DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS PROGRAM DEGREE PROJECT, 30 CREDITS, SPRING 2020 SUPERVISOR: GALINA BIEDENBACH - DIVA
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Department of Business Administration International Business Program Degree Project, 30 Credits, Spring 2020 Supervisor: Galina Biedenbach
Contents
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................................................................. 1
1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................................. 2
1.1 Choice of Subject .............................................................................................................................................................. 2
1.2 Problem Background......................................................................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Twitch.tv ........................................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.4 Research Problem and Gaps ............................................................................................................................................. 6
1.5 Research Question........................................................................................................................................................... 10
1.6 Purpose ............................................................................................................................................................................ 10
2. Theoretical Framework .......................................................................................................................................................... 11
2.1 Brands and Branding....................................................................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Personal Branding ........................................................................................................................................................... 12
2.3 Personal Branding in the Perspective of a Twitch.tv Broadcaster .................................................................................. 12
2.4 Third places ..................................................................................................................................................................... 13
2.5 Virtual third places .......................................................................................................................................................... 15
2.6 Virtual third places in a gaming setting .......................................................................................................................... 16
2.7 Twitch.tv as a Virtual Third Place .................................................................................................................................. 17
2.8 Outcomes of Personal Branding and Virtual Third places ............................................................................................. 19
2.9 Brand Loyalty ................................................................................................................................................................. 19
2.10 Customer Satisfaction and Delight ............................................................................................................................... 21
2.11 Conceptual Model ......................................................................................................................................................... 22
3. Scientific Methodology.......................................................................................................................................................... 24
3.1 Ontology ......................................................................................................................................................................... 24
3.2 Epistemology .................................................................................................................................................................. 24
3.3 Research Approach ......................................................................................................................................................... 25
3.4 Research Design.............................................................................................................................................................. 26
3.5 Pre-understandings .......................................................................................................................................................... 27
3.6 Literature search.............................................................................................................................................................. 28
3.7 Choice of Theories .......................................................................................................................................................... 28
4. Practical Method .................................................................................................................................................................... 31
4.1 Data Collection ............................................................................................................................................................... 31
4.2 Sampling ......................................................................................................................................................................... 33
4.3 Transcribing .................................................................................................................................................................... 35
4.4 Thematic Analysis........................................................................................................................................................... 35
5. Empirical Findings ................................................................................................................................................................. 37
5.1 Profiles of Interviewees .................................................................................................................................................. 37
5.2 Personal Branding ........................................................................................................................................................... 38
5.3 Virtual Third Places ........................................................................................................................................................ 40
5.4 Interactions and Engagement .......................................................................................................................................... 43
5.5 Customer Delight and Customer Satisfaction ................................................................................................................. 44
5.6 Loyalty ............................................................................................................................................................................ 45
5.7 Diffusion of Information ................................................................................................................................................. 46
5.8 Motivations to Watch / Stream ....................................................................................................................................... 47
5.9 Personality....................................................................................................................................................................... 48
6. Analysis and Model Discussion ............................................................................................................................................. 50
6.1 Thematic Network Analysis............................................................................................................................................ 50
6.2 Personal Branding ........................................................................................................................................................... 52
6.3 Virtual Third Places ........................................................................................................................................................ 53
6.4 Customer Satisfaction and Delight ................................................................................................................................. 54
6.5 Brand Loyalty ................................................................................................................................................................. 55
6.6 Model Discussion............................................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
7. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................................. 57
7.1 General conclusions ........................................................................................................................................................ 57
7.2 Theoretical contribution .................................................................................................................................................. 58
7.3 Implications for Streamers .............................................................................................................................................. 58
7.4 Societal Implications ....................................................................................................................................................... 59
7.6 Truth Criteria................................................................................................................................................................... 59
7.7 Limitations and Future Research .................................................................................................................................... 61
Reference List ............................................................................................................................................................................ 62
Appendix .................................................................................................................................................................................... 67
1
ABSTRACT
Personal branding has been central to the marketing field of study for the past few decades, as
its flexibility has found a place in professional, academic, and social contexts. The relationship
between loyalty and customer satisfaction has been explored throughout existing literature,
where the concept of customer delight, or the act of exceeding customer expectations, has
recently been the subject of many conversations regarding its effects on loyalty.
The main purpose of this thesis is to develop a deeper understanding of the role that personal
branding plays in relation to brand loyalty in the context of a virtual third place. We aimed to
explore the outcomes of customer satisfaction and customer delight as the viewer’s emotional
ties to the streamer’s brand, and their sense of belonging to the virtual third place assist in
meeting and exceeding their expectations, and how these ultimately impact their desire to
support the streamer. Personal branding, its effect on customer satisfaction and delight, and the
outcome of loyalty can be of interest to streamers, and the attributes fostered in virtual third
places can be important for society in general.
We identified a research gap in terms of live streaming in connection to personal branding, as
well as the concept of virtual third places being rather unexplored. There is a need to research
the outcomes of personal branding in the form of loyalty and customer satisfaction and delight,
as the digital context we live in has opened the possibility to pursue a variety of careers, one
being live streaming, shaped by one’s personal brand.
We have conducted a qualitative study in order to achieve the purpose of this thesis. We
conducted a total of eleven semi-structured interviews with both streamers and viewers on the
live streaming platform Twitch.tv. Through these interviews we gain deeper understanding on
the central role that personality plays in a streamer’s personal brand, and how it is the leading
driver for community interaction and engagement, as well as entertainment of viewers. The
themes identified in our thematic network analysis were personal branding, virtual third places,
customer satisfaction and delight, and brand loyalty. Our findings were summarized in a table
that showcases the role of personality, as well as on a conceptual model that describes the
interactions between each of the aforementioned themes.
We concluded that while there are some differences between viewer and streamer perception,
a personality-based personal brand seems to be key in order to deliver customer satisfaction
and delight, as well as to develop a loyal following. Furthemore, we also concluded that a
streamer’s online community has the potential to align with the attributes required for a third
place, making them a viable option to search for genuine and fulfilling social interaction.
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1. Introduction
In this chapter we begin our thesis by explaining the way in which we selected the topic for our
degree project. We then present the problems we have encountered and provide a brief
background for the theories we have chosen as the groundwork for our thesis. We will conclude
this chapter by stating our research question and the purpose that guides us throughout the
thesis.
1.1 Choice of Subject
We are two students of the Umeå School of Business, Statistics and Economics, in the fourth
and final year of the International Business Program. Marco Guzman has experience in both
the food industry as well as in the service and retail industry and an academic background in
business development and entrepreneurship, whereas Marcus Widell has had work experience
in the pharmaceutical industry in a marketing context. In addition to this, Marcus Widell has
written a bachelor’s thesis on the effects of sponsorship in esports.
To find a research topic, we decided to frame a shared hobby in a business administration
context. From this, we decided to look at live-stream broadcasters to investigate the ways
personal branding enables customer loyalty, satisfaction, and delight to come together in the
online communities that we both know and frequent. We believe this topic to be important
since the amount of research in this specific area is very limited, even though live streaming
has seen immense growth in recent years. In addition, significant amounts of value have begun
moving from corporate sponsors and viewers to broadcasters which has prompted us to
investigate the subject of live streaming. With this research, we hope to identify the aspects of
personal branding that influences loyalty, satisfaction, and delight for broadcasters to cultivate
within the virtual third places they manage in order to enable their success. From this, we hope
to contribute to the gap in knowledge, as well as generating theoretical and practical
implications for Twitch.tv broadcasters.
To investigate our research topic, we will utilize branding theories, focusing on personal
branding, and explore customer loyalty through satisfaction and delight, as well as ground these
in the context of the sociological concept of “third places”. These theories should allow us to
investigate the online communities with a business perspective and thus make contributions to
the realm of knowledge for live streaming.
1.2 Problem Background
Live streaming is a unique form of social media characterized by its communication dynamics
that combine highly precise video and graphics with text-based communication channels
(Hamilton et al., 2014, p. 1315), with a majority of live streams being based around the playing
of video games. At the time of writing, the biggest live streaming platform in the western
market is Twitch.tv (also known solely as “Twitch), which has seen strong and steady growth
since 2015 (TwitchTracker a, 2020) and thus was chosen to provide the empirical context for
our study.
Live streaming has become a huge phenomenon, boasting 1.26 million concurrent viewers in
2019, with around 3.64 million monthly broadcasters on Twitch.tv alone (TwitchTracker a,
2020). People use Twitch.tv to stream themselves (from here on out people that stream will be
referred to as ‘streamers’ or ‘broadcasters’ interchangeably) playing video games while
viewers watch and interact with them through the IRC (internet relay chat) feature. Streamers3 are free to stream almost whatever they like, whether it is a hot new game, a workout session, or even them walking around in real life. Streamers can categorise their stream which allows potential viewers to sort through the sites and pick what they would like to view. In a research paper by Sjöblom and Hamari (2016) the authors conducted an online survey and managed to obtain 1097 responses. From these responses, the authors were able to visualize the demographic makeup of live streaming viewers. Unsurprisingly, 92.3% of the respondents were male, with the average age being 22 years old. A majority of these respondents were students (57.1%), followed by full-time workers (22.4%), the unemployed (10.3%), and lastly part-time workers (8.5%) (Sjöblom and Hamari, 2016 p. 989). Knowing the demographic makeup of the average Twitch viewer allows streamers to cater their content to these average viewers, as well as helping us as researchers understand who we will be studying. On these streaming platforms there exist many different types of streamers. One type of streamer is someone who streams one specific game that they are known for. For example, a professional League of Legends (one of the most popular video games on Twitch.tv at the moment) player would solely stream League of Legends to viewers who either enjoy watching the streamer specifically or watch for information on how to play the game better. Another type of streamer is known as a ‘variety streamer’, someone who streams a variety of games or content (Marsden, 2019). These types of streamers usually attract viewers with their personality as viewers come to watch and interact with them instead of watching for the specific game they are playing. This wide array of profiles that streamers can slot into emphasizes the importance that personal branding has in the industry, as their need to position themselves in a way that clearly communicates and showcase who they are (Philbrick and Cleveland, 2015 p. 183) to the potential viewers that frequent the platform is paramount to their success. Managing their own personal brand to enable loyalty, satisfaction, and delight in the third place they create is important for streamers, especially if it is their full-time job, or if they aspire to become a dedicated full-time streamer. On Twitch.tv, and streaming platforms in general, there are four main ways of making money as a streamer: donations from viewers, subscriptions, playing advertisements during the stream, and sponsors. Viewers have the option to donate money to a streamer for whatever reason, whether it is because they are enjoying the stream or to take advantage of the donation message feature (Gros et al., 2017). Subscriptions come in the form of monthly payments (payments can be as low as $5 and as high as $50 a month) made by the viewer to the streamer which afford the viewer exclusive benefits and perks like emoticons for the chat feature and special chat channels for subscribers only. Advertisements played during a stream are only available for streamers with a high follower count. These advertisements are administered by Twitch and provide value to both the platform and the streamer based on how many viewers watched the ad. Lastly, streamers can make money through sponsors. Sponsorships can take almost any form, from a company sponsoring a streamer to use their products in their stream, to a company sponsoring a streamer to have a logo placed either on them on the stream itself. Typically, it is only the large streamers with a big viewer base that get sponsorships, but this can vary depending on company size and other such factors. Two major revenue streams for streamers, namely donations and subscriptions, rely on the viewer’s willingness to support the streaming. Therefore, influencing a customer’s loyalty through satisfaction and delight becomes central to their financial success and stability. As we can see, personal branding is vital for broadcasters as it opens opportunities in both the social sense and financial sense. The importance of personal branding is further exemplified by a streamer called Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. In late 2017 Ninja’s Twitch.tv broadcast blew up
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in terms of viewership and subscribers. This rise-to-fame can be attributed to Ninja streaming
Fortnite, which gained mainstream recognition in late 2017. From there, Ninja managed to
amass 188,000 subscribers (with each subscriber paying at least $4.99 each month) in 2018
(Leslie and Byers, 2020), with his average viewership peaking in April 2018 at 110,091
concurrent average viewers (TwitchTracker c, 2020). One of the reasons Ninja became so
famous was because of his personality on stream and his immense level of talent in Fortnite.
In addition to this, Ninja’s stream was very child friendly which attracted both a teenage and
young adult viewership and a multitude of sponsors. With this ‘brand’, Ninja managed to secure
sponsorship deals with Adidas, Microsoft, Hershey’s, Uber, and Red Bull (SponsorPitch -
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, 2020), as well as an exclusivity deal with Twitch.tv’s rival Mixer which
is rumoured to be valued around $20 - $30 million over three years (Shaw and Kharif, 2019).
Digital transformation is a branch of digitalization that emphasizes not just the adoption of
digital alternatives to simplify work, but the reframing of core business operations through
digital means that ultimately affect the products, processes, and even structure of an
organization (Matt et al., 2015). According to International Data Group (IDG), as of 2018 89%
of organizations have or are aiming to adopt a digital-first strategy. When surveyed, the
respondents made clear that digitalizing their organization was a complex process, but that it
ultimately aimed to affect many areas of business from meeting customer expectations to
enabling productivity and management (IDC, 2018, p. 2-3).
A core aspect of Twitch.tv and other streaming platforms is the chat feature, which allows
viewers to interact with both the streamer and other viewers. This helps create a type of online
community where people come to socialize with other like-minded individuals, and for many
people it is the main reason they enjoy watching and participating in live streams. Gros et al.,
(2017) outlines the main reasons as to why people watch live-streamed content. Their research
concluded the three main motivations are entertainment, information, and socialization. This
helps prove that the viewers of live-streamed content see the live streaming platforms as both
a place to view media but also as a space to socialize and seek genuine human interaction. Dux
(2018) introduces the idea that viewers believe Twitch.tv is a virtual adaptation of a third place,
a space that harbors sociability, non-discursive communication, and social leveling (Oldenburg
and Brissett, 1982), where viewers pursue gratification not only through specific streams but
also the atmosphere of the stream and the chat created by the streamer.
We believe that due to the amount of people that use Twitch.tv, there is a need for more research
so that consumers, content producers (streamers), and Twitch.tv itself can understand the
industry to a better degree. To help prove this point, Shapiro and Aneja (2018) conducted a
study on American Twitch streamers and their earnings. The results show that the streamers
earned approximately $67 million in 2016 and approximately $87 million in 2017, a 30%
increase (Shapiro and Aneja 2018). This shows the sheer amount of money that moves through
Twitch.tv to American Twitch streamers alone, not mentioning the earnings for the non-
American streamers on the platform.
1.3 Twitch.tv
We have selected Twitch.tv as the empirical context of our thesis because it is the biggest live
streaming platform in the Western market and it has experienced promising growth since its
inception and continues to be unmatched in that regard by its competitors.5 Twitch.tv was founded in 2011 as a spin-off of Justin.tv, as the gaming audience within it grew to the extent where it was taking over the general interest streaming platform (Truong, 2014). Justin.tv, the parent company, shut down in 2014 and Twitch.tv was acquired by Amazon soon after for $970 Million (Kim, 2014). We have chosen TwitchTracker as our source of statistics since it is the most reliable statistical tool for Twitch.tv, as it obtains live data directly from Twitch’s network (through API access). Twitch.tv has dominated the western live streaming market ever since its acquisition, exhibiting tremendous growth over the latter half of the past decade, reaching an average of 1.26 Million concurrent viewers by the end of 2019 (TwitchTracker a, 2020). Twitch.tv has roughly 50 thousand unique live channels at any given time, and over 3.5 Million active monthly broadcasters (TwitchTracker a, 2020). Last year alone Twitch.tv totalled 660 billion minutes watched, which represents an 18% increase from 2018 (TwitchTracker a, 2020). This growth is rather impressive due to the massive increase between years 2017 and 2018, where Twitch.tv’s audience skyrocketed by 58% mostly due to the burst in popularity of Fortnite, a videogame that became extremely popular among young teenagers in the beginning of 2018 (Fortnite player Count, 2020). As recently as January 2020, Twitch.tv peaked in monthly viewers at 1.36 Million, and broke the 1 billion hours watched in a single month milestone (TwitchTracker a, 2020). All of this indicates that the industry, or Twitch.tv at the very least, is still experiencing rapid growth. To explain the industry’s financial relevance, we looked at a study by Shapiro and Aneja (2018) where they estimate the earnings of U.S. content creators on several platforms, one of which is Twitch, over 2016 and 2017. While there are no direct financial statements available for Twitch.tv as they are a private company and within Amazon’s portfolio of companies, we believe that showcasing the amount of revenue generated through Twitch.tv as a platform brings some insight to the overall value that it generates. This study also only considered U.S. content creators, and while Twitch.tv is a very popular platform throughout the Western world, the U.S. is certainly where most of their audience resides. According to SimilarWeb, a popular online tool that measures a wide selection of attributes of the digital world, at least 36% of traffic comes from the U.S. (measured at 11:08 CET) and reach as high as 53% during peak hours (measured at 22:12 CET) (Similarweb.com, 2020). During 2016 content creators on Twitch.tv earned an estimate of $67 Million, which grew by roughly 30% the next year, nearing $87 Million (Shapiro and Aneja, 2018). This study encompasses data from 2016 and 2017, which, as mentioned above, is one year before the huge growth Twitch.tv experienced due to the upsurge in popularity of Fortnite, which certainly propelled many content creators into stardom, and therefore the revenue generated by them through Twitch.tv is definitely much higher. In terms of design, Twitch can be best described as minimalistic and emphasizing clarity. Their home page, namely the one the viewer arrives at when entering the site, is titled “Discover” as it starts with a flashcard interface that showcases different streamers streaming different content for the viewer to discover (Appendix 2). By scrolling down Twitch provides different tailored recommendations ranging from live channels, categories, and specific streamers within that category (Appendix 2). The second tab is only available for registered users, meaning those who have created and logged in with their account, and it is titled “Following”. This tab consists of a list of all the streamers the viewer follows sorted by whether they are live as well as total view count (Appendix 2). A concise version of this tab can always be found to the left of the platform, regardless of what tab the viewer is in (Appendix 2). The final main tab is titled “Browse”, which is where the viewer can freely browse through categories or live channels in a more expanded interface (Appendix 2). When it comes to watching a streamer, the broadcast is centered in the middle of the screen, with the options of normal view, theatre mode, and full
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screen mode (Appendix 2). There is also a live chat to the right of the stream where viewers
can interact with other viewers and the streamer (Appendix 2).
1.4 Research Problem and Gaps
The live streaming platform (LSP) industry is in its infancy, and so the existing body of
knowledge is rather scarce. Past papers and studies have attempted to evaluate the relevance of
the industry whether it is by observing competition develop (Recktenwald and Yiwei, 2016) or
through the relationship between broadcasted events, such as tournaments and game releases,
and viewership and interest spikes (Kaytoue et al., 2012). Twitch.tv has also been studied
through a use gratification lens (Gros et al., 2017; Dux, 2018) to explain viewer behavior in
small, medium, and large sized streams. Online communities have been observed for well over
a decade (Soukup, 2006; Duchenaut et al., 2007; Halvorson, 2010), which has led to sound
arguments to explain the shared qualities between them and third places, resulting in literature
that expands on the idea of virtual third places and the positive effects often attributed to
traditional ones (Oldenburg and Brissett, 1982).
Based on the proven relevance and expected growth of the live streaming industry, we attempt
to bridge the theoretical gap between the focal point of a stream, in other words the streamer,
and the community that surrounds them. We expect to achieve this by introducing traditional
business concepts such as branding (Kotler, 1991; Keller, 1993; Schwarzkopf, 2008),
specifically personal branding (Vitberg, 2010; O’Brien, 2011; Philbrick and Cleveland, 2015),
to explain how they influence customer loyalty (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973; Fournier and Yao,
1997; ), satisfaction ( Oliver et al., 1981, 1997; Fornell et al., 1983, 1994), and delight (Barnes
et al., 2016), within the context of virtual third places (Soukup, 2006; Duchenaut et al., 2007;
Halvorson, 2010). The central role of personal branding when it comes to differentiation and
applying branding tools to one’s own persona (Peters, 1997) in a platform with thousands of
streamers, combined with the communicative and highly interactive nature of live streaming
can help build genuine ties between the streamer’s brand and the customer (Gounaris and
Stathakopoulos, 2004, p. 300) and lead to loyalty through both meeting and exceeding the
viewers expectations, which refers to customer satisfaction (Oliver et al., 1997) and delight
(Barnes et al., 2016). In doing so we will provide an analysis that evaluates the intricate
interactions between the main actors in the industry in an attempt to further the knowledge on
how virtual third places are perceived by both viewers and streamers and where the value lies
for either party. We will also address the current gap in literature regarding streamers as media
personalities and the qualities that make a successful streaming career.
The concept of branding has been around for hundreds of years but branding as we know it,
corporate branding, emerged in the late 18th century due to the invention of packaged goods
and the increased amount of mass produced products (Schwarzkopf, 2008). As branding
became more and more prevalent, research conducted in consumer motivation blossomed in
order to understand the factors at play and to take advantage of a new field of consumer
knowledge. With the arrival of social media, the way companies administered and operated
their brands changed significantly. The idea of branding shifted from a one-way flow of
information to a dialogue between the brand and the consumer (Vitberg, 2010). Following this
change, the concept of “Personal Branding” was thrust into the mainstream, where public
figures and everyday people alike carefully select what to put out onto social media with the
intent of maintaining a desired persona or image, and communicating this to other social media
users, whether it be consumers, friends, family, acquaintances, or even corporations/potential
employers (Philbrick and Cleveland, 2015). The gap in the knowledge then lies in the7 difference between the ‘traditional’ social media influencer personas and the persona that live stream broadcasters portray in an attempt to build a viewer base. The existing literature on personal branding pertains mostly to personal branding in the context of a professional personal brand for oneself with the intention of selling oneself and their skills to corporations. The research paper by Philbrick & Cleveland (2015) discusses the way one should brand themselves and even lays out a 6-step process in which personal branding should be accomplished. The authors summarize their research by concluding the effects of personal branding. They posit that a strong personal brand should help communicate the things that make an individual special and valuable to a firm and will help them stand out against the competition. Vitberg (2010) also discusses personal branding in the professional context where he outlines three distinct steps for developing a successful personal brand; “(1) develop individualized and customized personal branding plans, (2) commit, measure, and adjust, (3) transferring goodwill” (Vitberg, 2010, p. 42). Vitberg’s (2010) conclusion is similar that of Philbrick & Clevenland (2015) where a properly managed personal brand will help communicate the person’s skills, characteristics and values, and experience in a way that catches the eyes of potential employers. Another paper by Labrecque et al., (2015) investigates the ways in which people manage their online personal brand with a social media specific context. The conclusions of their paper are that, firstly, personal branding is unavoidable in an online environment due to the nature of both social media and branding (in the sense that whatever information, whether it is a text post, video, or photo, is posted by a user is then viewed by other users which informs their perception about that user). The authors also state that users face a never-ending battle between putting out information to other users and limiting the divulgence of sensitive information. The concepts of insufficient branding and misdirected branding are also introduced, where one's professional and/or social status could be damaged through the information they share online. Lastly, the authors found that for most people, managing both a social brand and professional brand has become increasingly difficult without the proper tools at their disposal. Finally, we have a study by Chih-Ping Chen (2013) that investigates personal branding in the context of YouTube content creators. This study stands out as most studies discuss personal branding in a professional setting, whereas the author of this study investigates personal branding from a ‘personal’ perspective. The findings of the study state that individuals engage in personal branding activities, both explicitly and implicitly, through the content they create and upload to YouTube. The creation of the content-creator’s personal brand evolves from “strategic self-presentation to project a desired self-impression” (Chih-Ping Chen, 2013 p. 345). From these ‘brands’ that the content creators have established, they attract consumers and thus build their community with those who consume their content, which forms a symbiotic relationship between the content creator and the audience. Considering the prior research, one can see that personal branding has been researched primarily from a professional perspective with the intent of showcasing oneself to potential employers, and in the case of Chih-Ping Chen’s (2013) research, the personal branding that comes both explicitly and implicitly through content creation for YouTube. The gap in the realm of personal branding knowledge is then how do streamers build personal brands with the express intent of creating a loyal community with the desire to support the streamer. This is what this thesis aims to fill as Twitch.tv and live streaming has seen explosive growth, with very little knowledge surrounding the topic.
8 Third places refer to a space “where people gather primarily to enjoy each other’s company” (Oldenburg and Brissett, 1982, p. 269). These places are meant to provide stimuli that an individual lacks in their first and second places, homes, and workplaces respectively. It is a sociological concept coined in the early 1980s by Oldenburg, and has been further developed, explained, and analyzed ever since, and it has become a cornerstone to many community- centered studies. There are several qualities attributed to a third place, namely a leveled social ground that guarantees genuine interactions between its members, non-discursive, spontaneous, and unpredictable dialogue that provides novelty and diversity, and a playful atmosphere that endorses sociability (Oldenburg and Brissett, 1982). Criticism of their work does exist, as social leveling is extremely difficult to achieve, and an environment that welcomes and endorses anyone is too optimistic. The idea behind third places remains strong and is very much relevant to this day, but the elitist nature of Oldenburg’s original concept has faded significantly. Third place literature has set the ground for more modern academics to explore online communities through its lense. Soukup (2006) aims to break down the arguments against online communities being referred to as virtual third places. The physical locality that exists in traditional third places, as well as the non-discursive nature of conversation are the two main obstacles that online communities have to overcome in order to be accepted as third places. Firstly, Soukup (2006) argues that the locality of a virtual third places lies in both the platform they are built within, as well as the general interest that ties the community together as the community can agree for them to take the symbolic role of “location”, instead of a physical location like with traditional third places (Soukup, 2006) . Secondly, he rebuttals the notion that if a third place was to have an interest as its “location”, it will inherently exclude anyone who does not partake in it. However, the same phenomenon takes place physically in traditional third places, where small town taverns often are not endorsing, and even exclude, travelers from a metropolis (Soukup, 2006). By arguing for the qualities that online communities have and drawing similarities to the earliest, most elitist form of third places, we highlight the ability of social leveling that comes with anonymity on the Internet, and the accessibility to them in today’s age, two qualities that are considered central to traditional third places. As a result, this helps us to transition from traditional to virtual third places. Virtual third places are often born in gaming settings. Many players in online games come together within its virtual world and create virtual third places. Previous studies have connected these virtual third places to Oldenburg’s work by addressing the similarities between the two (Duchenaut et al., 2007; Halvorson, 2010). The main difference that is brought by viewing virtual third places in an online video game context is the extensive virtual world these games provide, as well as the characters or avatars controlled by the players (Duchenaut et al., 2007). Players in the video game are meant to cooperate with each other in order to tackle content together and progress in the game. While these objective-focused interactions differ from the staple non discursive language of a tradition third place, the focus is rather on the sociable platform as a whole, and the sociable interactions that take place as players seek a break from the “grind” of progressing in the game, making this virtual world one big hang-out spot (Duchenaut et al., 2007). Through these papers that bridge the gap between traditional third places and those in a virtual context, it is evident that similarities between the two do exist. Our goal is to further the knowledge and develop the acceptance of virtual third places in a world that continues to digitize itself. There has not been significant development in the realm of virtual third places in the most recent years, yet technology has continued to advance, providing platforms that
9 offer sociability options closer to traditional third places than those argued for in the aforementioned papers. We believe that live streams are one of these platforms, offering a level of collective interaction nearing that of traditional third places. These virtual third places moderated by a streamer therefore provide vital context to the satisfying the needs of the viewers as we mentioned before, leading to their loyalty and desire to support. Brand loyalty is an encompassing concept, as it is often considered the product of customer satisfaction and, by extension, customer delight (Oliver et al., 1997). The complexity of this concept led to a handful of scholars attempting to coin the term during the 1960s and 70s. One definition from the time that is often referred to as “[Brand loyalty] is a biased choice behavior with respect to branded merchandise” (Tucker, 1964, p. 32). This definition helped scholars re- frame the idea of brand loyalty and bring clarity to the concept in order to explain it in a way that harbors its complexity. Jacoby and Kyner (1973) develop a model that uses six conditions that need to be present for brand loyalty to exist, defining it as “[...] the biased (1), behavioral response (2) expressed over time (3), by some decision-making unit (4), with respect to one or more alternative brands out of a set of such brands (5), and is a function of psychological processes (6).” (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973, p. 2). A more recent approach to brand loyalty was developed by Gounaris and Stathakopoulos (2004) as they introduce the consumer’s perspective to brand loyalty by highlighting different kinds of loyalty based on customer-brand relationships and attempts to explain loyalty through a customer’s commitment level to the brand. The four categories they present are no loyalty, which exhibits a customer with that does not purchase the product and has no customer-brand ties; inertia loyalty that describes a customer that purchases the product without showcasing strong customer-brand ties; covetous loyalty where a customer has developed a strong bond with a brand but does not purchase the product; and premium loyalty that takes place when a customer actively purchases the product and showcases strong emotional ties with the brand. (Gounaris and Stathakopoulos, 2004). When it comes to buying into a streamer’s personal brand, covetous loyalty and premium loyalty represent the two kinds of viewers that have strong emotional ties to the stream, where the first one does not directly support the streamer while the second one does. Observations and analyses on customer satisfaction date all the way back to the 1950s and 60s, but it was not until 1981 where it was defined as “the outcome of a consumer’s subjective comparison of expected and received product attribute levels”(Oliver, 1981, cited in Fornell and Robinson, 1983, p. 403), that it received overwhelming acceptance from most scholars at the time. In a further study Fornell et al. (1994) explain that both customer attraction and retention can be explained through customer satisfaction due to factors such as media coverage and word of mouth regarding a given company will be positive in nature. The construct of customer delight stems from customer satisfaction and was first presented later that decade by Oliver et al. (1997) as they explain that meeting the customer’s expectations, referring to customer satisfaction, is not necessarily what leads to customer retention, but rather the positive emotional response that comes from exceeding the customer’s expectations is what leads to customers developing strong brand loyalty. Thus, customer delight is defined as a “profoundly positive state generally resulting from having one’s expectations exceeded to a surprising degree” (Oliver et al., 1997, p. 329, Cited in Barnes et al., 2016, p. 277). Since then the deviation from customer satisfaction to customer delight has been developed by scholars leading to Barnes et al. (2016) providing empirical evidence of the positive relationship between “joy” and “surprise”, the concepts used to describe the customer’s positive affect, and customer delight.
10
These constructs are what we believe to be the outcomes of effective personal branding by the
streamer combined with the met sociability needs through the virtual third place that the
channel provides. These outcomes develop from the medium that is the virtual third place for
strong emotional ties to grow between the streamer’s personal brand and the viewer. We will
attempt to explore these differences in loyalty and how the attributes of, and commitment to,
the third place can affect the viewer’s desire to support the streamer.
1.5 Research Question
How does personal branding influence brand loyalty, customer satisfaction and delight
within the context of a virtual third place?
1.6 Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop a deeper understanding of the role that personal branding
plays in relation to brand loyalty in the context of a virtual third place. We aimed to explore
the outcomes of customer satisfaction and customer delight as the viewer’s emotional ties to
the streamer’s brand, and their sense of belonging to the virtual third place assist in meeting
and exceeding their expectations, and how these ultimately impact their desire to support the
streamer. Moreover, this study aimed to highlight the importance of virtual communities as
third places, the social benefits for its members, and its commercial opportunities in a live
streaming context. In order to investigate this topic, the authors created a qualitative study in
which a semi-structured interview was administered to live-stream broadcasters in order to
discuss personal branding as well as factors related to life as a streamer, in order to better
understand the industry, and factors presumed to be tied to success in these platforms. Another
set of semi-structured interviews were conducted with live-stream viewers with the goal of
identifying the valuable elements of a broadcast that attract, retain, and excite them, and further
developing these attributes in connection to third place literature. From the results of the
interviews, a thematic analysis was conducted with the intent to develop deeper understanding
between broadcasters and viewers by contrasting their interests and expectations with the
broadcaster’s personal branding and community building efforts.11
2. Theoretical Framework
This chapter is an overview of previous literature that we will utilize in order to establish a
framework according to which the research will be structured and subsequently guide the
creation of the semi-structured interviews.
2.1 Brands and Branding
A brand is defined as “a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them which is
intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate
them from those of competitors” (Kotler, 1981). A brand can be made up of many different
things like the brand’s identity, the corporate logo, the design of the product, the packaging,
and the marketing strategies created for the specific company or product (Ghodeswar, 2008).
The first examples of branding can be found as far back as 3,300 BCE in the Harappan
civilization in the form of cylinder seals. These seals were used to denote ownership, type of
good, and quality (Starcevic, 2015). Maker’s marks were also common on pottery and other
such consumer goods in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome (Starcevic, 2015). During the
European middle ages, the use of markings on products increased with the rise of popularity of
merchant’s guilds (McQuarrie and Phillips, 2016). It was not until the invention of packaged
goods in the 19th century that branding became what we know it as today. Branding became
vital for success in this period as the production of goods moved from localized to specialized
manufacturing plants. Thus, when companies would ship their goods from the factory, they
would brand their trademark on the goods to differentiate their products from its competitors
and the local product offerings (Schwarzkopf, 2008).
Branding continued to evolve further in the early 20th century, as companies came to realise
the ways in which consumers were being affected by the branding efforts, as local goods were
having troubles competing with products with branding and non-generic packaging (Arnould
and Thompson, 2005). From this, motivational research and consumer research rose to the
mainstream as companies rushed to take advantage of these tactics (Schwarzkopf, 2008).
Companies began using slogans, jingles, mascots, and anthropomorphic characteristics for their
products because of the research conducted in this period.
With the intensifying importance of branding in today's world, the effects of branding efforts
and brands has become a very researched topic. It is the general consensus that branding in its
many forms allows consumers to store information about the product or service, a type of
memory heuristic where characteristics and product specifications are attached to the specific
logo or design of the product or service. A strong brand allows companies to create a sort of
‘identity’ for the product or service, which is then judged by customers. If customers believe
that a brand possesses similar identity traits (attributes, benefits, values, personality) as
themselves, they are more likely to purchase it (Kotler, 2009). With a strong brand, comes
strong brand awareness. The stronger a brand is, the easier it is for customers to recall and
recognize logos, brands, jingles, commercials, and other such branding efforts, which then has
a positive effect on customers when it comes to purchasing goods in that product category
(Keller, 1993).
The concept of brands and branding have been in use in the business world for goods and
services for decades (Schwarzkopf, 2008), but with the advent of Web 2.0, the way brands are
managed and created has changed substantially. Social media has made it possible for12
companies to manage their brands online and to communicate with potential and current
customers. Social media has also paved the way for online influencers, providing them with a
platform to grow a following, build their brand, and engage with their audience. Subsequently,
the idea of “Personal Branding” has evolved from a purely professional perspective to both a
professional and personal perspective where people are building and maintaining their own
social media profiles just as businesses would manage their own product brands.
2.2 Personal Branding
The concept of personal branding was first established by Tom Peters in 1997. In his research
he states “we are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most
important job is to be head marketers for the brand called You” (Peters, 1997). The idea behind
this is that in a professional setting, one should be applying branding techniques to oneself as
a way of communicating who you are and your potential value. Personal branding was then
further defined by Philbrick and Cleveland (2015) as something that “identifies, clarifies, and
communicates who you are to the world around you, whether it is a business environment, an
academic field, or an entrepreneurial setting” (Philbrick and Cleveland, 2015, p. 183).
As the popularity of social media increases, the idea and application of personal branding has
increased with it. At first believed to be a tool solely for celebrities and public figures, it has
morphed into a concept that is synonymous with social media etiquette. This is backed up by
O’Brien (2011) and Vitberg (2010) as they posit that social media has created the concept of
“consumer-to-consumer driven information” which is the basis of one's personal brand, and
allows for the establishment of relationships with consumers and viewers alike (Fournier 1998).
Lampel and Bhalla (2007) use Goffman’s (1959) definition of self-presentation; “a way for an
individual to convey information” (Goffman, 1959, Cited in Lampel and Bhalla, 2007, p. 440),
to base the process in which personal branding functions. This process is then facilitated to a
greater degree on social media and other online communities as communication between users
is simplified due to the elimination of real world characteristics like gender, age, race, and
social status which can have an effect on how people view each other (Vitberg, 2010).
Vitberg (2010) states that with the widespread use of social media, the traditional idea of
“pushing” information to customers has evolved into “dialogue”. This “dialogue” is made up
of an information flow both to and from the brand in question which allows users to “create
personal awareness, establish credibility, and drive differentiation at the personal level”
(Vitberg, 2010, p. 43). Live streaming is the perfect example of this as information-share
between the broadcaster and the viewers is almost instantaneous allowing for a greater amount
of interaction which then fosters relationship building to a greater degree.
2.3 Personal Branding in the Perspective of a Twitch.tv Broadcaster
Personal branding has changed the way people interact with each other on social media and in
online communities. Not only in how people present themselves and the information they elect
to divulge but also the ways in which people judge and evaluate others online. Arruda (2003)
claims that the process of personal branding follows the same logic of corporate branding where
the goal is to determine and exemplify product/service characteristics and to communicate this
to potential customers. As the process of personal branding reflects that of the process of
corporate branding, it follows that the way customers perceive and judge personal branding
would mirror the way customers perceive and judge corporate branding.13
Personal branding for a Twitch.tv broadcaster can take form in many ways. For example, the
way in which the broadcaster engages with their audience, the games they play on stream, the
way they interact with those they are playing with, the type of scene and aesthetic they portray
on stream, broadcaster sponsors, the way they utilize other social medias, and a multitude of
other things that has the ability to affect the way in which the audience thinks about the
broadcaster (Chih-Ping Chen, 2013). An important factor that must be considered by the
broadcaster is that of individuality and genuinely. According to Vitberg (2010), broadcasters
that have a strong sense of individuality and streamers with genuine intentions are able to
differentiate themselves from other streamers that do not have these qualities, and are more
likely to attract viewers to their broadcast and their community.
As Twitch.tv broadcasters are trying to “sell” the service of their live stream, personal branding
should be a main concern for these broadcasters for many reasons. First of all, if a broadcaster
is aiming to grow and build their community, it is important that potential viewers are able to
quickly judge the characteristics and values of the broadcaster. This process of judgment allows
the viewer to determine whether they would feel “at home” in the community, whether they
like the broadcaster and the activities they are performing on stream and other factors they
perceive to be important when evaluating a live stream. Second, by creating a brand for
themself and their stream, broadcasters can leverage their viewership numbers to companies in
the hopes of attracting corporate sponsors. By having a set of values associated with their brand,
streamers should be able to attract corporate sponsors that share that same set of values. For
example, if a streamer is considered by their community to be the best player at a specific game,
computer-peripheral manufacturers (keyboards, mice, headsets etc.) might be interested in
sponsoring such a streamer as the image of the streamer will transfer to the products they are
using which can convince some viewers to purchase the products being used on stream.
According to Chernatony et al., (2011) most people start to develop a “consumer-personal
brand relationship” with brands they interact with. From this logic we can say that Twitch
viewers will form a brand relationship with a broadcaster, which creates the feeling of
community in both the viewer and the broadcaster. This insight follows that of the work
conducted by Gros et al., (2017) where they found that “members of a community share an
abandonment and pursue similar objectives like the need for affiliation, integration of new
members, sharing of emotions and socialization” (Gros et al., 2017, p. 46). This does not just
apply for consumers to broadcasters, as one of the main reason’s broadcasters’ stream on
Twitch.tv is to interact with the members of the community they have built (Hamilton,
Garretson and Kerne, 2014). This shows the importance of personal branding as the broadcaster
attracts people to their community through the way they present themselves online and are thus
responsible for those who join their community. If a broadcaster is a kind and genuine person
on stream, they will most likely attract other kind and genuine people to their stream and
community. If a broadcaster does not like the type of people within their own community, they
may have a personal brand miscommunication where they are portraying the wrong values, or
simply because the way they act on stream attracts undesirable people.
2.4 Third places
The concept of third place was popularized by sociologist Oldenburg mainly by his famous
book “Celebrating the Third Place” (1989) and to a lesser degree “The Great Good Place”
(1999) a decade later. His first definition of what a “third place” is however, dates back to 1982
in an article he wrote in collaboration with Brissett titled “The Third Place”. Inspired by theYou can also read
