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- Future, related to when the commenters describe how they are looking forward to the future or future collections
- Collection, related to when the commenters comment on the collection.
The discourses the author found to be dominating discourses in terms of meaning appropriation were the paper, collection and match discourse. The following section will describe the meaning appropriation by means of the dominating discourses and examples from these.
46 Comment by Celine: “Wahooooooooou GARANCE!
Congratulations it's great! What a journey .... Eager to see, touch and feel (I love the smell of paper, paper mills, books ...) these beautiful papers!(EMPHASIZE)
Have fun in Paris xxx c.http://www.joon-eu.com (type of text: comment; tone of voice: positive; topic: paper)
“(Appendix 5, Post 1, translated text).
This commenter ascribes symbolic meanings to the co-brand by describing her own situation and thus her expectations for the experience with paper. Thus, she attributes that the cobrand is a 'tactile experience', in the sense that paper is a thing to experience. In this way she appropriates symbolic meaning to the brand, by describing how paper is something to 'see', 'touch', 'feel' and 'smell'. Therefore, we can clearly observe a high meaning appropriation to the collection in this comment.
All in all, the author found that the paper discourse was very dominating within the blog posts and that they had high meaning appropriation. Furthermore, the paper discourse all had different angles in regards to the paper, but all with high symbolic meaning appropriation to the co-brand.
Collection
The following section concerns the commenters, which focused primarily on the collection discourse. These commenters focused on the aesthetics of the collection more than other elements of the co-created brand.
Comment by Alexandra: “Your collection looks top, pretty, elegant, refined, unusual and immortal bravo! (EMPHASIZE) I love maps, calendars, notebooks collectibles on a shelf. Thank you for giving us such a beautiful collection. Look forward to me appropriate! (type of text: comment; tone of voice: positive;
topic: the collection)” (Appendix 5, Post 1)
The commenter appropriates the meanings by describing the aesthetics of the collection: 'pretty', 'elegant', 'refined', 'unusual' and 'immortal. Furthermore, the commenter considers the collection to be GD´s creation, as also mentioned by her in blog post 1. The collection discourse thus had a high meaning appropriation, where the commenters emphasized how they see the collection’s aesthetics. By means of written brand manifestations, the stakeholders express the way they see the see the co-created brand and hereby also create the co-brand.
Match
The match discourse concerns how the two brands GD and RPC. match within this co-created brand. In general, the commenters describe the match by attributing personalities to the two brands, as below, in order to describe how the brands match in the same way that a couple would match each other.
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Comment by IA: “Congrats!! Both RIFLE and you have such distinctively personal and beautiful illustrations – a match made in stationary heaven! (EMPHASIZE) (type of text: comment; tone of voice:
positive; topic: Rifle, Garance and their match)” (Appendix 5, post 1)
The comment shows the mechanism described above, where the match between the two brands is described as a match between personalities. She then appropriates meaning to both brands and the co-brand, by denoting that they have ‘beautiful illustrations’. The commenter then continues to describe it as ‘a match made in stationery heaven’, indicating that both brands are the top of the class by denoting that they are
‘heavenly’. By means of the match discourse, the commenter also affirms that she finds the co-created brand matches within her preconceptions about the two brands, that is the symbolic meanings she finds apply to the brands. Overall, the author found that the match discourse was dominated by the affirmation of how the co-created brand is a good combination of the two brands.
A.iii. Type of brand stakeholders
The following section will deal with the type of brand stakeholders. An important element of the framwork developed by the author is the different type of stakeholders, which belong to the different brands: Brand A (GD), Brand B (RPC.) and Brand C (Rifle Paper Co. presents Garance Doré). The author found in the data material, that commenters expressed their affiliation both with the singular brands and with two or three of the brands. Therefore the following examples will highlight how the commenters express their stakeholder group affiliation with Brand A, Brand B, and Brand C. The categorization as to which brand the commenters belonged, depended on how they discursively positioned the brands. Thus, if the commenter described one brand as their favourite or did not mention the other two brands, the author categorises these as belonging the specific brands. In the comments where more brands were mentioned, the author individually assessed the comments and determined which brands was spoken about more positive than the other was. The in-depth discourse analysis can be found in Appendix 5.
Garance Doré stakeholders
The GD stakeholders are an interesting group, not only because they are primarily fans, the stakeholders affiliated with GD, but also because they appropriate meanings to the co-brand meanwhile expressing their stakeholder group affiliation.
The context for this comment is post 2 named ‘The Goods’ (Doré, The Goods, 2014). The post is very short and describes shortly how the studio is working towards the event Open Studio the day after the post and the release of the online shop GD goods.
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Comment by JW: “Very nice site GARANCE. The selection is in your image: chic, glamorous Parisian!
:) (type of text: comment; tone of voice: positive; topic: Garance Doré)” (Appendix 5, Post 2, translated text).
Here, we can observe a GD brand stakeholder group affiliate. The commenter mentions GD and thus does not mention RPC. Furthermore the commenter describes how the selection, implicitly expressing that it is created by GD, is in her image. She then continues to attribute the following symbolic meanings to GD and also the co-brand: 'chic', 'glamorous' and 'parisian'.
Rifle Paper Co.
The RPC stakeholder group is, according to the data collected, smaller than he GD stakeholder group. The commenter utilize their affiliation declaration to appropriate symbolic meanings, just like the GD
stakeholders.
Comment by Madame N: “Wonderful! I love RIFLE stationary and have a whole box of their paper and greetings cards at home for special occasions! (EMPHASIZE) Look forward to seeing your
collaboration online and hopefully being able to purchase it in the UK (EMPHASIZE). It is a real inspiration to hear someone who has made it happen for themselves simply by asking! Congrats. (type of text: comment; tone of voice: positive; topic: Rifle Paper Company and sales outlets)” (Appendix 5, Post 1)
First of all, the we can see how the commenter describes her affiliation with the RPC stakeholder group by writing “I LOVE RIFLE”, emphasizing love herself in capitals. The commenter assigns symbolic meanings to the co-brand by mentioning her relationship with RPC, by telling the story of how she has a whole box of RPC greeting cards just waiting for special occasions, she discursively positions the brand as 'a special card for special occasion' and as something ‘to collect’ and ‘save’. Furthermore, the commenter also stresses the collaboration element
Both stakeholder groups
The last group of stakeholders is the stakeholders, who express affiliation with both brands equally in their comment. The following comment is an example of this, and furthermore it is an example of the match discourse presented earlier. The context in which the comment was made is the same as described in the paper discourse section for post 1.
Comment by NIAMH: “Wonderful news –congratulations! I love RIFLE and love GARANCE DORÉ, so it sounds like a perfect combination to me! (type of text: comment; tone of voice: positive; topic: the combination of Rifle Paper Company and Garance Doré)” (Appendix 5, Post 1)
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The commenter clearly expresses her affiliation by saying that she loves RPC and D. Hereafter the
commenter expresses her version of the match discourse, by describing how it is perfection combination in her eyes. Compared to the other brand stakeholder comments, this stakeholder does not describe the brands further and therefore does not appropriate any symbolic meanings to the co-brand. Overall, the author found that there were three distinctive brand stakeholder groups, who clearly expressed their affiliation with their stakeholder group.
B. Conclusion
The author finds, based on the analysis that on the GD blog there was a high meaning appropriation compared to the two other cases presented in this thesis. The symbolic meaning appropriation was high, because the commenter used many adjectives to describe their relationship with paper and stationery, the aesthetics of the collection and the match between the two brands. The meaning appropriation applied to all three brands, but not necessarily within the same comments.
Meaning is appropriated primarily via storytelling from the commenter’s own lives. This creates a meaning appropriation which is very individual and focused on the individual experience, rather than the collective experience of the co-brand. Therefore, there may be dominating discourses, but they do not share the same words or expressions except from those presented by the blogger in the blog post.
The analysis of the stakeholder affiliation group presented a clear picture of three distinct stakeholder groups. The majority expressed their affiliation with the GD brand, which the author would naturally expect as the platform on which the co-created brand is communicated is on GD’s blog.
The author finds that there was a clear stakeholder-driven development of the co-created brand. Thus, following the model developed by the author, the GD case is a clear example of how the stakeholder co-create the co-co-created brand, by means of using their own symbolic meanings and applying these to the discourses they themselves create or latch onto during the evolving interaction on the blog.