How is GeenStijl's brand structured? Using uk phone number theory (based on Keller's customer based brand equity ) and our own ProBAR research (N=203), we will analyze the brand and put it to the test, because it's not great.
current
funny
has self-mockery
critical
independent
provocative
straight to the point
progressive
Apparently, GeenStijl is not interested in making choices, because there are quite a few of them. There is also quite a bit of tension between these values. Looking at some feeds, critical and independent degenerate into a personal feud. Like the one with Kane and Dinand Woesthoff: he was criticized by GeenStijl , among others , for making advertisements for the tobacco industry. This happened a year after his wife had died of breast cancer and he wrote a mega hit about it (the proceeds of which were donated to the KWF). GeenStijl has continued to bash Dinand with unwavering fanaticism, with the risk that it is no longer about the content but about the way in which it is done. In doing so, GeenStijl undermines its own values. We will come back to this. Let us first look at the results of the image research.
Image research
GeenStijl users find brand values such as topical, self-mockery, provocative and straightforward to be the most fitting for GeenStijl, see figure 2. Non-users only agree with 'provocative' and 'straightforward'. They mainly think of 'pushy', 'hard' and 'unfiltered', while users see it more as a 'counter-voice' and 'honest'.
It seems that users have the same blindfold as the people of GeenStijl themselves: they think they have self-mockery, are funny and independent. You could also say: non-users know very well why they don't come to the platform of GeenStijl.