Degree Name

MA (Master of Arts)

Program

Communication, Professional

Date of Award

5-2015

Committee Chair or Co-Chairs

Stephen W. Marshall

Committee Members

Andrew Dunn, Kelly Price-Rhea

Abstract

Brand meaning, which is often used in narrative advertising, is an important value that companies try to build around their loyal consumers. This exploratory research aims to explore brand meanings from consumers’ narratives. This study analyzed 2,382 consumer submitted narratives for a real brand in the food service marketplace. Brand narratives were analyzed using a mixed method content analysis approach by applying Leximancer software to generate key themes and their related concepts. The results indicate brand meaning with some thematic similarities as well as differences when comparing narratives submitted by females and males. This exploratory study introduces analyzing narrative as a way to learn brand meaning and generate future narratives that could be applied to creative message strategy.

Document Type

Thesis - unrestricted

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

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