| 1. |
- Pihl, Christofer
(författare)
-
Brands, community and style : exploring linking value in fashion blogging
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1361-2026 .- 1758-7433. ; 18:1, s. 3-19
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose – By using the concept of style, this article aims to elaborate on the notion of brand community. More specifically, it seeks to explore how style can function as a linking value in forms of communities centred on brands that emerge within the empirical context of fashion and social media.Design/methodology/approach - A netnography of the content produced by 18 fashion bloggers in Sweden was conducted. Content analysis of this material was used to map how consumption objects, in terms of fashion brands, were integrated in activities taking place on blogs, and through these processes, acted as a linking value for community members.Findings – This paper demonstrates how fashion bloggers, together with their readers, constitute a form of community centred on style. It also shows how fashion bloggers, by combining and assembling fashion brands and products, articulate and express different style sets, and how they, together with their followers, engage in activities connected to these style ideals.Research limitations/implications - As this study has been empirically limited to a Swedish setting, future research would benefit from findings of international expressions of communities of style.Practical implications - Based on this study, strategies for managing communities of style is suggested to represent a potential source of competitive advantage for fashion firms.Originality/value – In the context of the conceptual discussion about what brings members of communities together, this study provides evidence of how style can function as a linking value in the setting of consumer communities that emerge within the boundaries of fashion and social media.
|
|
| 2. |
- Pihl, Christofer, et al.
(författare)
-
Consumer brand involvement and engagement in user-generated content : an explorative study of Swedish fashion brands in social media
- 2013
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The rise of social media and user-generated content (UGC) has created new challenges for the theoreti-cal understanding of consumer brand involvement and engagement. As a result, a plethora of works suggesting how firms can foster close relationships with consumers in the digital media landscape has been presented. The present paper aims to add to this literature by exploring how different indications of consumer brand involvement and engagement can be spotted in the setting of in UGC. This is done by studying how ten Swedish fashion brands have been portrayed within different forms of social media. Data collection was conducted by using a social media analytics tool developed for the Swedish market, covering a sampled material of 38,696 user-generated contents. The findings of this paper illustrates that levels of brand involvement and engagement fluctuates considerably over time, also depending on the form of social media in which UGC is produced and the size of the firm in question. Moreover, the study shows how professional firms in the fashion industry have embraced UGC by starting to take part in its production. In contrast to previous works suggesting how consumer brand involvement and engagement is characterising by a stable and enduring nature, this paper conclude by arguing that these concepts in the setting of UGC and the fashion industry is characterised by constant change.
|
|
| 3. |
|
|
| 4. |
|
|
| 5. |
- Pihl, Christofer
(författare)
-
In the borderland between personal and corporate brands : the case of professional bloggers
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Journal of Global Fashion Marketing. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2093-2685 .- 2325-4483. ; 4:2, s. 112-127
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A common feature of studies in the fields of personal branding and self-marketing has been the use of a labour market setting as their point of departure. As a result, studies have identified several challenges in the borderland between personal brands and corporate brands. However, more knowledge is needed concerning personal branding in an entrepreneurial context. This article seeks to explain how personal brands materialise in a process in which individuals engage in entrepreneurial ventures over time. Studying three professional bloggers in Sweden, the paper shows how these individuals have all engaged in personal branding efforts and, over the years, have become entrepreneurs operating several business ventures. This article shows how personal branding efforts can generate competitive advantages for individuals undertaking entrepreneurial ventures. Furthermore, it argues why conditions for individuals to engage in personal branding might be more favourable in an entrepreneurial context than in a labour market setting.
|
|
| 6. |
|
|
| 7. |
- Pihl, Christofer
(författare)
-
Marketing fads and fashions - exploring digital marketing practices and emerging organisational fields
- 2011
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The use of social media such as blogs has grown remarkably in Sweden during recent years. The largest segment of blogs consists of fashion blogs, i.e. blogs that focus on fashion brands, fashion products and fashion e-commerce. Using a netnographic approach, the purpose of this thesis is to analyse the emergence of the fashion blogging phenomenon, and how commercial actors operate in the realm of the fashion blogger. Drawing upon a systemic perspective on fashion, new institutional theory is used in order to study how institutional entrepreneurship can be applied as a way of studying changes within the fashion system. Here, the research question consists of answering how prosumption activities can become involved in the creation of institutionalised fields and create opportunities for institutional entrepreneurship? The thesis illustrates how consumers, by using new technology, have become able to create distribution channels for communicating fashion information which in many ways competes with traditional fashion journalism. Through the practice of blogging, bloggers take part in the construction of fashion by influencing the diffusion of new trends throughout the fashion system. It shows how consumers are able, by engaging in prosumption activities, to exert a high degree of influence and act as institutional entrepreneurs. Here, it can be argued that the social practices created by influential fashion bloggers have provided the key element from which the value creation processes of the organisational field take their point of departure. Consumers and prosumers have thus played a pivotal role in creating new channels for fashion marketing.
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Pihl, Christofer, et al.
(författare)
-
Value creation and appropriation in social media : the case of fashion bloggers in Sweden
- 2013
-
Ingår i: International Journal of Technology Management. - : InderScience Publishers. - 0267-5730 .- 1741-5276. ; 61:3/4, s. 309-323
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores and explains the emergence of commercial blogging. Studying the contents of 18 of Sweden's top fashion blogs, our findings suggest that bloggers create value by generating improved transaction efficiencies. Fashion bloggers have high credibility and thus facilitate the flow of consumer information and choice. The blogs present a combination of private and commercial content, thereby creating a customer intimacy that differentiates them from more traditional market channels. The value of these relationships is appropriated partly through advertisements and partly from other sources of revenue, such as the creation of brands and online stores. Bloggers have become powerful intermediaries who often have a better contact with end consumers than fashion firms. This paper therefore suggests that management of the blogosphere is an emerging source of competitive advantage for fashion firms.
|
|
| 10. |
- Pihl, Christofer
(författare)
-
When customers create the ad and sell it : a value network approach
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Journal of Global Academy of Marketing Science. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1229-7119. ; 23:2, s. 127-143
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Within marketing research, the notion of “vigilante marketers” has been offered to describe consumers' increased participation in the production of marketing messages and processes of value co-creation. Using a value network approach, the purpose of this study is to explain the role of vigilante marketers in their interaction with firms seeking to impose managerial control and influence processes of co-creation of brand values. A netnography of the content produced by 18 market-leading fashion bloggers in Sweden was conducted during 2009. This study revealed that these fashion bloggers are part of an emergent value network and have realised the value that they co-create for brands using various forms of vigilante marketing. The findings presented in this paper challenge the notion of vigilante marketing as an independent and unpaid activity, illustrating how a value network approach can facilitate the study of the borderlands emerging between consumers and producers.
|
|
