Storygiving as a co-creation tool for luxury brands in the age of the internet: a love story by Tiffany and thousands of lovers

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to introduce the concept of storygiving as a co-creation tool and provides a guideline for its successful use by luxury brand managers. Design/methodology/approach A study of Tiffany and Co.’s social media-based site and its use of stories as co-created marketing content provides us with managerial strategies applicable to luxury brands in general. The authors emphasize how luxury brands deal with co-created brand images compared to mainstream brands. Findings Storygiving enables consumers to share their personal experiences through narratives and provides contextualized connections among community members through shared experiences. One successful example of storygiving is Tiffany & Co.’s ‘What Makes Love True’ campaign. Research limitations/implications Only one luxury brand was used in this case study of online co-creation and storygiving. Further research, especially comparative case studies, would expand understanding of brand image management in the age of social media and consumer empowerment. Practical implications This paper presents a strategic guideline for luxury brand managers highlighting a customer-centric insight into ways luxury brands can develop marketing strategies incorporating co-creation. Originality/value To differentiate it from storytelling, the co-creation of brand stories through consumer-generated content is known as storygiving. The use of social media marketing in the process of storygiving is a powerful tool for luxury brands. The changed narrative from the brand’s point of view to that of the brand’s community is a major point made in this research.

The picture of luxury: A comprehensive examination of college student consumers' relationship with luxury brands

“…Finally, it is interesting to note that several of the brands listed are luxury brands specifically focused on young adults to engage with their brand, such as Burberry (Ahrendts, 2013;Phan, Thomas, & Heine, 2011) and Tiffany (Hughes, Bendoni, & Pehlivan, 2016) as demonstrated in the collages created by the respondents.…”

The Online Experience of Luxury Consumers: Insight into Motives and Reservations

“…Due to wide reach (De Chernatony, 2001;Forman et al, 2018), enhanced personalization (Jun, Park, & Yeom, 2014;Truong, Simmons, McColl, & Kitchen, 2008), greater rapidity (De Chernatony, 2001), boosted interactivity (Hoffman & Novak, 2009;Kapferer, 2017), the internet is particularly effective in reaching and engaging customers. Accordingly, it has been argued that the internet offers the opportunity to co-create value for mutual benefit through customer engagement (Baker et al, 2018;Hoffmann & Coste-Manière, 2016;Uche Okonkwo, 2016;Üçok Hughes et al, 2016). Most of the examples in the current literature on online consumer behavior focused on regular brands and mainstream brands, overlooking the luxury brands (Üçok Hughes et al, 2016).…”

“…Accordingly, it has been argued that the internet offers the opportunity to co-create value for mutual benefit through customer engagement (Baker et al, 2018;Hoffmann & Coste-Manière, 2016;Uche Okonkwo, 2016;Üçok Hughes et al, 2016). Most of the examples in the current literature on online consumer behavior focused on regular brands and mainstream brands, overlooking the luxury brands (Üçok Hughes et al, 2016).…”

“…Several studies have explored corporate online strategies of luxury brands and have made online positioning suggestions (Dall'Olmo Riley & Lacroix, 2003;Heine & Berghaus, 2014;. Other studies have explored luxury consumer online behavior by focusing on the purchase behavior of the younger age group generation (Ladhari, Gonthier, & Lajante, 2019;Purani, Kumar, & Sahadev, 2019), consumer response to social media marketing (Algharabat, Rana, Alalwan, Baabdullah, & Gupta, 2020;Godey et al, 2016;Kefi & Maar, 2018;McClure & Seock, 2020), online value co-creation (Quach & Thaichon, 2017;Thomas, Brooks, & McGouran, 2020;Üçok Hughes et al, 2016) and consumer-generated content through online reviews (Mohammad, Quoquab, Thurasamy, & Alolayyan, 2020). However, little consideration was paid to how consumers perceive their luxury online experience.…”

“…The literature that examines the effects of the internet on the luxury industry mostly focuses on luxury brands' online strategies (Baker et al, 2018;Dall'Olmo Riley & Lacroix, 2003;Heine & Berghaus, 2014;. Üçok Hughes et al (2016) points to an existing gap in the luxury literature relating to the understanding of the online consumption behavior. Quach & Thaichon (2017) also called for research that investigates the luxury online experience from the consumer perspective.…”