Life is Your (Co)Creation: Investigating Barbie's Co-created Brand Meaning in Online Stakeholder Brand Discourse of the 'Barbie' Movie

Abstract

The present paper investigates the process of co-creating Barbie’s brand meaning as a result of the recently released Barbie movie, attempting to answer the question: How do stakeholders’ stories cocreate brand meaning in the context of movies? The multi-stakeholder perspective on brand cocreation reflects the most recent perspectives in branding. All stakeholders of a brand simultaneously co-create brands by interacting with the brand and one another. In relation to brand meaning this is called a stakeholder brand discourse. Brand meaning is a complex, multi-facet construct. Stakeholders narratives have the ability to reveal their individual brand meaning. This is possible through the identification and analysis of archetypes that naturally occur in people’s stories. Archetypes represent specific roles in a narrative that are deeply ingrained in human nature. Therefore, positioning a brand as an archetype can reveal deep feelings and emotional connection that a stakeholder has about a brand. Applying this theory to our methodology, we collected data from three social media platforms, Instagram, TikTok, and X. We group this data in narrative patterns, and apply a narrative analysis pattern, consisting of a speech act, sentiment, and archetype analysis. In our findings we identify four stakeholder groups, brand management, brand ambassadors, other brands, and consumers. We reveal that their narrative constructions vary with the stakeholder group and the context in which brand meaning is co-created. The brand meanings that arise are equally context dependent. Controversies arise in the brand discourse which need to be observed moving forward, but overall, the narratives in brand discourse reflect the brand meanings proposed by the Barbie movie and brand management’s social media content. Finally, our paper contributes to the branding literature by providing evidence for the applicability of narrative analysis when investigating brand meaning.