Brands, community

and style exploring linking

value in fashion blogging
Christofer Pihl
School of Business Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose By using the concept of style, the purpose of this paper is 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.
Keywords Social media, Fashion, Blogs, Brand community, Linking value, Style
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
To explain contemporary consumption phenomena, consumer researchers have evoked
a renaissance for the concept of community (Arnould and Thompson, 2005). One of the
main challenges has been to explain the implications of emergent communities for
consumption activities, brands and branding practices. As a way to capture the
increased number of ways in which consumers can engage in brand-centred
communications, the concept of brand community (Muniz and OGuinn, 2001) has been
proposed. Brand community represents a specialized, non-geographically bound
community, based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of
a brand (Muniz and OGuinn, 2001, p. 412). Since its introduction, works developing
this concept have covered different aspects, such as explaining how practices of value
creation can manifest within its borders (Schau et al., 2009) and also expand to reach
a global audience (Cova et al., 2007).
Cognizant of this literature stream, scholars of fashion have explored the implications
of this development in relation to fashion marketing. Kim and Jin (2006) illustrated
characteristics of virtual communities hosted by apparel retailers, arguing that this type
of community could create benefits in terms of market research and consumer
feedback. In their study of the virtual community MySpace.com, Thomas et al. (2007)
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1361-2026.htm
Received 10 October 2013
Revised 10 October 2013
Accepted 7 November 2013
Journal of Fashion Marketing and
Management
Vol. 18 No. 1, 2014
pp. 3-19
rEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1361-2026
DOI 10.1108/JFMM-10-2013-0108
3
Brands,
community
and style
presented eight recurring categories of fashion-related information discussed among
consumers who participated in this community. Based on their results, the prevalence
of consumption and brand-centred communications within forms of community was
suggested to represent a manifestation of how consumer-driven marketing increasingly is
a central component of fashion marketing and a promising field within fashion research
(also see McCormick and Livett, 2012). Among these contributions, the definition of
community often takes its point of departure from an empirically oriented setting. More
specifically, the three commonly associated attributes of community a shared
consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral responsibility among its
members (Muniz and OGuinn, 2001) have up to this point only partially been applied in
the study of consumer communities materialising within the fashion industry.
The current conceptual debate within the field of consumer research has challenged
the notion of brand community because of its suggested focal point on one brand.
This narrow definition has been argued to limit the study of consumer communities,
especially since sets of brands appear increasingly to characterise emerging consumer
communities (Ostberg, 2007). In this debate, the notion of style has been proposed as
a way of capturing consumption activities within the boundaries of consumer
communities. The concept of style has been argued to constitute the ways in which
certain consumers, or groups of consumers, assemble, modify, combine, and act
towards consumer objects and activities (Ostberg, 2011). From this perspective, style
has been understood as involving active consumption stances that are intentionally
communicated (Hebdige, 1979). Historically, style has been related to a distinctive
manner of expression in writing and speech (Ostberg, 2011), but in contemporary
times, the word has been appropriated by several marketplace discourses, and perhaps
most notably within fashion (Kjeldgaard, 2009). Taken together, the study of how
communities centred on brands emerge within the scope of the fashion industry not
only has the potential to enable the articulation of the implications for fashion
marketing, but more importantly how communities forming around sets of brands,
rather than a brand, can be explained.
By using the concept of style, the present paper aims to elaborate on the notion
of brand community. More specifically, it seeks to explore how style can function as the
linking value in communities centred on brands that emerge within the empirical
context of fashion. This is done by drawing from the findings of a netnography of an
emergent community forming among fashion bloggers and their readers in Sweden.
The study will illustrate how a community has formed around a shared interest in
style, and how different style sets have been adopted and articulated through the use
of fashion brands among community members.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. In the next section, a theoretical
positioning of varying ways to conceptualise brand community, community and style
in relation to each other is offered. The following section presents methodological
considerations and how data collection and analysis were carried out. This is followed
by a presentation of how the studied fashion blogs represent a community centred
around fashion brands, and how different styles are articulated through fashion
brands among community members. The findings are then discussed, leading to the
presentation of the studys conclusions and managerial implications.
2. Community: linking value and style
As a way to target the absence of addressing community in the field of consumer
behaviour, Muniz and OGuinn (2001) presented the concept of brand community.
4
JFMM
18,1
Compared with the more general concept of community, the specialised aspect of brand
community was argued to be its focus on a branded good or service. From the perspective
of brands, brand communities were conceptualised as participants in the brands social
construction, playing a vital role in the brands ultimate legacy. A brand community was
suggested to be characterised by three attributes commonly associated with the
conceptualisation of community: a shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and
a sense of moral responsibility among its members. Inspired by Gusfield (1978), Muniz
and OGuinn (2001) argued that a shared consciousness was to be understood as
consciousness of the intrinsic connection that members feel towards one another
(p. 413). Meanwhile, rituals and traditions were argued to represent social processes with
the main aim of reproducing and transmitting the meaning of the community, both within
and beyond the borders of the community. In the same sense, moral responsibility was
argued to consist of a sense of duty to the community from the perspective of its
members, and more specifically the underlying driving force that produces collective
action and that contributes to the cohesion of the group.
Since this work, others have studied how consumption activities that focus attention
on brands materialise in community settings. Schau et al. (2009) argued that a common
characteristic of the works addressing this issue (e.g. Kozinets, 2001; Leigh et al., 2006)
has been the focus on the idiosyncrasies of individual communities. Based on this
finding, they presented a framework for understanding generic value-creation
practices that occur among brand communities that consisted of: social network
practices, impression management practices, community engagement practices and
brand use practices. Here, brand use practices were suggested to consist of grooming,
customising and commoditising practices, where the main aim was to improve or
enhance the use of the focal brand.
These aspects of community practices have, however, not only been addressed
within the empirical analysis of brand communities and meta-analysis of generic
practices, but also in discussions that relate to the more general theoretical question of
what binds together members of communities. In this discussion, the notion of linking
value has been proposed, where goods and services are understood to be valued by
consumers through the way that they permit and support communal social interaction
(Cova, 1997). Here, the linking value of brand community has been argued to be
a branded good or service (Muniz and OGuinn, 2001). Challenging this idea, Ostberg
(2007) argued that the focus on one particular brand or activity to explain the linking
value of communities instead should be understood as a concoction of them all,
where a community also could be dependent on the external world, as the media and
sources from popular culture, for constructing its internal codes. More specifically,
Ostberg (2007) expressed that the focus on one particular brand limited the
broader study of communities, whereas community instead could be about
carefully assembling, displaying, and using various consumption objects to create
just the right ambience of being in the know (Ostberg, 2007, p. 104).
In this respect, the borders that separate community and brand community,
where brands, practices, activities or a combination of them have been used as the
point of entry for studying consumer groups, raises the question of what separates
them in contrast to what binds them together. No clear consensus seems to have been
reached up to this point. One unifying concept that has been suggested, however,
is style (Ostberg, 2007) because of styles intrinsic feature of combining, assembling
and modifying consumer objects. Put differently, style, by definition, implies that sets
of consumer objects are necessary in its creation (Hebdige, 1979).
5
Brands,
community
and style
The notion of style has been proposed as a way to differentiate subculture groups
from one another through the creation of different styles with different meanings
(Clarke, 1976; Hebdige, 1979). This way of viewing style, however, has shifted
to instead emphasising the link between style and identity, where style becomes part of
expressions of individualised identity projects (Giddens, 1991). This has consequences
for how to pinpoint style in light of the shift from regarding style as a collective identity
to one that applies to an individual. One manifestation of this development, in the
realm of market research, has been the emergence of a cool-hunting industry that aims
to quickly incorporate trends and styles arising within youth culture. As findings from
such endeavours materialise into products that become commodities in marketplaces,
struggles to express style through consumer objects have been illustrated to be
increasingly present (Kjeldgaard, 2009).
In a related literature stream, works addressing communities of consumption have
focused attention on how marketplace myths emerge as a result of consumption activities
relating to brands (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995; Kozinets, 2001; Holt, 2004).
In the perspective of endeavours to identify and commodify forms of style, struggles have
increasingly become discussed within this literature as well. More specifically, practices,
strategies and counternarratives of demythologisation aiming to create symbolic
boundaries between identity-relevant fields of consumption have been shown to threaten
the value of consumers identity projects (Arsel and Thompson, 2011). A closely related
stream of research has gone through a similar shift when using consumption (Solomon
and Englis, 1996), product and brand constellations (Solomon and Assael, 1987) as the
point of departure, where actions of anti-constellations (Hogg and Michell, 1996; Hogg,
1998), anti-consumption and brand avoidance (Lee et al., 2008) have been illustrated.
What the concepts of style and constellations illustrate is that consumers are able to
take part in a wide array of activities that include several brands thereby challenging
the idea that consumers in communities forming around brands are limited to only one
particular brand in these settings. Taken together, the concepts of consumption,
product and brand constellations, and the concept of style in a similar manner rest on
the assumption that these materialise by the use of sets of consumer objects where
struggles are an intrinsic feature in their expression. Furthermore, the notions of
constellations and style both illustrate that not only marketers but also consumers
have the ability to associate and combine brands through usage and experience,
and perhaps especially in the fashion industry (e.g. Englis and Solomon, 1994).
This paper, then, uses the concept of style to analyse the notion of community
within the empirical context of the fashion industry. Put differently, the research
question that this paper seeks to answer is formulated as how, and why, style can
function as a linking value between community members in communities centred
on brands?
3. Method
To study style as a linking value in communities centred on brands, an empirical
setting has been chosen in which discussions about fashion products and brands are
prominent. A good example of such a setting can be found within the Swedish
blogosphere, where bloggers writing about fashion have gained large readerships
among internet users. In August 2009, more than 60 Swedish fashion blogs generated
more than 10,000 visits per week (Bloggportalen, 2009). Meanwhile, ten of these
bloggers each generated more than 100,000 visits per week, or more visits than the
readerships of 87 of a total of 146 Swedish newspapers that year (Swedish Media
6
JFMM
18,1
Publishers Association, 2010). From an international perspective, the Swedish
blogosphere has distinguished itself, as its purview has become increasingly global.
One example is the elite blog network Now Manifest founded by the Swedish fashion
blogger Elin Kling, where internationally recognised fashion bloggers such as Bryan
Boy and Anna Dello Russo, editor-at-large at Japanese Vogue, post their blogs.
To analyse how style can function as a linking value between community members
of consumer communities centred on brands, a netnographic approach was applied.
As the name netnography suggests, this approach is closely related to the methods of
ethnography that can be traced back to techniques used in cultural anthropology
(Kozinets, 1998). One of the scholars closely associated with the introduction of
netnography was Kozinets (1997, 1998, 2002), who suggested how it could be used to
conduct ethnographical research online. Netnography allows the researcher to observe
or participate in consumer discussions on public web sites. One of the main usages of
this method is to study consumer behaviour of cultures and communities on the web.
In contrast to the participating approach proposed by Kozinets (1998, 2002), an
observational approach was applied, inspired by the procedures presented by Beaven
and Laws (2007; also see Langer and Beckman, 2005). More specifically, these
procedures consist of five sequential steps. First, a data set is identified. Second, time is
spent on immersing in the material to become familiar with it. Third, qualitative
textual analyses are conducted to develop a narrative. Fourth, quantitative analysis of
posts to determine typologies and the orientation of the community is conducted. In the
fifth and final step, an extreme case analysis is conducted to identify the boundaries
of the discussion within the community.
To identify a suitable data set, the Swedish blog ranking service Bloggportalen was
used, which is the largest of its kind in Sweden and reports the number of weekly visits
to a significant number of Swedish bloggers. The 20 most-frequently visited fashion
blogs were sampled in August 2009. Within the sample, two cases exhibited a large
amount of missing data and were excluded. By implementing the sequential steps
suggested by Beaven and Laws (2007), the netnography was carried out during
November 2009 to February 2010 with the main aim of identifying aspects relating to
community among fashion bloggers and their readers. The sampled material, which
was limited to blog posts published during 2009 on the sampled blogs, was
downloaded. Thereafter, each individual blog post was recorded using Excel, where
each individual blog post also was assigned a registration number. This resulted in
a data set amounting to a total of 24,708 blog posts that were manually reviewed by the
author. When features of community emerged within the material relating to the three
aspects that theoretically underpin the concept of community (Muniz and OGuinn,
2001), field note data together with copies of relevant blog posts were collected in
individual documents for each blog. These documents were used to further analyse
identified expressions related to community that was done by applying netnographic
procedures (Beaven and Laws, 2007; see also Langer and Beckman, 2005) and by
reading the material repeatedly to identify themes relating to expressions of
community on individual blogs as well as within the aggregated sample. To analyse
the connectivity of the community from the perspective of the bloggers, social network
analysis (Knoke and Yang, 2008) was applied by mapping references between fashion
bloggers, included in the sample, published in blog posts. When a blog post contained
a reference to another blogger, it was recoded for each blog individually using Excel.
After completing the analyses of features characterising the community, it became
evident that style occupied a central role in perspective to the interactions and
7
Brands,
community
and style
activities taking place between community members. Therefore, an approach to
analyse how style, not only from the perspective of interactions and activities, but also
in terms of the used consumption objects (cf. Ostberg, 2011) was needed.
To operationalise this analysis, an approach with a structured set of procedures was
developed and applied in sequential steps.
Content analysis, inspired by the sequential steps presented by Silverman (2006, p. 159),
was used to analyse how consumption objects were presented and referred to within
the material. With findings from the previously conducted analyses and the aim of this
paper in mind, consumption objects were limited to fashion brands. The content
analysis was also done with the help of Excel, by reviewing the sampled material
manually. When a fashion brand was mentioned in a blog post, the author registered
the name of the brand and the frequency. To secure a high level of reliability because
the material was reviewed by only one rater, a pilot analysis was conducted by
reviewing a sample of the collected material. The pilot analysis revealed that
abbreviations of fashion brands were present. In cases where it was evident which
fashion brand was intended, such as the abbreviation LV for Louis Vuitton,
the reference was registered. When nicknames were used, which did not explicitly refer
to a particular brand, the reference was not registered. In total, 15,891 references
were recorded.
To determine whether a fashion brand played an important role in a bloggers
individual articulation of style, the proportions of each referenced fashion brand was
calculated. This was done by dividing the number of references to a fashion brand by
the total number of references to fashion brands on each blog, thereby providing the
proportions of all individual brands on each individual blog. Thus, the aggregated
proportion of fashion brand references on each blog amounted to 100 per cent. A fashion
brand with a relatively high proportion consequently provided an indicator of the
importance that this fashion brand played in a particular bloggers articulation of style.
To identify which brands that, together, played a significant role in a bloggers
expressions of style, the most referenced fashion brands, in terms of their proportions,
were sequentially aggregated until the total proportion reached 75 per cent. This was
done by adding the fashion brand with the highest proportion on an individual blog
with the second most popular brand and so forth until the aggregated proportion
reached 75 per cent. In the following step, findings from all the individual fashion blogs
were aggregated to determine whether collective forms of style could be discerned
from within the sample. This was done with the help of three style categories that were
defined based on the number of brands that, together, constituted 75 per cent of all
brand references on the individual blogs. The range for the first style category was
defined as between one and five fashion brands, the second style category was defined
as between six and ten, and the third as 11 or more. This measurement thus
represented the diversity of brands included in bloggers different style sets, i.e., the
most commonly used consumption objects in terms of fashion brands that when
aggregated represented a significant part of a bloggers expression of style (cf. Ostberg,
2011). When the bloggers had been categorised, the brands individual blogs in the
three respective style categories included in their individual style sets were compared.
This was done in order to identify similarities and overlaps in terms of the included
fashion brands and their proportions, and thus provided a way to measure the three
aggregated groups style sets.
In summary, the methods applied followed recommended procedures relating to
netnography (Beaven and Laws, 2007; see also Langer and Beckman, 2005), social
8
JFMM
18,1
network analysis (Knoke and Yang, 2008) and content analysis (Silverman, 2006) to
assure a high level of reliability in the conducted research.
4. Blogs, community and brands
This section presents the studied community of fashion blogs and illustrations of how
aspects of community are manifested among the bloggers and their readers. Table I
provides an overview of findings from the empirical data. This section also
demonstrates how fashion bloggers have adopted different style sets by using different
fashion brands, and how these style sets are presented and discussed together with
blog readers.
4.1 Community of fashion blogs
In the sample of fashion blogs, the readerships constituted a long tail (see Andersson,
2006), whereby the three largest blogs had a relatively large readership, ranging
between 642,182 and 586,629 visits per week, compared with the remaining sample,
where activity rapidly decreased to a range of between 211,256 and 55,349 visits
per week. The fashion bloggers were aged between 16 and 39 and the median age
was 22. In January 2010, they had been operating in the blogosphere for 22-60 months.
The majority of the bloggers lived in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, while five of
them were residents in other cities outside the capital region.
A shared consciousness. Figure 1 represents how fashion bloggers referred
to each other in blog posts. In total, 3,240 references were recorded. As the
sociogram illustrates, a number of bloggers exhibit a high degree of centrality within
the network, i.e., a greater degree of opportunity to influence and be influenced
by others within the borders of the community. Additionally, relatively strong ties
between a numbers of bloggers are possible to identify, represented by thicker lines
between the nodes.
Among blog posts that contain references to other fashion bloggers, a prominent
theme consists of bloggers encouraging and complimenting each other based on
posted activities and opinions. Among these interactions, several cases were found
where the bloggers exhibit forms of shared consciousness. These expressions seem to
be particularly visible when threats emerged to the collective group of bloggers.
One example relates to investigations conducted by the Swedish Consumer Agency
and the Swedish Tax Authority targeting popular fashion bloggers. These agencies
had reason to believe that several of the bloggers were given products by firms that
wanted their products and brands mentioned in the blogs. If proven, this could
potentially violate Swedish marketing law. The bloggers involved would then be taxed
Aspect of
community
Examples
A shared
consciousness
Connectivity of fashion bloggers
An investigation of bloggers conducted by the Swedish Tax Authority and the
Swedish Consumer Agency
Rituals The practice of Q&A sessions
The annual event Blog awards
Moral
responsibility
The case of Kissie
Discussion on responsibility of popular bloggers relating to dieting and how
bloggers can influence readers
Table I.
Identified findings relating
to aspects of community
9
Brands,
community
and style
for fringe benefits on the basis of the market value of the products they reviewed.
As a result of this discussion, three bloggers together published an article about the
investigation:
Bloggers: When we, over several years, have created a loyal audience, generated credibility
among our readers that makes them want to look like us, dress like us, go where we travel,
drink what we drink, eat what we eat, bake what we bake, etc. Shall we then pay for it? [y]
We do not write about products because we make money out of it.
When studying interactions between bloggers and their readers relating to this event,
a recurrent comment among readers was encouragement and, in many cases, also
loyalty. In this context, a significant proportion of readers also expressed agreement
with the bloggers opinion and expressed dislike towards the agencies:
Reader: I also think that it is quite wrong that you and other popular bloggers should have to
pay tax for the free stuff that is being sent to you. Obviously, you do not choose yourself
whether a product is sent to you.
Other manifestations of appreciation and loyalty, from a more general point of view,
were that readers often used other popular bloggers as a point of reference where signs
of competition can be found between bloggers participating in the community. In these
cases, a particular blogger was often put into the larger context of the fashion
blogosphere, whereas one reader provides a representative example:
Reader: I have now followed your blog for about a year and I think your blog is the best of the
best. Much better than Blondinbella and all of the other ones, because you feel more genuine
compared to other popular blogs.
8
17
7
11
6
4
9
1
14
2
15
10
16
12
13
18
5
3
Figure 1.
Sociogram illustrating
how the studied fashion
bloggers refer to each
other in blog posts
10
JFMM
18,1
Rituals. Additional manifestations of a shared consciousness between bloggers and
their readers could be found among rituals and practices they are involved in together.
One commonly used practice was the question-and-answer session. These sessions are
announced via a blog post that encouraged readers to post their questions as blog
comments. When enough questions have been posted, the blogger responds in another
post. The majority of questions related to the personal and private lives of the fashion
bloggers. A considerable proportion of these questions, however, connected the
personal and private lives of bloggers with fashion trends, brands and products.
Two examples of how this practice manifested itself were found in blog posts
published during the spring months of 2009:
Reader: What clothes and shoes are you going for this spring and summer?
Stina: Denim jacket, floral tunics, denim shorts, gladiator sandals, shoulder bags and nice
stuff like that!
Blog reader: Whats your favourite store?
Desiree: If were talking clothes, I dont really know actually, most of them are OK I think.
Gina, Monki, H&M, A

hlens, Topshop, Zara. It depends on what youre looking for.

The most prominent example of an annual ritual was the Blog Awards. Since 2008,
this ceremony has been organised by the weekly magazine Veckorevyn. Popular
bloggers are nominated in categories as blog of the year, rookie of the year, and
fashionista of the year. The nominations are announced on the web and readers vote in
each category. The ceremony itself later takes place in the centre of Stockholm.
The importance of the ceremony, for both bloggers and readers, is evident in
blogger comments before and after the event. After the 2009 nominations were
published, but prior to the actual event, the majority of the nominated bloggers posted
blog entries encouraging their readers to vote for them:
Kenza: It is finally time for this years Blog Awards! It will be so much fun, and Im so excited!
You can still vote and I was going to ask you one last time to vote for me in the category
Blog of the year!
In responses to this post, most commentators described how they voted, expressed
hopes that the blogger would win the award, and in some cases reported that they had
encouraged their friends to vote. Some of the comments expressed more personal
reader thoughts, whereas one of the readers wrote the following comment:
Reader: I just have to ask you something. I will go to the awards on Saturday and will
probably see you there. Can I then come up to you and take a picture with you?
After the ceremony, the blogs were filled with reports and the bloggers comments
about what it meant to win a prize, including expressions of excitement and
encouragement among each other. The bloggers also expressed and emphasised the
role of their readers, and how they felt grateful for the received reader support:
Lisa: It was an incredible shock and an absolutely fantastic feeling to win in the category
Fashionista of the year at Cafe Opera at the Blog Awards last night! I just want to tell you
how happy and grateful it makes me feel that you voted for me. Shit, Im teary-eyed.
Thank you for being so wonderful, and to the ones who came out and greeted me inside the
Luftkastellet yesterday!
Moral responsibility. The fashion bloggers also write about how they regard their individual
and collective roles in a moral sense. A common theme, one that draws significant attention
from both bloggers and their readers, is the responsibility of bloggers to the community.
11
Brands,
community
and style
In one instance, a discussion regarding dieting emerged on several of the blogs.
One blogger wrote about how she planned to undergo cosmetic surgery.
Previously, she had written about a lip enlargement treatment. However, she felt the
need to continue to change her physical appearance by also getting breast
enlargement surgery. As she wrote about her plans, and how she longed for her 18th
birthday when she could undergo the surgery, other bloggers and their readers
commented on her plans, expressing both encouragement as well as dislike. This led to
a broader discussion among bloggers and readers regarding physical changes. In this
discussion, one of the bloggers offered an example of this commentary in answering
a reader question:
Reader: What do you think of popular bloggers who nag about dieting?
Amir: At first, I did not care but when I read on several blogs that people actually become
depressed and get eating disorders from all the crap that is written I get sad. If you have
a popular blog, it automatically means that you have a kind of responsibility that I think you
should take seriously. It is an honour to be able to influence people, but some bloggers totally
abuse this opportunity.
Parallel to this discussion, more general discussions about responsibility were a frequently
recurring theme. Bloggers refer both to their individual role as well as to the role of the
collective group of bloggers. One blogger provides an example of this:
Amir: If there is one thing we popular bloggers are good at, it is accepting things. I have never
heard any of us [the bloggers] complain about you readers. You are always the worlds cutest,
but can you put yourself in a situation where you are sitting in a restaurant with your family
[y] and there are 3-4 people around you, staring, whispering, pointing, etc. [y] stressful
huh? And yes, I know you think, God, he thinks he is a celebrity but this is the way it
actually is. We popular bloggers are a reality show that is broadcast live around the clock
every day of the year.
In another example illustrating the collective identity of bloggers, one blogger used this
identity to distance herself, while also indicating that responsibility connected to this
collective identity was problematic:
Stina: Im tired of being a so-called big blogger and, subsequently, I will keep writing on
a hobby basis. I will not stop completely but still want to draw your attention to my thoughts
on this issue, and how it all looks right now. It is time for me to move on to something new,
and it feels fantastic.
This blog post was followed by hundreds of readers comments, where a significant
proportion of the readers expressed how much this blogger had meant to them.
One example illustrates both appreciation and loyalty, but more importantly the close
relation that this particular reader has had with this blogger:
Reader: I was just reading through all the comments and your post many, many times and
now I finally get it. I understand how much you really have meant for your blog readers,
where I definitely am included.
4.2 Fashion brands and style sets
Based on the content analysis conducted, the 18 blogs together published 15,891
references to fashion brands during 2009. Table II presents the ten most referenced
fashion brands. These references represent 34.5 per cent of the total number of fashion
brand references among the 18 blogs. Both Swedish and international brands,
mass-produced as well as high-end fashion brands, are included.
12
JFMM
18,1
The brands presented in Table II were also found among the most referenced brands
when studying the individual blogs. When analysing expressions of style and
brands included in the bloggers style sets among the aggregated sample, groups of
bloggers share similar characteristics in terms of the brands they choose to include.
These groups aggregated style sets, with their associated fashion brands and diversity
of brands, are presented in Table III.
The first style set mainly takes its point of departure from mass-produced fashion
products such as H&M, Gina Tricot and Zara. However, what can also be found within
this category are brands that were highly popular among the Swedish youth such as
Converse, Fjallraven and Canada Goose. This category includes eight bloggers aged
between 16 and 25, with three of them are under 18.
The second style set also includes mass-produced fashion products. However, this
style set is more diverse, and includes brands such as Jofama by Kenza and Classified.
Jofama by Kenza is a fashion collection designed by one of the studied bloggers for
a Swedish leather design producer. Classified is a fashion collection owned and
launched by another of the studied fashion bloggers. This category consists of four
bloggers aged between 18 and 35.
The third style set mixes mass-produced fashion brands, such as H&M, Topshop
and Zara, with brands that were in the forefront of fashion during the studied
year Acne, Alexander Wang and Whyred. This style set also exhibits the highest
degree of diversity in the number of included brands. Found within it are luxury
fashion brands such as Chanel, Balenciaga and Hermes. This category consists of five
bloggers aged between 20 and 31.
A shared characteristic of all three style sets is the emphasis on mass-produced
fashion. However, when the diversity of fashion brands increases, the space for
self-produced fashion by the bloggers and front-line fashion and luxury fashion also
increases. Thus, the fashion bloggers exhibit a relatively high degree of heterogeneity
relating to how their styles are constructed and articulated.
In contrast to the observed heterogeneity relating to different style expressions, the
bloggers have created a number of activities to present and communicate their sense of
style to their readers, which was a common feature of the reviewed blogs. One of the
most popular activities consisted of publishing todays outfit. Its purpose is to
present garments, shoes and accessories that the bloggers are wearing on a certain day.
A text presents the brands behind certain products, while photos show how individual
brands are assembled and combined. One example can be found on one of the fashion
Fashion brand Number of references
H&M 1,265
Acne 923
Topshop 610
Zara 546
Gina Tricot 487
Chanel 414
Alexander Wang 404
Whyred 356
Converse 245
Balenciaga 236
Total 5486
Table II.
The ten most referred
fashion brands of 2009
by Swedish market-
leading fashion bloggers
13
Brands,
community
and style
blogs included in the second style set, published in a blog post during September 2009.
In this blog post, four pictures of the fashion blogger were presented together with
a short text:
Kenza: Today, I used my new mens shirt from Lee for the first time! I bought it at JC. Under
the shirt, I had a black dress from American Apparel and ribbed tights. The boots are from
Topshop, the leather jacket is from Jofama by Kenza and the bag is from Miu Miu.
Among the published comments, most readers admired the chosen outfit, while two of
the 128 comments were, you really have a nice sense of style and I love the boots!
I actually have a similar pair. This represents an example of the general way in which
todays outfit posts are received by readers, which often include discussions about
products, brands and styles. It also provides yet another illustration of the importance
that aspects of style have among community members.
5. Style as a linking value
The fashion bloggers and their readers represent several manifestations of how they,
together, are part of a community. More specifically, consciousness of a kind is
Style set 1 Style set 2 Style set 3
Fashion brand References Fashion brand References Fashion brand References
H&M 251 H&M 281 Acne 766
Gina Tricot 236 Zara 163 H&M 628
Bik Bok 50 Topshop 147 Topshop 377
Zara 46 Gina Tricot 92 Alexander Wang 335
Converse 42 Jofama by Kenza 84 Chanel 317
Fjallraven 41 Converse 65 Zara 285
Canada Goose 35 DNA 55 Whyred 250
American Apparel 33 Elise Ryan 52 Balenciaga 219
Weekday 32 Classified 49 Hermes 188
Monki 26 Gucci 48 YSL 188
Ed Hardy 24 Marc Jacobs 48 Lanvin 176
Vila 18 Miu Miu 43 Dagmar 155
Adidas 16 Dinsko 29 Converse 124
Topshop 15 Whyred 29 Marc Jacobs 106
Total 865 Minimarket 28 Sonia Rykiel 105
YSL 28 Rodebjer 101
Bik Bok 27 Gina Tricot 100
Forever 21 27 Monki 95
Odd Molly 21 Day Birger & Mikkelsen 92
Chanel 17 Helmut Lang 91
Louis Vuitton 15 American Apparel 88
Mulberry 15 Margiela 88
Nike 15 Balmain 86
Christian Louboutin 11 Filippa K 79
Total 1,389 Dolce and Gabbana 75
Vagabond 69
Blank 64
SMOOPH 58
Mulberry 57
Malene Birger 51
Total 6,118
Table III.
Aggregated style sets
among the studied group
of fashion bloggers, and
the most referred fashion
brands for each category
14
JFMM
18,1
illustrated through the practices of todays outfit and Q&A sessions, but also in
terms of the annual ritual Blog Awards and the presented discussions regarding the
moral reasonability of community members. The border surrounding the community
is, however, an aspect that is characterised by blurriness. Among the bloggers
themselves, aspects such as connectivity and the examples of collective actions
demonstrates how community is present. From the perspective of blog readers,
however, this issue becomes more complex. Readers who participate actively in the
blogs production by posting comments, and thereby interact both with the bloggers
but also other readers, can be considered to be community members. However, readers
who do not interact but still read the blogs might consider themselves to be either part
of the community or regard themselves as outside observers. Even though it is hard to
make a clear distinction, the large readership provides an indication of the potential
size of the community. Taken together, these findings suggest that the borders of
communities focused on brands emerging in the context of fashion potentially may be
less fixed in their nature.
With regard to the conceptualisation of brand community (Muniz and OGuinn, 2001),
the fashion blog community is strongly characterised by the wide variety of
consumption objects in terms of fashion brands and fashion products that are presented
and discussed. These findings support the criticism of the idea that communities centred
on brands are limited and focused around one particular brand (cf. Ostberg, 2007).
Instead, the fashion blog community is highly characterised by the different sorts of
fashion-related information concerning different consumption objects being discussed
among community members, even though some objects occupy a more central role in
these discussions. The community thus provides yet another illustration of the diverse
nature of communities to be found in the context of fashion, relating to previous
observations (e.g. Thomas et al., 2007, see also McCormick and Livett, 2012).
From the perspective of how brands materialise in the fashion blog community,
features such as todays outfit provide indications of the generic value-creation
practices presented by Schau et al. (2009). However, what this community illustrates is
that one particular set of practices seems to have a greater importance in this setting,
namely brand use practices. The findings show that these practices are not only about
improving or enhancing the use of a focal brand, but rather on how an excess of
available brands can be assembled and combined into different style sets. In this
community setting, brands first seem to become relevant when they are assembled and
combined. Thus, these consumption objects are not only part of practices relating to
brand use, but act as facilitators of communal social interaction due to community
members shared interest in fashion and style. When comparing the three different
style sets with the connectivity of fashion bloggers as illustrated in the sociogram,
it also appears that bloggers who share a higher degree of connectivity also share
similar expressions of style. Thus, these findings illustrate how expressions of style
constitute a central feature in the construction of linking value for community
members in this setting.
When different styles are published, the bloggers present active consumption
stances that are later discussed with readers. In light of the active participation by
often hundreds of readers, style as embedding active consumption stances as argued
by Hebdige (1979) plays a prominent role both for bloggers and readers.
Todays outfit is not only a style statement, but provides inspiration, help and
guidance regarding fashion from the perspective of the readers. Thus, fashion bloggers
accompany their readers into the world of fashion and help them to acquire knowledge
15
Brands,
community
and style
and perspectives on trends and what is fashionable at a certain time. Even though the
readers play an important role by legitimising the bloggers sense of style, the bloggers
have a prominent role in this relationship. A suitable metaphor is that the fashion
bloggers could be regarded as the conductors of discussions on style and consumption
objects in terms of fashion products and brands, linking both fashion bloggers and
readers, but also the readers themselves.
In light of these findings, one implication of the identified linking value in this form
of community relates to the relevance of the brand community concept. In the case
studied, a more suitable epithet might instead be community of style where one of the
central activities concerns the handling of an excess of available products and brands
that result in style sets. Style sets produced in the community of style can also be
argued to be related to the concepts of consumption, product and brand constellations
(cf. Solomon and Assael, 1987), as communities of style offers a platform where
consumers create, discuss and reveal how they perceive that brands can be combined
to create favourable expressions of style in line with current trends.
Another aspect of the identified linking value relates to how the fashion blog
community can be understood in relation to the conceptual shift of style, from being
collective to individual (Giddens, 1991). The fashion bloggers personal style has
a prominent role within the community as the bloggers communicate their
consumption stances to their large readerships. By doing so, however, they make
their style accessible to readers who participate in the blog, but also for readers who
might regard themselves as outside observers of the community. This setting thus
provides excellent conditions for the diffusion of the style. In this context, style may
initially be an individual expression of the bloggers but transforms into a collective
expression as it is embraced by the wider community. One manifestation of how this
has become utilised by the bloggers is that two of them have designed their own
fashion collections. These brands have not only been embraced by the blogger,
as illustrated in the style sets, but also among readers, as illustrated in the example of
todays outfit. This development demonstrates a will to not only communicate
a particular style, but also to actively attempt to facilitate the diffusion of fashion
brands and style within the borders of the community. In relation to the conflicts and
struggles of expressions of style (Kjeldgaard, 2009), and the symbolic boundaries
between identity-relevant fields of consumption (Arsel and Thompson, 2011),
these aspect therefore seem to be of minor importance in this context.
6. Conclusion and managerial implications
By using the concept of style, this paper elaborates on the notion of brand community
and has illustrated how, and why, style can function as a linking value for consumer
communities centred on brands. Relating to the conceptual discussion about what
brings community members together, the netnographic study of Swedish fashion blogs
tentatively depicts how the notion of a community of style can be used to explain
consumer communities emerging in the setting of fashion and social media.
In communities of style, consumption objects most notably fashion brands and
products are assembled and combined into different style sets that are articulated
and expressed through practices that support communal social action among
community members.
Based on this study, several managerial implications can be identified. In relation to
the traditional conceptualisation of a brand community, where consumers devote
themselves to one particular brand, this notion implies that the process of identifying
16
JFMM
18,1
consumer groups participating in such expressions may be a relatively easy
process from the perspective of brand managers. What this study illustrates,
however, is that the notion of brand communities becomes defragmented as brands
and products are combined into different style sets in the context of communities of
style. The presence of a multiplicity of sets of brands represents new challenges for
brand managers, as focal brands become part of style sets, as well as consumption,
product and brand constellations that are created, negotiated and communicated.
Communities of style can give insights into how target consumer groups create and
perceive these constellations, but can also create constellations which, from the
perspective of a company, might be unfavourable. This shows that the rise of
communities of style can shift the power over brand meaning, in particular when
considering the wide readerships and numbers of references to products and brands
that fill the discussions taking place in the studied community of style. In parallel, the
dual relationship between the individual and collective aspects of style diffusion in
the setting of communities of style suggest that styles favoured by community
members might potentially enhance the attractiveness of focal brands. This suggests
that the shifted power over brand meaning does not necessarily constitute solely
a threat to fashion producers, but also a platform for generating consumption
opportunities or increased sales as consumers themselves market products
and brands that suit their expressions of style. Taken together, strategies for managing
communities of style represent a potential source of competitive advantage for fashion
firms that successfully find approaches to manage this new consumer-dominated
information platform.
This study has provided a first attempt at explaining how style can function as
a linking value in communities centred on brands in the context of fashion. As it has
been empirically limited to a Swedish setting, future research would benefit from
the findings of international expressions of communities of style, targeting an
international audience. This would allow for more detailed studies of the potential
reach of these communities, and how a community of style can be explained in relation
to the international fashion industry.
References
Andersson, C. (2006), The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand,
Random House Business, London.
Arnould, E.J. and Thompson, C.J. (2005), Consumer Culture Theory (CCT): twenty years of
research, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 868-882.
Arsel, Z. and Thompson, C.J. (2011), Demythologizing consumption practices: how consumers
protect their field-dependent identity investments from devaluing marketplace myths,
Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37 No. 5, pp. 791-806.
Beaven, Z. and Laws, C. (2007), Never let me down again: loyal customer attitudes towards
ticket distribution channels for live music events: a netnographic exploration of the
US leg of the Depeche Mode 2005-2006 World Tour, Managing Leisure, Vol. 12 Nos 2-3,
pp. 120-142.
Bloggportalen (2009), Most visited blogs in the category fashion and design, available at:
http://bloggportalen.aftonbladet.se/BlogPortal/view/TopLists?tl1&categoryId18
(accessed 29 August 2009).
Clarke, J. (1976), Style, in Hall, S. and Jefferson, T. (Eds), Resistance Through Rituals: Youth
Subcultures in Post-War Britain, Hutchinson for the Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies, University of Birmingham, London.
17
Brands,
community
and style
Cova, B. (1997), Community and consumption: towards a definition of the linking value
of product or services, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 31 Nos 3-4, pp. 297-316.
Cova, B., Pace, S. and Park, D. (2007), Global brand communities across borders: the
Warhammer case, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 313-329.
Englis, B.G. and Solomon, M.R. (1994), The big picture: product complementarity and integrated
communications, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 57-63.
Giddens, A. (1991), Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age,
Policy Press, Cambridge.
Gusfield, J. (1978), Community: A Critical Response, Harper and Row, New York, NY.
Hebdige, D. (1979), Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Methuen & Co Ltd, London.
Hogg, M. (1998), Anti-constellations: exploring the impact of negation on consumption,
Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 14 Nos 3-4, pp. 133-158.
Hogg, M. and Michell, P.C.N. (1996), Identity, self and consumption: a conceptual framework,
Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 12 No. 7, pp. 629-644.
Holt, D. (2004), How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding, Harvard
Business School Press, Boston, MA.
Kim, H. and Jin, B. (2006), Exploratory study of virtual communities of apparel retailers,
Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 41-55.
Kjeldgaard, D. (2009), The meaning of style? Style reflexivity among Danish high school
youths, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Vol. 8 Nos 2-3, pp. 71-83.
Knoke, D. and Yang, S. (2008), Social Network Analysis, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Kozinets, R.V. (1997), I want to believe: a netnography of the X-philes subculture of
consumption, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 470-475.
Kozinets, R.V. (1998), On netnography: initial reflections on consumer research investigations of
cyberculture, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 366-371.
Kozinets, R.V. (2001), Utopian enterprise: articulating the meaning of star treks culture of
consumption, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 67-89.
Kozinets, R.V. (2002), The field behind the screen: using netnography for marketing
research in online communities, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 39 No. 1,
pp. 61-72.
Langer, R. and Beckman, S.C. (2005), Sensitive research topics: netnography revisited,
Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 189-203.
Lee, M.S.W., Motion, J. and Conroy, D. (2008), Anti-consumption and brand avoidance,
Journal of Business Research, Vol. 62 No. 2, pp. 169-180.
Leigh, T.W., Peters, C. and Shelton, J. (2006), The consumer quest for authenticity: the
multiplicity of meanings within the MG subculture of consumption, Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 481-493.
McCormick, H. and Livett, C. (2012), Analysing the influence of the presentation of fashion
garments on young consumers online behaviour, Journal of Fashion Marketing and
Management, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 21-41.
Muniz, A.M. Jr and OGuinn, T.C. (2001), Brand community, Journal of Consumer Research,
Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 412-432.
Ostberg, J (2007), The linking value of subcultural capital: constructing the Stockholm brat
enclave, in Cova, B., Kozinets, R.V. and Shankar, A. (Eds), Consumer Tribes, Elsevier/
Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, pp. 93-106.
Ostberg, J. (2011), Style, Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks,
CA, available at: http://sage-ereference.com/view/consumerculture/n520.xml (accessed 10
January 2012).
18
JFMM
18,1
Schau, H.J., Muniz, A.M. Jr and Arnould, E.J. (2009), How brand community practices create
value, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 73 No. 5, pp. 30-51.
Schouten, J.W. and McAlexander, J.H. (1995), Subcultures of consumption: an ethnography of the
new bikers, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 43-61.
Silverman, D. (2006), Interpreting Qualitative Data, 3rd ed., SAGE Publications, London.
Solomon, M.R. and Assael, H. (1987), The forest or the trees?: A gestalt approach to symbolic
consumption, in Umiker-Sebeok, D.J. (Ed.), Marketing and Semiotics: New Directions in the
Study of Signs for Sale, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 189-218.
Solomon, M.R. and Englis, B.G. (1996), Consumption constellations: implications for integrated
communication strategies, in Moore, J. and Thorson, E. (Eds), Integrated Communication:
Synergy of Persuasive Voices, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 65-86.
Swedish Media Association (2010), Mediatool, available at: http://verktyg.dagspress.se/
foundationNewspaper (accessed 28 February 2010).
Thomas, J.B., Peters, C.O. and Tolson, H. (2007), An exploratory investigation of the virtual
community MySpace.com, what are consumers saying about fashion?, Journal of Fashion
Marketing and Management, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 587-603.
About the author
Christofer Pihl is a Doctoral Candidate of Business Administration at the Stockholm University
School of Business, Stockholm, Sweden. His research interest is focused on disruptive technology
and its implications for marketing practices. Christofer Pihl can be contacted at: cpi@fek.su.se
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com
Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
19
Brands,
community
and style