Prosumer Generated Stories

Abstract: Social media usage is undeniably popular, which has escalated the amount of content existing online, resulting in a state of content overload. The overload of content has made it harder for organisations to reach out with their message, and it is therefore more important than ever to prioritize efforts to develop trustworthy relationships with consumers, and thereby aspire brand credibility. The importance of aspiring brand credibility has evolved new marketing strategies, where the use of prosumer generated stories is suggested to be one. This study seeks to investigate how organisations in today's digital World can aspire brand credibility through prosumer generated stories, on one of the leading social media platforms – Instagram. With previous research and theories, an analysis model was created in order to establish criterias for the analysis. The research is a case study, built on the Swedish watch company Daniel Wellington, which have over 4 million followers on their Instagram account. Further, the study was conducted using a qualitative conventional content analysis, with a collected empirical material consisting of 50 Instagram posts from Daniel Wellington’s Instagram account. The results concluded that using prosumer generated stories as a marketing strategy is a valuable tool in order to aspire brand credibility, which is necessary in the social media climate of today. It also resulted in the importance of letting the story of a brand shine greater than the product or service itself, which can be achieved with lifestyle branding.