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Introduction
Since its establishment in 2004, Rapha has positioned itself as an elite cycling brand in both sporting and fashion worlds and communicates this through expansive brand storytelling. This study takes a holistic approach to gathering qualitative data primarily through using narrative inquiry methodology, which prioritises the exploration of “stories lived and told” (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000, p. 20) as a way of understanding lived experience. In narrative inquiry, narrative refers to “a discourse form in which events and happenings are configured into a temporal unity by means of a plot” (Polkinghorne, 1995, p. 5). The gathering, analysis, chronicling and theming of story through first-person accounts of experience are critical in narrative inquiry with the subject of prime interest the person (or brand) in context, contrary to the universal case in context, as in grand narrative thinking (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000). I have therefore focused specifically on gathering primary data through people in direct connection with Rapha, specifically interviewing its Head of Brand and Marketing, James Fairbank, in August 2016. Fairbank’s personal stories of cycling as much as a communication expert are of value here, lending a contextual “insider” viewpoint and industry insight into the internal mechanisms, strategic role and value placed on storytelling by the brand. As a narrative inquiry researcher, my own role is foregrounded situating me as a participant researcher actively involved in the field, generating autobiographical narratives of my own cycling experience and observations while engaging with brand artefacts and experiences. This subjective personal introspection has roots in ethnographic practices (Gould, 1991; Woodside, 2004) and adds my own insight as a fashion academic, past design journalist and fashion PR, and long-term cyclist as one part of adopting a wider research methodology to avoid bias (Woodside, 2006). Clandinin and Connelly (2000) comment on this positioning saying, “It is a collaboration between researcher and participants, over time, in a place or a series of places, and in social interaction with milieus” (p. 20). I would posit that my multi-disciplinary experience and positioning combine to offer an unusual, valuable and critical perspective on Rapha’s internal and external promotional strategies, especially given that marketing practice has tacit dimensions that are embedded in situational, interactional, social contexts (Hackley, 1999).
As part of analysing field data and...