists to understand what co-creational storytelling invokes in order to advise brand managers how best to facilitate the process. Thus, this study aims to fill the knowledge gap as a starting point for future research to gain insight into how the process unfolds on social media by answering the following research question:
What patterns emerge in co-creational storytelling campaigns on social media?
Theoretical Framework
Branding
Theorists have explored different ways in which a brand’s identity can be constructed. Hatch and Schultz (2010) argue that a brand’s identity construction is a dynamic process made up of the organisation’s internal culture and their image. An organisation’s culture can be defined in many ways, but is predominantly seen as the way in which they operate and how they want stakeholders, publics and society to perceive them (Hatch & Schultz, 2003). An organisation’s image is the way in which stakeholders, publics and society actually perceive them (Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Hatch & Schultz, 2010). Balmer, Stuart and Greyser (2009), argue that an organisation is an amalgamation of six different identities, all of which must align at the same time to build and maintain a successful reputation. These six identities consist of what they really are (actual identity), what they say they are
(communicated identity), what they are seen to be (conceived identity), what the brand stands for (covenanted identity), what they ought to be (ideal identity) and what they wish to be (desired identity). However, this model of identity alignment has been recurrently criticised because the features that make up these six identities are always changing depending on the movements of societal norms and values, making the identities interchangeable and
impossible to align at any given point in time (Marshall & Adamic, 2010; Hatch & Schultz, 2010).
Boyle (2007) recognised that traditionally, people were more likely to consume a product or service due to an extrinsic motivation, based on a careful, rational deliberation of the information that is provided to them. This is referred to as the Cognitive Processing Model (CPM) (Boyle, 2007). Nevertheless, in more recent communications and consumer behaviour literature theorists have opposed this view and found that publics assess purchase intentions and subsequently build brand loyalty, value and equity based on the Hedonic Experiential Model (HEM) developed by Holbrook and Hirschmann (1982). The HEM suggests that consumers base their perceptions and value of a product or service on the emotional/hedonic responses to campaigns and persuasive communications (Boyle, 2007). This is vital for any FMCG product because to target their consumers, publics and
stakeholders, they must concentrate more on the branding process rather than the logistical and practical revelations of the product they are selling due to the copious amounts of other brands selling exactly the same product. In developing her process model of co-creation, Boyle (2007), makes a distinction between pre and post consumption brand associations and highlights their importance in accessing the emotional cultivation of a brand’s image.
However, it is also stressed that post-consumption brand associations are unique to each consumer. They are personal and idiosyncratic and are out of control of the brand manager highlighting the incessant need to practise co-creation with stakeholders (Boyle, 2007).
Taking the extrinsic CPM model and intrinsic HEM model into consideration, Petty’s (1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) also suggests that communication specialists have the choice of two routes to persuasion in building brand equity. The ELM offers either a central route to persuasion similar to the CPM, or a peripheral route akin to the HEM,
through which brand associations can be built on an instinctive emotional response “to cues associated with communicator, message content and medium and relying on simple heuristic devices rather than expending energy on topic relevant information” (Gabbott & Clulow, 1999, p.173). The peripheral route or hedonic value of a brand has been found to be a major driver of online brand community participation (De Vries & Carlson, 2014), facilitated by
fun, entertaining and exciting content (Jahn & Kunz, 2012). Humour and emotion are two key contributors of a viral social media campaign, which maximises the publics’ desires to share, comment on and like the content (Beverland, Dobele & Farrelly, 2015). Social media interactivity subsequently improves people’s brand associations because the more receivers can associate with and identify with a message the more meaningful it will be for them and the more likely they will be persuaded by it (Boyle, 2007).
Co-Creation
The literature on corporate identity construction has persistently emphasised the
incessant need for co-creation with stakeholders in the branding process (Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004; Hatch & Schultz, 2010; Balmer et al. 2009). It boils down to the fact that anyone who has a stake in an organisation, who has the power to affect the output of strategical decisions and the power to influence strategical decisions, must be considered in the construction of a brand’s identity, whether it may be employees, consumers, investors or governmental actors (Vallaster & Wallpach, 2012). Reasons for this lie in the dynamic process of legitimisation, which organisations need to operate in society because if people don’t like a brand they will not invest in, consume or support their services and the organisation will not survive long term (Vallaster & Wallpach, 2012). Thus, it’s imperative for organisations to communicate in a reciprocal manner with their stakeholders to gain their input and co-create instead of trying to enforce a brand identity onto them with a one-way dissemination of information. Thus, there is a growing consensus in the field that two-way communication, interaction, building and maintaining relationships and co-creating brand meaning with stakeholders is the key to success (Payne, Storbacka, Frow, & Knox, 2009).
Branding is said to be constructed by many different elements, in particular it is developed during the consumer-brand relationship (Iglesias & Bonet, 2012). In their study Iglesias & Bonet (2012), discovered that the way in which a consumer perceives brand meaning is actually re-interpreted at each touchpoint that a consumer has with a brand interface, employee or other external stakeholder. This is representative of the way in which brands co-create meaning with stakeholders: through dialogue and interactive narrative. Additionally, Iglesias, Ind and Alfaro (2013) suggest that brands are a social process
involving multiple stakeholders who co-create brand value through an interactive process in a conversational environment. In this conversational space consumers use their experiences to construct meaning and value together whilst interacting also with members of the brand who
instead of imposing their vision, negotiate and co-create a vision with their stakeholders (Iglesias et al. 2013).
The co-creational branding process leads to many desired characteristics for an organisation. Namely, brand equity, which can be defined as “a set of assets (and liabilities) linked to a brand’s name and symbol that adds to (or subtracts from) the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or that firm’s customers” (Aaker, 1996, pp. 7-8). These assets and symbols are representative of the way in which publics associate with the brand and are predominantly achieved through effective two-way interactional communication (Boyle, 2007). In his extensive study on what constitutes a brand, Aaker (1996) argues that a brand is nothing more than a network of associations that stakeholders hold about the brand. Thus, targeting publics’ perceptions of an organisation is vital in the branding process. Aaker (1996) recognises four key characteristics in building brand equity: the perceived quality of the brand, brand awareness, brand loyalty, and brand associations. From this, Boyle (2007) built a process model of co-creation that considers these four aspects of brand equity, which she argues is the end result of the co-creational branding process.
Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) suggest that in order for co-creation to be applied there must be four fundamental requirements in place to facilitate it: Dialogue, Access, Risk, and Transparency. Dialogue is defined by interaction between stakeholder and brands and can be enhanced by two-way communication instead of a one-way selling strategy from the brand manger’s initiative. Access allows the stakeholders to have access to the data and the brand to have access to the stakeholders, which creates value with the stakeholders beyond the traditional value chain process, this is facilitated by the key functions of social media platforms. Risk is identified by Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) to be how companies will monitor the risk and gaps between a customer and a firm and can be managed by sharing the risk of product development with guests through communication. Lastly, the fourth building block is Transparency which is defined by whether the information among the business aspect is accessible. This is managed by eliminating information barriers to a certain degree in order to gain trust from the guest.
Co-Creational Storytelling
Theorists have recognised the benefits of the linguistic approach to promoting a brand’s image to stakeholders due to its ambiguity and ability to make sense to a
cacophonous polyphony of voices who have the autonomy to interpret the message the way they feel fit (Maclean, Harvey & Chia, 2011). Two-way interactional dialogue and narrative
has been identified as the main way for brands to negotiate their meaning and identity with stakeholders, thus impacting their brand equity and value (Colliander, Dahlen & Modig, 2015). This is predominantly done via electronic media due to its real-time function and opportunity for feedback in the form of social endorsements such as comments, likes and shares (De Vries & Carlson, 2014).
Narrative is a quintessential characteristic of the marketing term, corporate
storytelling, which is a linguistic approach to conveying brand image and meaning through stories (Gill, 2014). Corporate storytelling is still a fairly new concept and can be a valuable communication strategy at it surpasses the mundane, one-way dissemination of information strategies of more traditional corporate communication (Gill, 2011). Hatch and Schultz (2003) say that a strong brand story can facilitate the creation of a brand’s image, which is how stakeholders and publics perceive them (Dutton & Dukerich, 1991). This is due to storytelling having the ability to captivate consumers‘ attention by communicating intangible values of a brand such as reputation in a fascinating way (Erkas & Baron, 2007). Stories have the power to evoke emotions and feelings, which maximise stakeholders‘ abilities to relate to the brand. This is even stronger when they construct part of the stories themselves, such as in co-creational storytelling (Sankaran, 2001).
Storytelling has the ability to combat diversity in a workplace and a brand community because of the ambiguity of a story (Barker & Gower, 2010). Storytelling is often used as a solution that is understood and implemented easily because it acts as a sensemaking device for all participants involved (Barker & Gower, 2010) and it has the ability transcend diverse groups of listeners (Gill, 2011). Storytelling is seen to evoke a sense of community because it can help to “establish a common ground among all participants and provides a faster method of establishing a social relationship” (Barker & Gower, 2010, p. 302). Sensemaking
contributes to the success of narrative around a campaign, because it is a process in which an individual interprets information from their previous experiences, their environments and own schema to construct an understanding of a message, event or circumstance (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014; Weick, 1995).
Considering the four requirements for co-creation outlined by Prahalad & Ramswamy (2004), co-creational storytelling on social media can be considered a highly effective
strategy. The element of dialogue is representative of storytelling and narrative, the elements of risk and access are facilitated by the functions of social media and the transparency alludes to the level of control a brand is giving up in the co-creation process. It’s said that the more control a brand gives up, the more successful the campaign because stakeholders feel like
they are given power and autonomy in interpreting a message instead of being told what to think (Boyle, 2007; Iglesias & Bonet, 2012; Ferraro, Kirmani & Matherly, 2013).
More recently brands have moved away from disseminating a story of their own to their stakeholders and started to interactively co-create stories together, or encourage publics to share their stories on social media subsequently making them authors of a brand’s story to their own personal networks (De Vries & Carlson, 2014). Thus, co-creational storytelling can be a risky game because it essentially means that the brand is giving up control of the
narrative around their brand. Beneficially, the stories can increase personalisation and identification with a brand, but detrimentally, this process can distort an intended brand meaning (Dailey & Browning, 2014). Since 2004 when Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2004) defined their building blocks to co-creation, there has been more understanding in the literature that companies must give up control during co-creation on social media to be successful. The more control they give up the better the outcomes because social media is essentially about being social, not being controlled by a company. Consumers and
stakeholders want free reign over how they decipher information about a company, if they are restricted it can hinder their individual sense-making process and result in detrimental effects to their brand associations (Hatch & Schultz, 2010; Barker & Gower, 2010). Campaigns that involve personal stories with the brand are a prime example of this giving up control.
Nevertheless, different campaigns relinquish varying amounts of control to their stakeholders in a social media campaign and it is interesting to see the co-creation process of various campaigns that differ in their control levels.
Co-Creation and Social Media
Although social media has been at the forefront of brand advertising and marketing strategies for the past few years, brands still haven’t identified the most effective way to access the masses because of the number and lack of familiarity of the digital space
(Beverland, Dobele & Farrelly, 2015; Ashley & Tuten, 2015). Social media were originally produced for personal purposes, for people to network with their friends and families, to feel closer to people who are geographically far away from them, and to connect with others all around the world because people are inherently social (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). It’s come as no surprise that brands jump on this considering it is essentially the most powerful tool of communication (Vallaster & Wallpach, 2013; See-To & Ho, 2013). It has quickly become recognised to be an ideal landscape for facilitating brand communities because it provides
stakeholders to access and be accessed by brands in real-time and with great opportunity for feedback (Habibi, Laroche & Richard, 2014).
Previous studies have stressed the importance of using social media to access the core target groups and their needs instead of trying and failing to reach the masses with
engagement levels that are vastly disseminated but rapidly diminishing (Beverland et al. 2015). The concentration on a smaller but more intricate level allows people to spread positive word of mouth (pWOM) about the brand and subsequently build and maintain a good reputation online and offline. (De Vries & Carlson, 2014; Gebauer, Fuller & Pezzei, 2013). Beverland et al. (2015) explore the Vegemite campaign on social media, “How Do You Like Your Vegemite”, where the brand encouraged users to share their stories of how they eat, like and share their vegemite. The authors redefine the definition of viral to mean not just reaching a mass audience in a short timeframe but also achieve prolonged
engagement around the campaign and the brand so that a steady and ongoing brand
community can develop through narrative. This is reiterated by Boyle (2007) who suggests that stealth and viral marketing are the most common goals for brands that practise on social media because these practises “attempt to harness the strongest of all consumer triggers - the personal recommendation” (Kaikati & Kaikati, 2004, p.9). People are more likely to listen to those that they trust other than directly from the organisation and the generally accepted view is that pWOM communications are the most persuasive when coming from unbiased
acquaintances such as your personal social media network (Boyle, 2007).
The literature surrounding co-creational branding online has predominantly been focused on the consumer, but there is an incessant need to consider all stakeholders on social media because those who participate in online discussions are not solely consumers
(Vallaster & Wallpach, 2012). A stakeholder is defined as an individual or group that is affected by or can affect the strategical decisions of an organisation (Fassin, 2009; Donaldson & Preston, 1995). This study considers the active role of multiple stakeholders instead of consumers because it is not transparent that those participating in online discussions with brands and campaigns are necessarily consumers, but people who have the power to affect strategical decisions and be affected by strategical decisions of the organisation. This includes narrative, which can have the power to make or break a brand or campaign.
Method
Design
This study conducts a qualitative content analysis on three different social media campaigns of three FMCG product brands to gauge the dynamic process of co-creational storytelling in the form of narrative between stakeholders and the brands. The FMCG sector was seen as an appropriate exploratory area because consumer goods are necessities not luxuries, thus these brands must be able to sell their brand image instead of the product. They must master how to differentiate their branding process from their competitors because even though tangible assets such as price and quality come into play, ultimately “people buy products not for what they do, but for what they mean” (Solomon, 1999, p.15). Through the campaigns that were released on social media, the three brands have initiated a process of co-creational storytelling with their stakeholders in different ways. The first campaign is from Charmin, the toilet paper brand, the second is from Always, the feminine hygiene brand, and the third is from Old Spice, the male toiletries brand. All three products have profound similarities making them highly comparable; they are low cost, consumer goods product brands, which are not considered particularly exciting to consumers. They are a necessity not a luxury. Thus, brands with such qualities have a big challenge to persuade consumers to buy their product over a no name or other brand of their calibre. These types of brands often have the most innovative and creative campaigns to attract consumers and stakeholders because they are not selling the product as much as they are selling the brand itself (Solomon, 1999).
Campaign Summaries
In February 2013 the toilet paper brand, Charmin issued a campaign at the Superbowl inviting their stakeholders to tweet the brand from the bathroom using the hashtag
#tweetfromtheseat, because they found that one in three Twitter users in the US take their smart phones into the bathroom and 40% of Millenials are more likely to be on Twitter whilst in the bathroom than average Twitter users. This offline activity leading to online
interactivity evoked a huge level of engagement for the brand on social media where users would tweet their thoughts and stories to the brand and the rest of their following. The campaign raised the brand’s following on Twitter from around 10,000 to just under 35,000 within the first six months and today the campaigns has ongoing social media engagement levels. From a co-creational storytelling perspective, each piece of narrative that is associated
with this hashtag is also associated with the brand and may be influential to the way others perceive the brand, subsequently co-creating the meaning and identity of the brand.
In June 2014 Always, the feminine hygiene brand, released a campaign video that empowered women to overcome and defy the anti-feminist concept of doing something ‘like a girl’. The brand encouraged stakeholders to share their personal stories of female
empowerment using the simple yet effective hashtag, #likeagirl. The video was originally released on Facebook where narrative developed between stakeholders and the brand,
subsequently giving meaning to how the brand is perceived by those who read the comments and contributing to the identity of the brand. The video generated over 200,000 likes, over 50,000 shares and over 4,500 comments of people telling stories about their experiences with the message, subsequently building brand meaning through the interaction with other
stakeholders and the brand itself.
After the huge success of their Superbowl campaign, ‘The man you man could smell like,’ featuring the brand’s ambassador, Isaiah Mustafa, the mens’ toiletries brand, Old Spice started to co-create stories with their stakeholders. In July 2010 Isaiah Mustafa replied to 186 messages from users on social media with personalised videos on YouTube in the same style as the original commercial, which generated over 20 million views after day three of the campaign. The brand’s Twitter following increased 2700%, Twitter impressions of Old Spice rose from 1,625 to 61,626 in just 24 hours, Facebook fan interaction increased 800% and Old Spice became the most viewed channel on YouTube, subsequently leading to 107% increase in sales within the first month, post-campaign. These personalised video messages are essentially co-created stories between the original user, the brand and the social media users who commented and developed narrative proceeding the video messages. The turnover was fast, due to the real-time interaction feature that social media prides itself on and the
interaction between stakeholders blossomed, with some videos reaching up to 900 comments and over 3 million views.
The main difference between the campaigns resides in the way the stories are co-created with stakeholders and subsequently the level of control that each brand is
relinquishing to the stakeholders. The level of control over the narrative that Charmin gave up was extremely high because although the brand emitted the primary narrative of the hashtag, #tweetfromtheseat, all narrative that proceeded was entirely in the hands of the Twitter users. The level of control that Old Spice relinquished to their stakeholders was the lowest of the three brands because although the original message to the brand is the
brand itself. Finally, the level of control given up by Always is deemed in between the Charmin and Old Spice campaigns because the brand initiates the co-creational storytelling process by first telling a story and then leaves the narrative open to the stakeholders to interpret the message and lead the discourse. This is representative of a more traditional way of storytelling which then leads to co-created content in the form of the narrative that
develops.
Sample
For Charmin, an analysis on Twitter searching for the hashtag #tweetfromtheseat was conducted and the comments were analysed from the date of the campaign release in
February 2013. A total of 368 tweets and their interactions were analysed until saturation was reached and no new concepts or patterns emerged from the data. It was similar for Always, but the analysis was conducted on the original Facebook campaign that resulted in over 4,500 comments. A total of 165 comments and their interactions were analysed until saturation was reached and no new concepts were discovered. For the Old Spice campaign an analysis on the narrative surrounding the personalised stories was conducted on YouTube, this still allowed us to take into consideration the tweet or Facebook message that Old Spice was replying to because it was present on the social media platform. However, saturation was never reached because of the shear mass of narrative surrounding the personalised stories. Therefore, an analysis on 20 of the personalised video messages, their original message, their co-created message and the narrative surrounding the messages were analysed until saturation was reached for each video and no new concepts and patterns emerged.
The sample is not retrieved from only one social media platform, because the primary aim of this analysis is not to identify the best social media platform for each brand. Literature has shown that every brand and campaign is different with unique characteristics, making it impossible to determine a single best platform (Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012; Pfeffer, Zorbach & Caley, 2016). Thus, this analysis focuses on the dominant platform for each campaign, because the primary aim is to identify the similarities and differences between how the co-creational storytelling processes and narrative unfold.
Charmin, Always and Old Spice were chosen because they are highly comparable because they are all considered social media ‘mavens’ (Ashley & Tuten, 2015) when it comes to co-creation. They have persistently ‘won the internet’ with their innovative campaigns in which they have co-created stories with their stakeholders. They differ in products but coincide in popularity and have constantly been appraised for the way their stakeholders are
interacting with them on social media. Additionally, all three brands belong to the umbrella brand of Proctor & Gamble, which eliminates any bias of professionalism that may occur. Furthermore, no bias of type of product can be accounted for because all three are low cost necessities from the FMCG sector, although the types of messages that the campaigns are stimulating and disseminating will be considered during the analysis because Always evokes a powerful societal issue, whereas Old Spice and Charmin are centred on humour. This aspect could affect the processes leading to the co-created stories that emerge in different ways.
Analysis Process
The analysis was conducted with a grounded theory approach, in which the researcher analyses the data with open coding instead of selective coding with predetermined categories because the topic of co-creational storytelling has seldom been researched making it difficult to predict it’s outcomes. Where a deductive analysis allows the researcher to “theoretically derive themes in order to replicate, extend or refute prior discoveries”, “inductive themes, are often useful in the new areas of research,” such as co-creational storytelling (Elo & Kyngas, 2008, p.57-58). Grounded theory suggests that the relative theory to an analysis is grounded in the data, thus no preconceptions could be made of what to expect (Elo & Kyngas, 2008). This inductive coding approach is representative of thematic analysis, which forms the theme from the observation on raw information.
The most important aspect of grounded theory is to immerse oneself in the data, to truly understand and recognise instantly the patterns and themes that emerge co-currently over all analysed campaigns. Gathering the data is done in congruency with the analysis in order to exhaust all options and ensure saturation is reached. Thus, the analysis was
conducted in three stages. Firstly, through a primary coding initiative descriptive categories were formed showing exactly what the comments and video messages were describing on all three campaigns. For Charmin, this resulted in 85 categories until saturation was reached, for Always 63 categories were found before saturation and for Old Spice 77 categories were recognised. Secondly, the data was re-analysed through an axial coding scheme to combine the categories into sub-categories that represented the main concept they could describe in groups. Each campaign resulted in 7 axial codes, which resulted in summarised narrative with a societally constructed concept. Thirdly, through pattern recognition system the researcher identified the common patterns over all three campaigns. Five common patterns were discovered over the campaigns, however in relation to co-creational storytelling only two
were deemed the most significant due to their substantial re-occurrence over all three campaigns.
Reliability
To ensure maximum reliability the researcher of this study kept the exact same text, intonation and style of writing in the analysis in order not to form any misinterpretations of the data. This was seen as an imperative precaution to take considering the nature of this study is based around narrative, linguistic style and form. Additionally, the researcher kept track of the categorising, re-categorising and pattern formations with memo writings during the entire duration of the analysis. It was deemed necessary to practise peer assessment of the categories because the analysis was conducted with grounded theory and an open coding approach, thus it’s possible that unfeasible categories were identified. Therefore, three peers of the researcher’s study class in the Corporate Communication track were asked to conduct a peer assessment on the coding categories found by the researcher. This resulted in the
clarification of feasible and understandable coding categories in the primary, secondary and tertiary stages of the analysis. Most importantly, the peers identified the two final patterns as present in the data that they revised. Thus, reliability is deemed as high for this study.
Analysis
The analysis found two common patterns across all three campaigns, which interestingly oppose each other. The first emerging pattern found conflictual and
confrontational language in the narrative around the campaigns, which causes segregation between the stakeholders participating in the narrative and between the stakeholders and the brand itself. The conflictual and confrontational language emerged from dislike of the
campaigns and the societal issues they are addressing, of which the brand never responded to compared to the positive messages that developed that the brands did respond to.
Additionally, confrontational language was ignited between only stakeholders without the brand’s involvement, which is segregating the users in the brand community.
In opposition to segregation the analysis discovered the second pattern of integration between stakeholders and the brand as well as between stakeholders participating in the narrative in the form of combining their identities and aspiring for their ideal selves. Within this pattern, four categories materialised. Firstly, stakeholders’ appraisal for the marketing strategies resulted in them seeking to better themselves in a sense of professional skills and in
a sense of their persona. Secondly, stakeholders aspire to future endeavours that they hope to fulfil. Thirdly, stakeholders mimic the style and intonation of the brands’ narrative in the campaign hinting at a desire to collectively identify with them. Lastly, from the perspectives of the brands and their stakeholders, both combine their identities with each other through camaraderie and name amalgamations. The following sections will look at the data in detail that represent the development of these two patterns.
Finding 1: Segregation: there’s conflict and confrontation but let’s not get involved! Analysing the comments of all three campaigns found that the narrative was riddled with confrontational language from the users towards the brand and the content of the campaign, subsequently segregating the users from the brand and the brand community on social media. Naturally, we could expect conflict and confrontation to come from a campaign that addresses a societal issue, for example the campaign by Always that shows how women are insulted by the phrase ‘like a girl’, it highlights gender differences and inequality between men and women in society. However, surprisingly, the Charmin and Old Spice commercials also sparked confrontation between stakeholders although in a more superficial way. The conflicts that arose in the Charmin and Old Spice narratives were centred around either dislike for the campaign or personal attacks on other users. Whereas, the confrontational narrative that arose from the Always campaign was about the societal issue that it addressed with additional linguistic attacks on other users and also the campaign, like for Charmin and Old Spice. Below we discuss in more detail the type of confrontational narrative that was sparked by each campaign.
Pure dislike of content
The most prominent type of confrontational language stemmed from users’ pure dislike for each campaign in their story-sharing process on the three social media channels. Being a toilet paper brand, Charmin is forced to have a more intangible identity and it is renowned for its nonsensical humour, because how else is a toilet paper brand supposed to distinguish itself from other toilet paper brands? Thus, they often tweet their stakeholders with toilet-humour based messages, such as on the 22nd February 2013, Charmin posted a picture of a chocolate bar with the caption “Talk about a huge log! #tweetfromtheseat”. This post received 91 retweets, 47 likes and replies from 24 different users. Most of the users replied with positive comments showing appreciation for the humour in the comment. However, some reacted with disgust about the post, we can see this in the following
interactions below. Note that the latter comment by @gator_rach also hashtags the brand and twitter, which extends the reach of the potential receivers of this comment.
@alexvelluto: “This is the most disgusting tweet I’ve ever seen. RT: “@Charmin: Talk about a huge log! #tweetfromtheseat”
@NiceGirlsToo: “Charmin’s #tweetfromtheseat commercial is both disgusting and rude. They should fire the boor who came up with that one”
@gator_rach: “The #Charmin #tweetfromtheseat campaign is disgusting. There are better ways to use @twitter - even if you are a toilet paper company.” - Charmin
The narrative around the Always campaign also points to distaste and dislike for the content of the campaign. The confrontational language however, is a result of the brand promoting an idea that they want to be associated with instead of promoting a product. Whilst addressing such a controversial ideology in society the brand is more likely to evoke conflict and confrontation from its’ stakeholders on social media because people have strong opinions that they want to voice, subsequently leading to insults about the campaign and effectively damaging their image. Subsequently, the Always campaign sparked more reinforcement of individuality than would be presumed considering the unifying message it tries to reinforce in women. Users recognised that the message being relayed by the brand had some
shortcomings, that by trying to enforce women to band together they were excluding the other half of society: the males. The comments that arose from this segregation made it apparent that women were turning against men in this campaign and instead of seeing each other as men and women, we should see ourselves as individuals. In a way this is moving away from collective identities as people no longer want to be associated as the in-group. Users, @RauraDrehbank and @NadineWesterveld are opposing the message, which we can see below and much like Charmin and Old Spice the comments point to flaws in the content of the campaign.
@RauraDrehbank: “[...] I have never felt inferior due to my sex, and I don’t need a pad commercial to make it seem like I’m looked down upon when I’m not. I associate with good people and I don’t put up with anyone’s crap [...]” – Always
@NadineWesterveld: “If someone said I did something like a girl, well that is great. However I don’t run or throw like that. I run and throw how I want, and also talk like myself and dress like myself. Why the gender difference? I don’t do anything like a girl of a guy. I do it in my own way. :)” -Always
More like the Charmin campaign than the Always campaign, Old Spice are co-creating content with stakeholders embodied by humour and non-sensical narrative. Confrontational language still appears in dislike for the campaign, users recognise the superficial nature and relay their distaste for the idea. This is seen in the comment by user, @HDL1750 who relays his distaste not for the product, but for the campaign which he feels is targeted at women not men and would not consider buying the product solely based on the message that the campaign issues.
@HDL1750: “I no longer buy old spice because this as does not appeal to me as a man...I have instructed my wife to no longer purchase these products because this series of ads is meant to appeal to women not the men who actually use the products, maybe old spice should start selling womens products as most guys are not interested in looking at some guy show off his body every commercial...no more old spice for me.” - Old Spice
Irrational personal attacks on other community members
The second common occurrence of confrontational language around the three campaigns is in the form of personal attacks and argumentative narrative towards only members of the brand community, not the brand itself, seen in the interactions between the users. The interactions consisted of different types of confrontational language but often abrasive and sparking conflict between them.
A large part of the confrontational comments from the Always brand community were addressing the issue that the campaign is promoting, with arguments between users unfolding about how women are stronger than men. The negative comments generated, towards men especially, are simply nonsensical and unnecessary. The predominant demographic creating the narrative around this campaign are women and in this example, as well as countless others, we see them attacking men calling them inferior, which is not the point that Always were trying to make. They were trying to turn a once insulting remark into an empowering one, they did not want to allude that men are inferior to women. It begins with women
insulting men and because the primary demographic present in the narrative around Always is women, men often do not defend themselves in this vulturous brand community. However, in this interaction a male does defend his notion only to be shot down by another user. This is seen in the interactions between users, @ToriWilkerson, @KennahJadeEllis,
@MiguelDrummondBorges and @JamieCromwell. This conflict against men is so prominent throughout the narrative around this campaign and is sparked by the topic that Always are at the centre of. By being the leaders of such a controversial discussion on social media, the brand Always puts themselves in a vulnerable position in which the narrative can turn sour and abrasive and people may start to associate the brand with negative connotations.
@ToriWilkerson: “Boys say ‘hit like a girl’ only because we can do it better than they can. Stay Calm and be yourself”
@KennahJadeEllis: “Our fists are smaller and more aerodynamic, so we hit faster. They’re jealous lol.”
@Miguel Drummond Borges: “you are doing exactly to boys what you dont want ‘boys to do to girls’. thats dumb”
@Jamie Cromwell: “it’s called karma Miguel deal with it” - Always
Confrontational interactions also develop due to the Old Spice and Charmin campaigns in the form of raw, abrasive personal attacks. For Charmin, these consisted of disagreements, which subsequently evolved into abrasive confrontation. For Old Spice several topics of conflict arose including a political debate, a racist rant and interactional conflicts between users. Especially offensive racist rants were predominantly conducted by user @DoNotMakePooh, one of many is listed here as well as the response to this pervasive trolling by user @neoplisken. The offensive nature of these types of narratives is conflictual to the amusing and light hearted nature of the brands and the campaigns. This can have identity alignment issues for the brands as stakeholders start to associate the brand with societal and moral conflict-ions, a concept explored further in the discussion.
@cheyhunter1: “#TweetFromTheSeat This commercial is dumb. But the little bears are so cute (:”
@Gera710: “How can you think this CM is dumb? It’s a stroke of genius. Your sense of humour is as non-existent as you are to me!” - Charmin
@DoNotMakePooh: “THIS PEDOPHILE UGLY PERVERTED ROTTEN ASS BANANA MONKEY LOOKIN APE NIGGER DICKTWAT SHALL SOMEDAY FEEL THE POWER AND STRENGTH AND FORCE OF THE ROPES FROM THE PURE WHITE ARYAN RACE!!!!!”
@neoplisken: “@Donotmakemepooh really it’s because if people like you that I wish understanding can kick someone ass. Oh and just so you know from a biological standpoint people of darker color are more suited to their environment. So please go back to your redneck friends and have a nice beer and go fall in a ditch.” - Old Spice
The brand won’t get involved
Most interestingly, there was no interaction from the brands, post-confrontational narrative, not even when the users were showing their dislike for the campaign content. Charmin did not respond to any of the abusive comments about the campaign, Always did not fuel the fire during the debate on gender inequality and Old Spice did not respond to the non-sensical abrasive comments about the brand ambassador. On the other hand when users showed their support and raw appreciation for the campaigns and ideologies they are
addressing the brands were very active in responding, which re-enforced the re-assuring comments. Charmin tweeted back with funny and appreciative stories, Always thanked users for the support and complimented users on their passion (example below), and Old Spice even created four responsive videos in total for one particular user, @AlyssaMilano. Old Spice even went offline and sent @AlyssaMilano flowers to her home, which again sparked more engagement and feedback from the user. An additional analysis was conducted on Twitter to search for responses from the brand to the narrative around the campaign using the hashtag #themanyourmancouldsmelllike but no responses or additional concepts were found in regards to the confrontational language about the campaign. The brands are taking a risk in their campaigns because of the level of control that the stakeholders have over the co-created content. They relinquished control over the narrative that develops when they took to social media to house their campaigns, subsequently leaving room for stakeholders to make sense of the information themselves and did not rectify the problems when the narrative was negative, only enhanced it when it was positive.
@AngleEveritt: “I am loving this. WAY TO GO ALWAYS!!! We need more inspiration to be ourselves and less bullying that wants to force us to feel inferior. I am so proud of this! Whomever is responsible for this has my
ultimate respect as a woman. #Educate #Encourage #Empower #EstrogenTakeOver”
@Always: “Your passion to help #RewriteTheTule for #LikeAGirl is inspiring! Thank you so much for your support! Let’s empower girls everywhere!” - Always
Finding 2: Integration: building camaraderie and looking to the future! A second common pattern between the three campaigns consisted of the stakeholders alluding to their ideal identities by banding together and identifying with each other and the brand. This was a two way process, in which the brand also combined their identities with their stakeholders as well as stakeholders combining identities with the brands. Stakeholders would show a need to possess attributes that they don’t have, spurred on by the campaign in question. The narrative around the three campaigns is representative of future aspirations that the stakeholders hold of themselves in relation to the brands, namely alluding to actions they wish to concede to in the future, achievements they hope to fulfil and characteristics they desire to possess all due to the influence of the campaigns. This pattern was made apparent in four different ways.
Inspiration to become a better person
Firstly, users wanted to better themselves in various ways. In particular appraisal for the marketing strategy of the team behind the campaign led to users, who are already in the field of marketing, wanting to learn more and be more like that team. However, also users in other professions were made apparent, such as psychological therapy who are inspired by the content of the campaign. Without intending to, the Charmin, Old Spice and Always have become role models for many of the stakeholders participating in the narrative around the campaign. This is representative of an extension of the self that users wish they had and is all facilitated by the campaign and the brand. We can see it in the following interaction between users and the brands:
@Charmin: “MMMMM....Coffee... Sorry @Bounty, but sometimes, this is a quicker picker up we need! #tweetfromtheseat”
@Tou_SHAE: “@Charmin @Bounty I LOVE you Social Media person. Whoever they are, they rock! #thatisall #tweetfromtheseat”
@Charmin: “@Tou_SHAE @Bounty Awwww.. thank you. That made our day! Happy Friday!!!”
@Tou_SHAE: “@Charmin @Bounty You’re welcome. I study and do social media as well and you all just nail it! #kudos #iwannabelikeyou :)” - Charmin
@RogerV: “Old Spice has suddenly turned so cool! just 12mo ago it was something my grandpa wore, now i’m so buying it. Whoever is doing this marketing rocks. This provides so much inspiration for the people at my advertising agency!” - Old Spice
@JelaToda: “Thank you! I am already a loyal customer, but now I like you even more. I will use your ad in my work to empower my patients to reclaim their power and reconnect with the mighty girls in themselves.”
@Always: “Hi Jela! That is AMAZING to hear! We are honored to help #RewriteTheRules and empower girls everywhere. What do you do proudly #LikeAGirl?”
@JelaToda: “I am a psychologist and I specialize in treating eating disorders.” - Always
Aspiring to future endeavours - building an ideal identity
Secondly, stakeholders aspire to future endeavours that they hope to fulfil fuelled by the campaigns they are participating in, subsequently contributing to their ideal identity formation. Across all three campaigns users would show their appreciation for the campaigns and are alluding to actions they will pursue in the future involving the brands and their products, which combines the identity of the consumer with the brand. This was predominantly seen in the form of planning to purchase the product in the future.
@Deuce6ix:“@Charmin looking at your childish buffoonery on twitter has made me a lifelong customer.” - Charmin
@edgeofsins: “@BravoBlanc Lol. Old Spice must be making a fortune off of his commercials and these comment replies. They must have bought him tons of props. I will definitely get Old Spice body wash and deodorant next time I am at the store. They know how to please customers and their products smell and work good too :)” - Old Spice
The Always campaign sparked many ideal identity constructions within the users participating in the narrative. This can be expected considering the nature of the message the brand is relaying to the stakeholders. Most prominently the participants were sharing stories of the past, reminiscing on the way they use to be and deciding on the person they want to be, which is exactly how the brand would expect the narrative around the campaign to unfold. The content of the message is inspiring thus users feel inspired to share their progressive stories and aspirations for the future. The comments on the Always campaign video on Facebook are demonstrative of stakeholders following the typical storytelling sequences of referring to the past, present and the future as we can see below.
@Rise Takayanagi: “I was moved by this CM. I behaved like weak and kind woman because I wanted to be loved by someone. But, thanks to this CM I remember what I used to be. I had self-confidence and cheerful. I noticed that I couldn’t behave woman that everyone imagines as ideal. Now I am ready to be strong again” - Always
Forming collective identities by mimicking narrative
Thirdly, stakeholders mimic the style of intonation, writing and language of the brands’ narrative in the campaign hinting at a desire to collectively identify with them, which is the most recurrent amalgamation of identities that the analysis found. For Charmin and Old Spice, the dominant style of narrative is embedded in humour and tweets from users mirror this style. Users relay their stories with a whimsical manner, making fun of their own
situation and matching the style of the original message that is relayed to them. For Charmin, this predominantly revolves around toilet humour and sarcastic intonation. For Old Spice it is randomness and manliness. The original advert by Old Spice consists of the brand
ambassador, Isaiah Mustafa, telling a story of how women should want their man to smell like him through a series of disconnected scenarios.
@7Shift: “minecraft version, hello miners, look down, now back at me, now down, i have an apple, look again, IT IS NOW GOLDEN, look again a third time, it is in your hands, this tree is made of diamond” - Old Spice
@RaulixRaulix: “the moment you realize you are out of Charmin and the extra rolls are in the other bathroom. #panic #tweetfromtheseat” - Charmin
The narrative of the original message in the Always campaign is less about humour and more about inspiration and passion. They attempt to empower their female stakeholders with the message and the language is powerful. When users are relaying their stories about how they feel empowered as a woman they mimic the strong, inspirational tone of voice that Always possesses. The analysis found many users that also relayed stories much like this using the same intonation, style of writing and tone of voice but different scenarios and different characters personalised to them. By doing so, the stakeholders of each brand are possessing characteristics that the brands behold, thus sharing an identity.
@VictoriaRichardson: “I’m tired of people saying ‘you_like a girl’ don’t underestimate us girls just because we are girls I’m good at basketball, volleyball, soccer/kickball ect. And some of my guy friends suck at them, but you know what? [...] So if you have a problem with us girls then say it to our face. And get over with it. Thanks byeeee (clapping hands emoji)” - Always
Forming collective identities through camaraderie
Lastly, from the perspectives of the brands and their stakeholders, both parties attempt to intangibly combine their identities with each other through camaraderie and name
amalgamation. We can identify future aspirations as a concept due to the language used in the posts. A playful interaction between Charmin and user, @MarloMeekins combines their identities when they create a new hashtag that combines their names, subsequently leading to a false but ideal, aspired to identity. Notice that both the brand and the user are using the amalgamated names proving that both parties are active in the collective identity formation.
@MarloMeekins: “Lol, oh @Charmin! You slay me” @Charmin: “we try! Ps...#weheartyou”
@MarloMeekins: “@Charmin I love you more! #Charlo4ever”
@Charmin:“@Choplogik @Marlomeekins we would if we could!!!! #charlo4ever”
@MarloMeekins: “@Choplogik me and @Charmin always go together #tweetfromtheseat” - Charmin
This is also the case for Old Spice who personalise videos that answer the tweets of their stakeholders, subsequently proving that they are fuelling the collective identity
formation process through narrative. Stakeholders of the brands are also collectively forming identities with the brand through telling stories of using the product and alluding to the characteristics it has brought them, which are now embedded in their own daily lives. Additionally, we see camaraderie in the Always campaign where users are building their identity based on the inspiration that the Always campaign provides them.
@Butterscotch70s: “Dear Old Spice. Prior to the use of you, I lived a boring life. However, since I open that first bottle of Old Spice Body Wash, the essence of pure awesome poured out and has forever changed me. I am now a man [...] Thank you.” - Old Spice
@RaynaBaker: “This is what it means to my daughter to play #likeagirl. I couldn’t be more proud of how fearless, brave and strong she is. I was raised by my father who taught me to never let anyone make me feel like I was less than I am. I shared this amazing video with my daughter and I can’t thank you enough for creating such a wonderful and important campaign. We are proud to be #likeagirl.”- Always
In addition to forming collective identities with the brand, stakeholders are banding together with a sense of camaraderie and forming collective identities with each other. For Charmin, users do this in the form of sharing stories about loved ones, tagging their friends and family in funny Charmin posts and welcoming others to the Charmin community when they issue their first #tweetfromtheseat. For Always, this camaraderie is also seen in sharing stories about loved ones, unifying over opinions, making sense of the content together and personalising each interaction by addressing the respondents by their first name, even though they are a stranger to them. For Old Spice, collective identities between stakeholders were reached by personalising back stories for others to identify more easily with, collective story sharing, desire for inclusion in other’s personalised messages and including loved ones in the request for the personalised messages.
@TraceyMatthews: “I’m excited to say this is my first #tweetfromtheseat” @Deuce6ix: “Congratulations @TraceyMatthews! Welcome to the Charmin community :)”
@JanetFry: “Welcome Tracey! You won’t regret it, it’s genius!” - Charmin
@SharonShackleton: “Fight like a girl to me is not a sign of weakness [...] At age 59 I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer [...] I am now a 3 year survivor this month [...] Thank you for listening.”
@CoralAshlee: “That had to be the best thing I have read on the internet today”
@JessieGriebel: “The ‘girl’ in this phrase may be appropriate only because it is aimed at breast cancer and your fight [...] Congratulations on your fight and victory with cancer!!”
@AmandaHi: Bless your heart.
@MeghamMarionHils: “Good for you girlfriend keep it up!” - Always @Sheep: “I wish I was Angela A. Hutt hyphen Chamberlain. D:”
@DanielCraig: “I wish I had waited 2 years to propose to this way rather than what I did!” - Old Spice
@FelicityGerhart: “Does anybody know if she [said] yes? I have to know! I Wish I was her being proposed to by the Old Spice Guy!” - Old Spice
Conclusion
A qualitative content analysis with a grounded theory approach was conducted on three FMCG, co-creational storytelling campaigns on social media, which found two recurrent patterns in the narrative of the stakeholders and the brands. On the one hand, confrontational language was sparked either in individual comments or interactional comments around the campaigns, forcing a segregation of identities between stakeholders and stakeholders and the brand. On the other hand, the narrative points to integration of identities, whether it be between stakeholders or between the stakeholder and the brand. Users on the social media platforms would consistently refer to future aspirations that link the concepts of the campaigns to their own lives as well as mimicking the style and intonation from the originally disseminated brand messages, subsequently combining their identities and aspiring to their ideal identities in conglomeration with the brands’ identities. Most
to the messages; whereas, when the narrative was reassuring and integrational the brands were very proactive in responding with positive messages that enhance the amalgamating of identities.
Discussion
This study began by exploring four key concepts: branding, co-creation, storytelling and social media. The analysis process found that we need to move away from defining storytelling as a one-way transmission of information from brand to stakeholder because when a brand has too much control over the message more conflict is likely to arise. We can see this when we compare the three campaigns, which all originally invited their publics to share personal stories that they associate with the brand. For the Charmin, Always and Old Spice campaigns, users didn’t participate so much in the sharing of stories in the traditional sense in a sequential manner with a beginning, a middle and an end but rather as an
improvisation. This is supported by the study of Singh and Sonnenburg (2012) who found that social media is the reason for stakeholders becoming less of a passive listener and more of an active participant. They offer a semantic framework that resolves the issue of defining storytelling with an improvisation theatre metaphor, in which the brand gives the basis of the content and gives free reign to their publics to expand on that in relation to their own thought processes (Singh and Sonnenburg, 2012).
This is apparent in all three of the analysed campaigns for this research. Always provided their publics with a narrative who then deciphered the information for themselves, making sense of it according to their own experiences and interacted in more of a
conversationalist manner than a manner of sharing stories. Charmin provided their publics with one simple hashtag, which people associated with many different things predominantly toilet humour and again a conversationalist manner of interaction evolved. Old Spice
personalised stories and combined them with their own identity, which again provoked conversationalist narrative. All three campaigns resulted in a minimal amount of sharing stories in a traditional sequential manner with a beginning, a middle and an end. Thus, we can redefine co-created stories as linguistic constructs made up of multiple relevant narrative that stakeholders associate with the brand instead of a one-way transmission of information in a traditional storytelling sequence. Even though it does not have a targeted structure like a
traditional story from a novel, it contains linguistic style and content that all contribute to the brands’ successfully co-created identities.
We live in a globalised world, which is enhanced by the rise of social media. Social media connects diverse people from all around the world and allows them to interact with each other in real-time (Colliander, Dahlen & Modig, 2015; Healy & McDonagh, 2013). Subsequently, storytelling is often used as a tool to combat the problems that brands face when they target a characteristically diverse group of people because it leaves room for interpretation and can be deciphered in multiple ways according to one’s own schema (Barker & Gower, 2010). Additionally, “storytelling is a very good device for creating emotional [...] connections between diverse groups”, (Hatch & Schultz, 2003, p.1060). Nevertheless, with any story there is a cognitive process of making sense of the information disseminated to you that is unique to each individual. Due to these sensemaking processes of each individual, conflict and confrontation is quite common in the interactional narratives resulting from a social media campaign (Ellison, 2008; Pongsakornrungsilp, & Schroeder, 2011; Boje, Haley & Saylors, 2015). Recipients of a story make sense of a story and frame or re-frame it in a way that makes sense to them according to their values, norms and prior experiences (Dailey & Browning, 2014). This can sometimes result in a conflict of interests because people get frustrated when they don’t understand another’s dissection of the
information and their thought processes (Hatch and Schultz, 2003). People may be seeing and participating in the same story but come to different conclusions. This is illustrated by the Always campaign, which addressed a sensitive societal issue of gender inequality, which caused conflict because people interpreted the content of the campaign differently and argued over it.
All three brands used the peripheral route of persuasion, which is recommended because it builds and maintains relationships with stakeholders who are able to relate more to the brand if a hedonic or emotional aspect is involved (De Vries & Carlson, 2014). Charmin and Old Spice used humour, when Always used inspiration and passion around a societal issue that women (and men) can relate to. However, the brand managers create and evoke stories that are ambiguous and although they may make sense logically to one or a group of individuals they may not make sense to others (Maclean, Harvey & Chia, 2011; Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). This is due to the cognitive process of framing and making sense in accordance with prior experiences and context that each individual goes through upon receiving a message (Maclean, Harvey & Chia, 2011; Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). This is most prominent for the Always and Old Spice campaigns because the stakeholders were
disseminated messages from the brands of which each individual makes sense of uniquely. Whereas, the Charmin campaign issued no original message but encouraged stakeholders with total autonomy to co-create stories that they associate with the brand, with no intervention from the brand itself other than support for the positive content.
The conflict and confrontation may also be a derivative of the level of control that each brand relinquished to their stakeholders in the co-creational storytelling campaigns. On the one hand, previous literature has stated that brands must give up as much control as possible over the co-creation of the messages to increase the propensity of success from a social media campaign (Boyle, 2007). Subsequently, "managers must accept that they are losing control of their brands and the controlling every aspect of a brand is impossible in this new environment" (Iglesias, Ind & Alfaro, 2013, p.3). On the other hand, literature has stressed that brands should maintain a high level of control over the narrative around their campaign in order to avoid misinterpretation of information and subsequently leading to conflict (Gebauer, Fuller & Pezzei, 2013). Charmin was deemed to have given most
autonomy to their stakeholders out of the three campaigns and provided the least amount of conflict between stakeholders. The confrontational narrative revolved mainly around dislike and abuse of the hashtag that Charmin themselves associated with instead of conflict between members of the brand community. The most confrontational language out of the three
campaigns appeared in the narrative around the Always campaign, which constricted the level of autonomy that stakeholders had over the original message relayed to them, more so than the Charmin campaign.
There is no censor on social media, unless the brand monitors the narrative and responds appropriately to it diminishing the damage that it may cause. This is a practise that it highly recommended by theorists because negative narrative around a brand contributes detrimentally to the brand image and meaning (Gebauer, Fuller & Pezzei, 2013; Boje, Haley & Saylors, 2015; Pfeffer, Zorbach & Caley, 2016). However, a most interesting finding of the first pattern was that the brands across all three campaigns did not respond to the negative messages. Literature emphasises the importance of responding to all communications about the brand because it is more likely to build and maintain more healthy relationships (See-To & Ho, 2013). Co-negotiation and co-moderation are seen as essential practises for brands embarking upon a co-creational process with their publics, because it prevents dissatisfaction and the spread of negative word-of-mouth (nWOM) (Gebauer, Fuller & Pezzei, 2013).
The second pattern found a sense of camaraderie and integration between stakeholders and the brands. Most interestingly, users banded together to form collective identities and
