This document analyzes word-of-mouth (WOM) on Vans' Facebook community to understand why consumers share their experiences. It performed a content analysis of 892 Facebook posts from May to July 2014. Three main themes emerged from analyzing 205 word-of-mouth posts: relating the brand to family, customizing products, and sharing experiences. This suggests eWOM is driven by social motives to signal a shared or unique identity or to self-enhance through brand loyalty and identification. The findings support previous research and have implications such as WOM strengthening brand identity when managed correctly.

1. OFF THE
WALL:A content analysis of word-of-mouth on Vans’
Facebook community
Chris Huebner

2. DEVELOP A COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING OF
WHY CONSUMERS PERFORM WORD-OF-MOUTH

6. Word-of-mouth generates
3.3 billion brand
impressions each day.

8. Stronger long-term
effect than
traditional
media
More
trustworthy
than traditional
advertising

9. Consumer
Perceptions.
Attitudes. Purchase
Intentions.
Behavior.
The Social Media Effect

10. Created the need to harness and
capture the power of word-of-mouth

11. Motivations?

12. Social media platforms provide a rich opportunity to observe word-
of-mouth in context and as it occurs.

13. Social media and online environments strengthen our understanding of
WOM in that:
Allows for open, anonymous and
dexcontextualized participation
Participation is digitally archived
Researchers can directly quote and
record references made within
specific content or conversations

14. Purpose statement: Begin to develop an understanding of why consumers share
their experiences with products and services by systematically observing what
consumers are posting.

15. RQ1: What are the key
themes found in the
performance of eWOM?
Performed a systematic,
observational content
analysis of Vans’ Facebook
page from
May 1 – July 17. 2014
Screen captured 892 posts

16. VANS INC
Founded in 1966
1,885 employees
“has stood for authenticity in
youth lifestyle, music and action
sports since day one”.
$1 billion in sales (2012)
Over 13 million fans
151,000 interactions

17. 10%
59%
6%
1%
24%
Post (n=892)
Service Related Posts
Vender Promotions
Sponsored Athletes
Bots/Unreadable
Word-of-mouth

19. 205 screen captures of word-of-mouth
Clarke and Braun’s (2006) six-step thematic approach to content analysis
Familiarization
Coding
system
Identify
themes
Name
themes
Review
themes
Report

20. Brand (61)
Product (106)
General (38)
Initial coding scheme:

21. • Brand Affect (27)
• Experience (5)
• Relation to Family (13)
• Brand Art (16)
Brand (61)
• Product Affect (38)
• Customization (13)
• History (9)
• Post-purchase (36)
• Collection (10)
Product (106)
• Document (14)
• Experience (24)
General (38)
Categories and themes:

22. Brand: Relation to family

23. Product: Customization

24. General: Experience

25. This project supported research that suggests eWOM on social media sites is
primarily driven by social driver
Signal shared or unique identity
DISCUSSION

26. Supported Cheema and
Kaikati (2010) and Wien and
Olsen’s (2014) findings.
Signaled uniqueness through
customization and historical
references
‘Post-purchase’ often
documented limited edition
Vans
Signal shared or unique identity

27. This project supported research that suggests eWOM on social media sites is
primarily driven by social driver
(or) to self-enhance
DISCUSSION

28. (or) to self-enhance
Brand identification positively influences eWOM intention by way of brand
loyalty and community identification (Yeh and Choi, 2014)
Supported Yeh and Choi’s
research that suggest fan self-
enhance by expressing brand
loyalty and identification
Found across all three broad
categories

29. Majority of posts were user-generated photographs
Suggests eWOM was not spontaneous, but calculated (Smith, Fischer and
Yongjian, 2012).
Alleviate brand/self centrality concerns
DISCUSSION

30. Supported the findings of East, Hammond and Wright (2007)
Majority of eWOM was positive
According to De Angelis et al. (2012) result of self-enhancement
DISCUSSION

31. IMPLICATIONS
(1) Powerful effect on
traditional marketing
activities
(2) Endogenous effect on
brand identity

32. IMPLICATIONS
(1) Powerful effect on
traditional marketing
activities
Online WOM can lead to more
promotion and stimulate other
components of marketing mix

33. IMPLICATIONS
(1) Powerful effect on
traditional marketing
activities
Fans document personal narratives,
ideal for marketing messages

34. IMPLICATIONS
(2) Endogenous effect on
brand identity
Brands have both functional value
and emotional value
On Facebook fans are co-creating
brand identity
When managed correctly, user-
generated content can strength
brand identity (Shachar and Kuksov,
2010)

35. CONCLUSION:
First step: Categorize the
performance of WOM
Provided coding strategy to
categories themes of WOM
Found that product affect,
post-purchase and brand
affect were the dominate
themes
Develop a comprehensive understanding of why people are motivated to share their
experiences with products and services