Social media’s prevalence in modern day advertising cannot be ignored. Although digital marketing is hardly a new concept, it is only since very recently that companies have utilised social media enough to become ‘the pillar of the advertising industry’ – with a total of 20 billion dollars spent on social media advertising just last year (The Economist, 2015).

Despite the ever-increasing popularity of social media, there have been concerns over its effect on sustaining a strong brand image. Harvard Business Review claims that very few brands have generated meaningful consumer interest online – even going as far to say that social media have ‘made brands less significant than before’ (2016).

Traditionally, brands would use one-to-many marketing, such as advertising, as a medium to tell their brand stories to reach consumers. Back then, consumers modified these firm generated brand stories to create their own versions, but their individual voices were not strong, and could be safely ignored by the brand managers if they chose to do so. The increasing use of social media among consumers has led to a fundamental shift in authentic brand storytelling. Consumers who are now empowered to share their brand stories easily and widely through social networks have gained a more valued voice that brand managers cannot ignore any longer (Gensler et al, 2013).

‘The emergence of social media has changed the consumers’ role in storytelling from that of a passive listener to a more active participant.’ – (Singh & Sonneburg, 2012)

Although many strategists have their own views on the merits of brands utilising their social media pages, these can be broken down into two forms of brand storytelling:

Firm generated brand stories and consumer/user generated brand stories:

User-generated content follows an interactive, participative, and multi-vocal rather than a tightly controlled/push process of branding (Vescovi & Vernuccio, 2016). The tightly controlled/push process of firm-generated branding works by understanding the brand as a controlled asset that is firm-owned, which can be built in the consumer minds through carefully coordinated marketing activities (Gensler et al, 2013). Consumer-generated brand stories interpret past or anticipated brand experiences that can be both positive and negative; for example, homage to a brand or consumer complaints (Gensler et al, 2013). These stories can be told through offline and online platforms, however, consumer generated stories told through social media are much more impactful because they utilize social networks, are digital, visible, pervasive, available in real-time, and dynamic (Hennig-Thurau et al, 2010).

A Closer Look Into Burberry:

When analysing strong online branding through consumer generated brand storytelling in the fashion industry, it is almost impossible to leave one particular company unmentioned. Their iconic and everlasting product is its trench coat, one that parallels the brands basic values of democratic luxury, function, and modern classic style. The versatility of the trench was what made it so iconic; with people from all different backgrounds wearing the same style coat in a million different ways. This is how their innovative digital journey began. Burberry decided to leverage consumers who personify the brand by generating content that appeals to them by them. The Art of the Trench campaign is a website in which consumers could upload a picture of themselves wearing their Burberry trench coats, share with their peers, and visitors of the site could buy the coat directly off of the Burberry website (Tobias, 2013).

What makes consumer generated branding work so well for companies is that it also acts as a direct review platform. HBR claims ‘that the single most powerful impetus to buy is someone else’s advocacy’ (2016). When potential buyers of Burberry find that there are hundreds of consumers who love their products – enough to share images of them wearing the products online – it creates a preconceived notion that these products work for anyone, and thus, pushes that potential buyer closer to the final purchase decision making process.

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is — it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook, co-founder, Intuit

This approach follows both Consumers-to-Company and Consumers-to-Consumers online marketing approach (Kiani, 1998). With the consumers-to-company approach, consumers are now active participants and partners in the production; therefore, the motivation of consumers to respond and interact is a key point of virtual marketing. The Consumers-to-Consumers approach suggests that marketers approach interactive media as an opportunity to establish a dialogue and benefit from many possibilities this media can provide. Armstrong and Hagel (1996) suggest that commercial success in the online market will belong to those firms that organise electronic communities to meet social and commercial needs (Kiani, 1998).

The Art of the Trench draws Burberry’s brand values closer to its consumers through the modern art of street photography, blogging, and sharing through the web. The site also offers information about the history of the Burberry trench coat, providing images of vintage models from 1910 moving through the decades with different forms of media, featuring today’s generation of supermodels, such as Kate Moss and Stella Tennant. Although these brand values stem from Burberry itself, they are perpetuated from consumer-to-company and consumer-to-consumer, as Burberry relies on the audience to publish the photos and the consumers to create a dialogue amongst them selves, creating an online global Burberry community, which could not have been done with firm-generated branding alone.

Lessons Learned:

• Firm Generated Branding is not dead…
• But is more powerful through Consumer-to-Consumer marketing
• Consumer Generated Branding allows a more authentic voice to be heard
• Company’s must evoke brand values in Consumer Generated Branding – otherwise brand can get lost

Sources:

Edelman, D. (2016). Branding in the Digital Age. Harvard Business Review.

Gensler, S., Völckner, F., Liu-Thompkins, Y. and Wiertz, C. (2013). Managing Brands in the Social Media Environment. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27(4), pp.242-256.

Hennig-Thurau, T., Malthouse, E., Friege, C., Gensler, S., Lobschat, L., Rangaswamy, A. and Skiera, B. (2010). The Impact of New Media on Customer Relationships. Journal of Service Research, 13(3), pp.311-330.

Reza Kiani, G. (1998). Marketing opportunities in the digital world. Internet Research, 8(2), pp.185-194.

Singh, S. and Sonnenburg, S. (2012). Brand Performances in Social Media. [online] Ac.els-cdn.com. Available at: http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1094996812000217/1-s2.0-S1094996812000217-main.pdf?_tid=b432e63a-f354-11e5-bce4-00000aab0f02&acdnat=1458998263_1d19716a14eb790d5ac59e92e062ae1b [Accessed 16 Mar. 2016].

The Economist. (2015). A brand new game. [online] Available at: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21662543-people-spend-more-time-social-media-advertisers-are-following-them-brand-new-game [Accessed 10 Mar. 2016].

Vescovi, T. and Vernuccio, M. (2016). Branding in the Digital Age. Societa Italiana Marketing.