Optimizing the Brand-Product Narrative for a Direct-to-Consumer Webstore

Abstract

This paper proposes a framework for optimizing the brand-product narrative for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand webstores. The framework helps to identify the key elements of the brand-product narrative, including the product’s benefits, the brand’s purpose, and the company’s corporate vision. These elements are then integrated into a coherent story that is told across multiple touchpoints of a direct-to-consumer webstore. The framework emphasizes the importance of using storytelling to connect with consumers on an emotional level. The framework is illustrated with a case study of a luxury fashion brand. Luxury brands can use stories to highlight their commitment to sustainability and social responsibility while maintaining a sense of mystery and intrigue around their products. The framework in this paper can be used by any brand to optimize its brand-product narrative in a DTC webstore. By telling stories that are relevant to their target audience, brands can create a more engaging and immersive experience for consumers.

1. Introduction

Product and service value proposition development is a main staple in the market research industry. The projects often focus on the functional benefits and reasons to believe in the product or service based on technical improvements. However, recent marketing trends suggest that younger generations, Millennials, and Gen Z, are not only interested in the functional product and benefits. They are also interested in the vision and purpose of the brand behind it, and they want to engage with brands that they can relate to [1].

That is why we believe that a brand-product narrative – a value proposition translated into a coherent story that we can run in a multiple-touchpoint consumer journey – should also include the brand’s purpose and the corporate vision. The product proposition and the way it is supported by and consistent with brand and corporate policies should work together. For example, a product cannot credibly claim to be sustainable if the brand is known for greenwashing. Although, it is, unfortunately, a common practice in the retail world [2]. The product’s credibility should also be influenced by corporate functions, such as the supply chain and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

In this paper, we describe how we can turn product, brand, and corporate elements into a holistic brand-product narrative, focusing on luxury brands as an example. We will also show how we place this narrative into a multiple-touchpoint consumer journey.

2. The brand-product narrative of luxury brands

2.1 Trends in the consumer reach of luxury brands

Luxury brands can be defined as brands that are known for their high prices, exclusivity, quality, and status. By their premium nature, they offer consumers a sense of uniqueness and social status.

In recent years, there has been a shift in the buyer profile for luxury brands [1]. The traditional buyer was older (or of an older generation), wealthier, and from an upper-class background. They bought luxury brands to signal their social status and wealth [3]. In contrast, the new luxury consumer is younger and more diverse. They are still interested in brands that have a strong community or following, but they are also motivated by factors like sustainability, ethics, and social responsibility [4]. They are willing to pay more for products that are made sustainably and ethically sound [4]. More differences between traditional and new luxury consumers are described in Table 1.

Characteristic	Traditional luxury consumers	New luxury consumers
Profile	Older and older generations	Younger and younger generations
Goals	Extrinsic benefits, such as signaling social rank or striving for social rewards	Intrinsic benefits, such as engaging in socio-cultural narratives
Considerations	Traditional luxuries, conspicuous choices that signal status, and ownership-focused usage	Premium brands that are more contemporary and competencies-based usage
Motivated by	Brand name and status	Quality, sustainability, and social responsibility
Outcomes	Material possessions, status-signaling through conspicuous purchases	Meaningful experiences and participation in brand activities and communities
Purchase process	More likely to purchase luxury products in person	More likely to purchase luxury products online or through social media

Table 1.

Comparison between traditional and new luxury consumer profiles.

The luxury industry is facing challenges in the wake of the rise of the new luxury consumer. It is a paradox how to meet the need to maintain a brand image that is based on mystique and exclusivity to the balance of being socially responsible and sustainable.

2.2 The luxury: stewardship paradox

Luxury brands are often associated with lasting quality and craftsmanship, so their products provide the owner with a perfect opportunity to leave a legacy, passing them on to future generations. One can say that it is a form of stewardship, making a promise of preserving capital for future generations. Therefore, luxury brands should be inherently interested in taking a position of stewardship toward the globe.

In recent years, there has been a growing movement among luxury brands to become more socially responsible in the here and now. Albeit the examples are scarce, some companies even exhibit an all-encompassing, genuine commitment to stewardship, such as Patagonia, and their transparency commitments toward all their stakeholders [5]. More commonly, luxury players launch separate campaigns in partnership with external NGOs to hop onto the cause-related marketing trend in the industry: Hublot’s “Care for the Wild” watch (the proceeds from which fully go toward the “Save Our Rhino Africa India” foundation [6]), Tiffany & Co’s “Save the Wild” collection or Bvlgari’s “Save the Children” campaign [7].

There are several reasons why we believe that luxury brands also should stay interested in taking a position of long-term stewardship toward the world. First, it can help to build a brand based on a point of difference, repositioning it from a signal of wealth and social status today to a signal of accountability and stewardship toward future generations.

Second, it can help to create a legacy. Luxury brands that take a stand on sustainability and social responsibility are more likely to be remembered for their positive impact on the world. Third, it is the right thing to do. Luxury brands are responsible for using their – potentially abundant – resources to positively impact the world.

Self-transcendence principles like compassion for others and altruism are the main emphasis of social stewardship programs (i.e., cause-related marketing) [8]. Still, purchasing luxury is inherently a hedonic behavior. This creates a contrast between the “dream” of buying a high-end item and the “reality” of giving to those in need. Nevertheless, given the increasing expectations of younger customer groups toward transparency and overall responsibility, by focusing on stewardship, luxury players can leverage the new-found purchasing power of these newer yet influential customer segments.

Consumers are looking for brands that align with their values. By taking a position of stewardship and creating value for current and future generations, luxury brands can attract and retain customers who are interested in making a difference in the long run.

2.3 Building the brand-product narrative

Another challenge is to reach the new luxury consumers, who are more likely to shop online and through social media [9]. These channels should be used to connect with this younger demographic, to inspire them, and promote one’s collections. Storytelling in social media and online webstores is a powerful tool that can be used to connect with luxury consumers on an emotional level and create a sense of desire for their products. We, as humans, are hardwired to be drawn to stories as a way of communicating that is natural to us. With a powerful emotional impact, stories are a natural way of communicating and can be fruitfully leveraged in digital domains to increase the emotional interaction between the brand and its customers.

From a social and environmental perspective, luxury brands can use storytelling to create a symbiosis between the harsh reality of climate change and environmental challenges and a sense of mystery and intrigue around their products. This can make them more desirable and increase the likelihood that consumers will want to learn more about them.

There are different types of stories that can be run and mixed into brand-product narratives to claim stewardship in action, sustainability, and social responsibility. To exemplify:

• Product stories: These stories tell the story of the brand’s products. They can explain how the products are made, where the materials come from, and why they are sustainable, responsible, and how to represent stewardship. They can also help to create a sense of desire for the products.

• Heritage stories: These stories tell the history of the brand, its founder, and its products. They can help to create a sense of nostalgia and exclusivity, they can also help to build trust with consumers, and they can make it credible that stewardship, sustainability, and social responsibility have always come naturally to the brand.

• Founder stories: These stories tell the story of the person who founded the brand. They can be inspiring and motivational, and they can also help to create a connection between the brand and the consumer by claiming a natural reason for empathy between the brand and the consumer.

• Customer stories: These stories talk about real people who have experienced the brand’s stewardship, sustainability, and responsibility. They can be testimonials, case studies, or even just personal anecdotes. They can help to build trust and credibility with consumers, and they can also help to show the benefits of using the brand’s products.

• Social responsibility stories: These stories directly talk about how the brand takes responsibility for pressing issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion, or sustainability. They may talk about how the brand picks up the role of a steward to preserve the planet and its resources for future generations.

Overall, by using storytelling, luxury brands can create a more engaging and immersive experience for consumers. They can also help to build trust, credibility, and desire for their products.

3. Running the narrative across a multi-touchpoint journey

3.1 Consumer value propositions in a direct-to-consumer environment

The consumer path to purchase is a long and winding road, covering many touchpoints at which we can communicate with the consumer and tell the brand-product narrative. However, value propositions are typically developed as static, one-page documents that list the insight, benefits, reasons to believe, and value to the user. We suggest marrying the two worlds by developing value propositions in the style of brand-product narratives to be run across multi-touchpoint journeys.

We particularly focus on direct-to-consumer (DTC) webstores. That is because DTC stores are an increasingly relevant way for brands to reach consumers, drive engagement, and sell products. DTC stores are on the rise because the Internet has made it easier for brands to sell their products directly to consumers without having to set up physical stores [10]. The rise of DTC webstores coincides with the increasing importance of data: these webstores collect a lot of data about their customers, which can be used to personalize marketing campaigns and improve products and services [10].

DTC webstores offer several advantages over traditional retail models [11]. First, they allow brands to develop a direct relationship with their customers and adapt their offerings and communication strategy to their needs. Second, they can cater to the trend of a desire for personalization by collecting data on their customers and using it to make product recommendations and offer personalized experiences. Third, they can target the increasing need for convenience by providing same-day or next-day shipping and easy returns.

One reason for the rise of DTC is the opportunity to seamlessly integrate social media as a recruitment channel to drive traffic to the stores. Social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook have made it easier for brands to connect with consumers and build relationships. The traffic from search engines and social media to DTC has helped brands reach a wider audience and generate more sales.

3.2 Designing the consumer journey in direct-to-consumer webstores

There are several platforms that we can use to set up DTC stores. Some of the most popular platforms include:

• Shopify [12]: A cloud-based e-commerce platform that allows businesses to create and manage their own online stores.

• BigCommerce [13]: A cloud-based e-commerce platform that offers a wide range of features and integrations.

• Adobe Commerce (previously Magento) [14]: An open-source e-commerce platform that is known for its flexibility and scalability.

• Squarespace [15]: A website builder that also offers e-commerce features.

• WooCommerce [16]: A free and open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress.

For our work, we chose WooCommerce because it is a free and open-source e-commerce platform that offers many features and opportunities to play and experiment. It is simple enough for marketing professionals and students to master, and there is a lot of knowledge available to help you build your own webstores.

The standard consumer journey on WooCommerce DTC store can be divided into three main stages:

1. Stage 1: Landing: The consumer enters the store on the landing page (1), which acts like a storefront. It is accessed by typing the URL directly, clicking on a link from a search engine or social media platform, or following a link from another page on the store. The landing page is a great place to build awareness of the brand and its products and to tell the brand story.

2. Stage 2: Navigation: The next stage is for the consumer to navigate through the store’s assortment. This is done through (2) the gallery page, which showcases the different product categories, (3) the category pages, which show the products in each category, and (4) the individual product pages.

3. Stage 3: Payment: The final stage is for the consumer to complete the purchase. This is done through (5) the shopping cart, which shows the items in the cart, (6) the checkout page, which allows the consumer to enter their shipping and billing information, and (7) confirmation page, which confirms the order.

The consumer journey can also be customized to include detours, such as a page or pages that describe a brand initiative or familiarize the visitor with the brand’s community. These detours can be made accessible from the standard steps or accessed through the header or footer of the store. A rudimentary overview of the consumer journey can be found in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Rudimentary overview of the consumer journey in a DTC webstore.

3.3 Telling the holistic brand-product narrative in a DTC store

The key to our concept is that the brand-product narrative is more than just a single story or story element at a single point in the journey. It is an ongoing product narrative that is told across various stages of the consumer journey, from the landing page to the payment page. For example:

1. The landing page is a good place to tell the overall brand story, its history, initiatives, themes, plots, and characters.

2. The navigation pages can be used to show how elements of the brand story translate into the assortment and products, and how the brand’s priorities can be recognized in its products.

3. The payment pages can be used to remind the consumer of the brand’s priorities, call out any inconsistencies between the brand story and the consumer’s behavior, or include additional calls to action, like donating.

The key to a holistic, consistent brand-product narrative is that the story has an arc that travels across the touchpoints, keeps the consumer hooked and engaged, and triggers action. For example, if the brand story revolves around the founder, then elements should be developed to tell the founder’s story on the landing page, repeated in additional support pages reviewing the life of the founder, build a link between the founder and the items on display on the gallery and category pages, and find its way into the features and reasons-to-believe of products. The payment pages can ask for charitable donations for causes bearing resemblance to the founder’s story or call for consistency between the founder’s story and consumer shopping or payment options, or delivery behavior.

4. Pilot study

4.1 Study design

We conducted a pilot study to understand if the introduction of a more holistic brand-product narrative would create a higher level of consumer engagement. Although we used tools that are common in e-commerce, we approached the pilot as a cross-sectional consumer study in which we replicated the purchase process.

To maintain confidentiality, we disguise the luxury brand of choice. Yet, we can disclose that the brand was chosen because of its history, its relationship with storytelling, and its responsible behavior in the luxury world. The study proposes two main storyline types to represent the brand:

1. Story Type 1: Heritage & the Founder Story. The brand plays the founder’s narrative as an aspect of the brand’s heritage and as a possible story archetype to enhance customer engagement. The spotlight is on the human component of heritage by introducing the founder’s story.

2. Story Type 2: Storytelling through Social Norms. Customer engagement is thought to be higher for brands upon which the consumers can base their identity, which manage to communicate a “linking value” to similar consumers or groups that share the same interests, approaches, and ideas.

In each story type, the general brand story is constructed by placing story elements on the web pages of the replicated DTC webstore.

The study also includes a support element, akin to a reason-to-believe in value proposition thinking: the brand-cause fit. This is about the perceived fit between a brand and a cause, and how it can impact the success of corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns. Brand fit can be high or low. In a situation of a high brand fit, the brand and cause are clearly in support of each other.

The brand-cause fit is established in both story types and the stories permeate throughout the website. As a result, there are four coherent and holistic storylines to be placed along the stages and tested for their effectiveness. In summary:

• Founder story: Describes how the founder’s past, involvement with causes, and memories can be recognized in its stewardship initiatives. The stewardship initiative refers to the brand’s legacy.

• Social norms story: Describes the need for social belonging and the relation between brand and consumer. Uses generalized references instead of the founder’s name for the stewardship initiative.

• High brand fit. Describes how the brand supports the foundation of a farmers’ community, to give back to the community and ensure fair labor practices.

• Low brand fit. Describes how the brand supports the education of Roma children in Eastern European countries.

A fifth control narrative was developed that did not contain a themed brand-level narrative. We tested which version of the sites that contained the themed brand-level narratives would drive higher consumer engagement than the control version of the site that did not contain a brand-level narrative. An overview of the variable elements across the five conditions can be found in Figure 2 (landing page elements) and Figure 3 (stewardship and community page elements).

Figure 2.

Variable elements by condition to be placed on the landing page [17].

Figure 3.

Variable elements by condition to be placed on dedicated stewardship and community pages [17].

4.2 Measuring consumer engagement

To measure the effect of playing different versions of the brand story, we placed the elements of the brand story across the DTC site following a consistent narrative. We then measured consumer engagement in the various stages of the shopping task. We identified three types of consumer engagement based on Muntinga et al. [18].

• Consume: This type of engagement refers to the consumer’s interaction with the brand’s products or services and it is the lowest in terms of user involvement. It includes activities such as reading product reviews, watching product demonstrations, or making a purchase.

• Contribute: This type of engagement refers to the consumer’s active participation in the brand’s community or ecosystem. It includes activities such as creating user-generated content, sharing reviews or recommendations, or participating in social media conversations.

• Create: This type of engagement refers to the consumer’s active co-creation of the brand’s products or services. The highest form of engagement includes activities such as giving input into product design or marketing campaigns or contributing to the brand’s overall vision.

We translated these three types of engagement into specific behaviors that consumers could display while going through the website. These behaviors were:

• Consume: Signing up for the newsletter

• Contribute: Making an account for the brand community page

• Create: Posting the brand on their own social media

• Purchase: Buying items and completing an order

Purchasing was added as an active option for the participant and as a form of engagement because it is the endgame of engagement. The overall metric for engagement is now calculated by counting the number of activities that a consumer displayed across the four behavioral metrics. This metric allows us to capture the full range of consumer engagement, from simply reading product reviews to making a purchase. In the Table 2, we have summarized the metrics.

Engagement behaviors	In online environments	Action on website
Consume: The consumer’s interaction with the brand’s products or services.	It includes activities such as reading product reviews, watching product demonstrations, or making a purchase	Sign up for the newsletter. Registered on the landing page and on the Footer. Visual cue.
Contribute: The consumer’s active participation in the brand’s community or ecosystem.	It includes activities such as creating user-generated content, sharing reviews or recommendations, or participating in social media conversations	Make an account for the Community. Registered on Brand Community Page. Visual cue.
Create: The consumer’s active co-creation of the brand’s products or services.	It includes activities such as giving input into product design products or marketing campaigns or contributing to the brand’s overall vision	Post on the participant’s own social media. Registered on Footer and called out after purchase. Visual cue.
Purchase: The consumer’s purchase of items.	It includes the choice of items, their price, and the overall purchase cost	Fulfill an order. Registered in Cart and Checkout. Visual cue.

Table 2.

Overview of four engagement behaviors measured.

In addition to these types of engagement, we also measure the amount of time that consumers spent on the website (in minutes). This is because time spent is often considered a proxy for engagement.

4.3 Tools for building brand-product narratives

As discussed before, we use WooCommerce [16], a plugin for WordPress, a content management system (CMS) that makes it easy to create and manage a website, as the backbone of the work. WooCommerce is an e-commerce plugin that adds shopping functionality to WordPress. This set of tools allows us to build a simplified DTC webstore replica that is meant to be an accurate representation of the original.

Our approach to creating the brand-product narrative starts by placing its elements in containers or blocks in the webpage design. A single block or container can contain all aspects of a particular part of the story, such as text, visuals, audio, or video. The blocks or containers are then stringed together into a story arc by tagging them and putting them in a single track. We use several tools, also available in the public domain, for this exercise.

• ChatGPT [19]: We use AI-based large language models (LLM) such as ChatGPT to replicate brand-product narratives. We extracted brand positionings from the web and then recreated the narratives corresponding with the storylines.

• Elementor [20]: To design the WordPress pages and place the elements of the narrative in containers or blocks, we use Elementor, a visual editor that helps to create WordPress pages without writing code. We use HTML tags to create families of containers in a track that represents a storyline.

• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) [21]: We use the Google Analytics 4 suite of tools (GA4) to measure consumer activity in webstores. GA4 keeps a timestamped record of all consumer activity so we can see what people do and when and how often they do it. This data helps us to understand how visitors interact with the webstores and to make improvements to the design and content.

• Google Optimizer [22]: To ensure that the narrative is consistent across all pages of the webstore, we use Google Optimizer as a scripting mechanism. Google Optimizer allows us to assign visitors to different tracks and to make sure that they see the same version of the narrative. This helps us to test different versions of the narrative and to see which one is most effective.

• Google Tag Manager [23]: We use Google Tag Manager to tag consumer actions. This allows us to track detailed information about how visitors are using the webstores.

• BigQuery [24]: The data collected by GA4 is stored in BigQuery, a cloud data warehouse. BigQuery allows us to generate dashboards and analyze data. We also use SPSS for statistical testing.

It is important to note that GA4 [21] and its associated tools are, by default, not General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant. This means that we modify the data collection and anonymization settings to comply with GDPR regulations. A flowchart of the consumer journey in our replicated webstore can be found in Figure 4.

Figure 4.

Flowchart of the replicated DTC webstore [17].

5. Results pilot study

5.1 Sample composition

The study comprised four versions of a more holistic brand-product narrative, tested against the control, a product-focused narrative. In total, five conditions were created. Table 3 shows the cell size by condition.

Condition	Storyline	Cell size (n)
Control	Product narrative only	29
Test 1	Founder’s story, high brand-cause fit	34
Test 2	Social Norms story, high brand-cause fit	41
Test 3	Founder’s story, low brand-cause fit	34
Test 4	Social Norms story, low brand-cause fit	39
Total		177

Table 3.

Sample distribution across conditions.

Age was the only sample restriction due to the aim of the study to focus only on the new luxury consumer. 68% of participants were female, 31% male, and < 1% non-binary. 78% of participants were between 18 and 25 years of age (Generation Z), and the other 22% were between 26 and 40 (Millennials). 53% of respondents were Dutch, and the others were from a wide variety of nationalities. The sample composition was balanced across the cells.

Because the sample and cell sizes are small, we must exercise caution with the interpretation, and we will analyze the main effects only (of type of story and brand-cause fit) and not the interaction effect between story and fit.

5.2 Insight 1: Time spent as an act of engagement

The narratives cause participants to spend more time in the webstore: overall, our participants spent, on average, 4.03 minutes in our webstores. It is encouraging to see that they spent significantly more time on the versions with the narratives, 4.30 minutes versus 2.64 minutes on the control version (t = −3.088, p(one-sided) = 0.01, equal variances not assumed) (Table 4).

			Type of story		Brand-cause fit
Time spent (min.)	Control	Story	Founder	Norms	High	Low	Total
Mean	2.64	4.30	4.84	3.84	4.13	4.48	4.03
Std dev	1.87	4.97	5.72	4.23	5.02	4.95	4.65
N	29	148	68	80	75	73	177

Table 4.

Time spent on the DTC webstore across the five conditions.

Although it seems that participants spent more time with the founder story than the norms story, or a story with a low fit than a high fit, the differences are not significant (t = 1.184, p(one-sided) = 0.119 and t = −0.427, p(one-sided) = 0.335, respectively, equal variances not assumed). Although directionally, it looks as if the founder story peaks the highest interest, we can only conclude that introducing the brand-product narratives did cause participants to spend more time, but there is no indication of whether one story approach had a higher influence on time spent than the other. One reason for this is the high variability of time spent, expressed by a high standard deviation: some participants spend a lot of time, and others do not, and this variability is higher in the story conditions.

5.3 Insight 2: Other acts of engagement

The low number of observations makes it hard to draw any meaningful conclusions about the effect of individual narratives. Directionally, participants in the story conditions signed up more often for the newsletter, but eventually, the proportion of actions is not significantly different between the control and story conditions.

The biggest surprise is that participants are more likely to make “purchases” than the other three actions. Overall, 60 out of the 177 participants “buy” one or more products from the DTC site (33.9%), whereas only 62 participants are prompted to take one of the other three actions (Table 5).

			Type of story		Brand-cause fit
Engagement in actions	Control	Story	Founder	Social Norms	High	Low	Total
N=	29	148	68	80	75	73	177
Signed up to Newsletter	2	28	10	18	18	10	30
% within cell	6.9%	18.9%	14.7%	22.5%	24.0%	13.7%	16.9%
Signed up for Community	0	14	6	8	8	6	14
% within cell	0.0%	9.5%	8.8%	10.0%	10.7%	8.2%	7.9%
Posted on social media	2	16	6	10	8	8	18
% within cell	6.9%	10.8%	8.8%	12.5%	11.0%	11.0%	10.2%
Purchased	13	47	20	28	23	25	60
% within cell	44.8%	31.8%	29.4%	35.0%	30.7%	34.2%	33.9%
Acted (deduplicated)	14	62	25	37	32	30	76
% within cell	48.3%	41.9%	36.8%	46.3%	42.7%	41.1%	42.9%

Table 5.

Participant engagement as measured by the four activities.

Although eyeballing the data, we may conclude that participants are more likely to act in the control condition than in the story conditions, logistic regression shows it is not a statistically supported result (B = −0.258, df = 1, p = 526). There is no difference between the actions of those in the control condition and those in the story conditions.

There are some directional differences between the story conditions, but they must be considered with extreme caution and need to be replicated in future research. Table 6 contains an overview of directions, estimated by means of logistic regression.

	Condition	Type of story	Brand-cause fit
Engagement in actions	Control vs. story	Founder vs. norms	High vs. low
Signs up to newsletter	Directionally higher in case of a story, p = 0.132	Directionally higher for a norms story, p = 0.231	Directionally higher for high brand fit, p = 0.114
Sign up to community	No difference
Posts on social media	No difference
Purchases one or more products	Directionally higher in the control condition, p = 0.177
Acted (deduplicated)		Directionally higher for a norms story, p = 0.245

Table 6.

Directional effect in actions by condition (main effects only).

To our surprise, participants were most likely to make a “purchase.” We considered this the highest level of engagement. Maybe it is not. Maybe participants are most used to replicating purchase behavior and no other forms of behavior. In a setting like this, they may be less used to signing up for a newsletter or community, or typing in an email address is more of an act of engagement than we had expected it to be.

In Table 7, we may recognize three types of engagement:

1. Those who did not display any engagement other than spending time (57%),

2. Those who displayed one act of engagement (27%), which is mostly making a purchase (20%-point),

3. Those who displayed several acts of engagement (17%), which goes across the remaining three actions, signing up for the newsletter or the community, or posting on social media.

Number of actions out of four	Total (%)	That is, signed up to the newsletter (%)	That is, signed up for the community (%)	That is, posted on social media (%)	That is, purchased (%)
Did not act	57
Took one action	27	6	0	1	20
Took two actions	10	5	3	5	7
Took three actions	4	4	2	2	3
Took four actions	3	3	3	3	3
Total		17	8	10	34

Table 7.

Number of actions on the four activities.

As a percentage of total number of participants (n = 177).

These types of engagement did not vary significantly, only directionally, across the five test conditions.

6. Conclusion

6.1 Reflection on acts of engagement

The pilot study helped us to gather a couple of insights into consumer behavior. First and foremost, participants seem to invest a considerable amount of time navigating our web stores.

However, it is worth noting that there is a notably high standard deviation in the time they spend. To clarify, we are uncertain if this time investment truly signifies an extended period spent on the websites. This variance likely depends on the complexity of the information presented and the time required for its examination. It would be prudent to corroborate this data by employing methods such as eye tracking to discern whether and how individuals engage with website content over an extended duration.

Shifting our focus back to brand engagement metrics, we initially anticipated that making purchases would represent the highest level of brand engagement and commitment from participants. Surprisingly, we discovered that purchasing was the most common action taken on direct-to-consumer websites. Equally surprising was the fact that individuals were less inclined to provide their email addresses or subscribe to newsletters or community memberships. We initially perceived these actions as indicative of lower engagement and core commitment. However, it is possible that our initial assessment was inaccurate. It might be that divulging personal details, such as an email address, signifies a higher level of commitment. To gain clarity, we should draw insights from real-world data and investigate whether different task descriptions align more closely with the level of engagement that individuals naturally experience. Our aim is to replicate reality and real behavior more accurately in our task instructions, potentially encouraging participants to be more willing to share personal information. One strategy could involve anonymizing the personal information they provide.

Furthermore, although we did not observe statistically significant effects, we did notice directional effects in the desired direction. To enhance our understanding, we should generate synthetic data with larger sample sizes. This would allow us to express our expectations and anticipated directions more clearly, and we can then assess the statistical differences more effectively. Conducting power analysis and creating synthetic data will enable us to delve deeper into the effects, making our approach akin to AB testing.

6.2 Reflections on methods used

In this paper, we discuss how to test and optimize different versions of a brand-product narrative in a multi-point consumer journey, where each version represents a holistic storyline. While the method is complex, we believe that the added value of the information is worth the effort of collecting it.

Our method is an alternative to concept testing or conjoint analysis in specific use cases. The relevance of the method depends on the relevance of the use case. To explore this, we can compare it to two alternatives:

1. Traditional concept testing: In a traditional concept test, a concept consists of claims about the benefits of the product/brand combination, their reasons to believe, and their value to the user.

2. Conjoint analysis: In conjoint analysis, the storyline can be broken up into its constituents or story elements, and the effect of the elements on consumer choice is measured.

Our method is like traditional concept testing in that we test holistic concepts where the story elements are part of a holistic story, and their value can only be assessed in the context of the holistic story. However, the problem with traditional concept testing is that those concepts covering corporate, brand, and product elements can become tediously long. Distributing the storyline and its elements across a multi-touchpoint journey may be easier for the consumer to process.

Our method is like conjoint analysis in that the storyline is broken up into its constituents, and their individual effects can be measured. However, the difference is that we measure the effect independent of the context of the storyline. A combination of effective elements is not necessarily an effective holistic story.

Another difference is that in our approach, we use multiple dependent variables to measure the effect of the storyline: sign-ups, posts, and the opportunity to place multiple purchases in one order. It is possible to do the same in a concept test or in conjoint analysis, but the approach would become equally complex.

In conclusion, our new approach can do things that simpler methods cannot do, such as:

1. Test the effectiveness of story elements in the context of a holistic storyline.

2. Test the effects of a holistic story and its constituents on multiple dependent variables.

We believe that the most meaningful innovation is that we borrowed a way of working from recent developments in e-commerce and turned it into a market insight approach to (pre)testing brand-product narratives in their future, “natural” habitat. We consider our approach of using replicated environments to test brand-product narratives an alternative to real-time experimentation using multivariate AB testing approaches. Over time, these versions of the same idea may converge into a single approach and become widely applied in the context of DTC webstores.

We aspire to utilize this novel approach because we believe it offers a more predictive insight into how consumers will navigate their decisions and choices in evolving retail contexts. We also acknowledge that the approach is inherently complex and demands a command of tools and skills not typically found among market insight practitioners. However, these new skills reflect the evolving landscape of marketing. Simultaneously, over the past couple of years, the tools and skills required have become more accessible and user-friendly. For instance, the creation and modification of websites and webstores, along with the tagging of blocks or containers, has become significantly simpler when compared to the challenges a few years ago.

6.3 Extension beyond luxury brands

We implemented our idea in an exploratory way in the context of a direct-to-consumer webstore of a luxury brand. This is a specific execution in a specific use case. There are three main reasons why we focused on luxury fashion brands in this paper.

First, the fashion industry has a large environmental impact in general. The production and consumption of fashion is a major contributor to climate change, water pollution, and other environmental problems. The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Second, luxury brands are often seen as being incompatible with sustainability. The history of luxury brands is often tied to the exploitation of natural resources and labor. This causes concern about the sustainability of luxury fashion brands.

Third, luxury brands have the resources to make a difference. They have the financial resources to invest in sustainable practices. They also have the marketing power to reach a large audience and raise awareness about sustainability issues.

Luxury brands are thereby well positioned to overcome the stewardship paradox between luxury and sustainability by creating sustainable products that are both high-quality and environmentally friendly. They can also tell stories about the positive impact of their sustainability initiatives. This could help to change the perception that sustainability is incompatible with luxury.

It is important for luxury brands to make a difference because these brands have a responsibility to make a difference. They have the resources to invest in sustainable practices and raise awareness about sustainability issues. By doing so, they can set an example for other businesses that are facing a similar stewardship paradox, e.g., the energy and fossil fuels brands, automotive or agriculture brands.

Generalizations of the use case may make the approach more relevant to market insight practitioners, marketers, and retailers in general. We can extend and generalize the approach in at least two directions:

1. Other than luxury brands: This could be other brands that are challenged for their sustainability efforts, their CSR or Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, or their ability to develop a holistic story instead of only pursuing an occasional “greenwashing” initiative. They want to show that they take the challenges seriously at all levels. They want to bring in brand-level and corporate-level benefits and reasons-to-believe into their value propositions and into a holistic brand-product narrative. Examples can be brands in fashion, in automotive, or even in the energy sector or heavy industries.

2. Other than DTC webstores: We have chosen DTC webstores because it is easier to control the narrative than in situations where the narrative spans across touchpoints involving different owners and actors, e.g., search engines, social media, and generic webstores. We can generalize the approach if brands succeed in tracking consumers across multi-owner touchpoints.

The latter may be a challenge, given recent developments in cookie-based tracking. Yet, we consider this a technical barrier, not a conceptual one.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the following institutes and people for the use of their assets and tools in this study:

1. WordPress & WooCommerce: https://wordpress.com/.

2. Google Analytics: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/.

3. Elementor: https://elementor.com/.

4. ChatGPT: https://openai.com/chatgpt.

The Master of Science in Marketing Management program of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, https://www.eur.nl/en.