Fashion blogs are now widely used as a marketing tool by the fashion industry, one of the largest consumer-based industry and a multibillion dollar trade. Blogs allowed this industry to reach wider audiences at a cheaper cost. In the Philippines, the statistics on the use of Filipinos of social media and blogs have showed a fast and steady growth over the years. Philippines was dubbed as the fastest growing internet audience in Southeast Asia (2010). In Asia, personal style contents consist 33 percent of all fashion-related content from the blogs within the region. This study therefore analyzed five personal style blogs shortlisted by StyleBibli.ph last July 2013 as the Best Wardrobe Bloggers in the Philippines in order to identify which structural elements and message framing characteristics of the blog entries contribute to the blogs? marketing influence. This study also inferred which marketing elements (product, price, promotion and place) where presented frequently in the entries. Through the identification of the marketing elements present within the blogs, the researcher was able to do an a priori assumption of which audience characteristics do these marketing elements in the blogs mostly appeal to. Guided by the principles from E. Goffman?s Gender Differentiation Analsysis, Petty and Cacioppo?s Elaboration Likelihood Model, Kotler and Lee?s Principles on Social Marketing, and B. Berelson?s principles on content analysis, the researcher analyzed a total of 434 blog entries from five blogs namely; Death by Flatforms by Kookie Buahin, Camille tries to blog by Camille Co, break my style by Laureen Uy, ThisrtyThought by Kryz Uy, and Tricia Will Go Places by Tricia Gosingtian. Though coding and the sue of statistical tools such as Pearson?s Product-Moment Correlation (PPMC) and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), the study was able to come up with the following results: the most product featured in the blogs were shopping goods (65.78%) which were ultimately priced from economical to premium (47.70%) and were accessible (80.67%) and indirectly promoted (80.88%); variables prominence, neutral treatment, and conversational tone often have positive relationships with shopping goods, convenience goods, and specialty products priced within economical to mid-range and economical to mid-range and economical to premium price ranges; and that same variables showed positive relationships with indirectly promoted products and products with accessible production places. The variables under the characteristics of the target market and the structural and message framing elements of the blogs were tested through PPMC. The result showed positive relationships among the variables. Frequency counts showed that the characteristics of the audience mostly appealed to by the structural elements and the message framing of blog entries were a full range of ages from adolescents to adults (48.18%) , a social status of students to professional (43.39%), and an economics status of middle to high classes (60.60%). The results of this study have established that structural elements and message framing of entries are the sources of a blog?s marketing influence as they present marketing elements in them.

Thesis (B.A. Communication Arts) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao