Digital Marketing Strategies for Value Co-creation

One of the transformations in the evolving technological tapestries is the emergence of OBCs. OBCs are an integral part of digital marketing strategy, giving rise to information consumption, knowledge sharing and interactive engagement in addition to traditional marketplace consumption. OBCs are increasingly becoming strategic weapons enabling brands to directly engage with consumers, and consumers to respond to brands and other OBC users. The exclusivity of the reach of OBCs in interactively engaging with particular brands differs from other digital platforms, such as social networking sites, blogs and forums, which are widely accessible to general audiences. This chapter begins by signposting some of the major developmental stages of OBCs that have contributed to the current understanding of marketing environments. A secondary but no less important goal is to provide some background understanding to the history and complexity of OBCs in the development of digital marketing strategies. The chapter concludes with a delineation of the relationship between OBCs and value co-creation.

The previous chapter sought to chronicle the dynamic nature of community within the emerging technological environment. The chapter discussed how emerging computer-mediated marketing environments are intertwined with value co-creation. The current chapter examines customer participation and the level of customer involvement in OBCs. Managing an OBC is not just about attracting a large group of followers and sharing content and tools for followers to observe and use, it is also about understanding the meaning and role of customer participation and involvement. A key difference between customer participation and customer involvement is that participation refers to the actual activities conducted in OBCs, whereas involvement refers to the level of input individuals will invest into a community in the short and long term. Although the difference may seem minor, individuals’ actions and expression of attitudes or perspectives through OBCs signal their different levels of involvement in OBCs. One may argue that many online activities, such as sharing and observing content related to a brand, initiate momentary intentions to participate within OBCs, before moving on to the next or refreshed social media timeline. On average, individuals spend two hours per day using social media and the internet (Tankovska, 2021), which places pressure on firms to maintain customer participation in their OBCs within the relatively limited time period. Ensuring customers feel that visiting and participating in OBCs is a relevant part of their daily social media activity is challenging due to the highly diversified behavioural characteristics of customers (Ozuem et al., 2021). Typically, perceived shared outlooks, values and principles motivate customers to involve themselves in a community (Cheng et al., 2019) and become actors in shaping the brand’s image itself, extending a simple visit and observation of online activities into involvement (Carlson et al., 2019).

The previous chapter discussed customer participation and involvement in online brand communities (OBCs). In this chapter, we continue to explore contemporary viewpoints on OBCs and how customers’ participation and their level of involvement lead to different types of loyalty. The chapter offers a conceptual schema based on the work of Ozuem, Willis, Howell, Helal, et al. (2021a), which will enable us to discuss how different layers of customer participation will lead to different types of loyalty intentions.

Social media platforms provide an endless list of options in terms of brand offers. Consumers who previously had limited access to marketing offerings and information, or were unaccustomed to looking beyond their physical reach, have learned to access products, services and brands both locally and globally given the borderless nature of digital environments (Hajro et al., 2021). These advances, though beneficial for consumers, make it more crucial for companies to deliver seamless experiences to draw consumers away from general brand listings or content timelines to their online brand communities (OBCs), where a specific brand is the central focus of the online environment. Many major brands have their own social media pages through which they reinvent themselves by delivering real-time, simple and effective personalised experiences. For instance, Sony’s PlayStation® has retained its large following on Twitter by continuously posting content of new game trailers, gaming footage, streaming events and free games to download. The social media strategy of online fashion retailer Boohoo has been a major contributor to their continued success in targeting and engaging young audiences, particularly through their Instagram and influencer marketing strategy. The personal care brand Dove has generated impactful marketing campaigns through its OBCs that have reinvented its image and presence in the market. Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign, first launched in 2004, has been refreshed multiple times; it resurfaced in 2020 highlighting the core message to focus on the beauty of real human values. The 2020 campaign ‘Courage is Beautiful’, launched in the USA, honoured healthcare workers and their efforts throughout the coronavirus pandemic (Neff, 2020). Such activity aligns with arguments related to the need of having brand pages or OBCs; brands can use OBCs to generate and post brand-related content and messages, facilitate real-time brand–customer or customer–customer interactions, manage customer relationships as well as build the online follower population.

Influencer marketing is far from being a new concept and has seen major transformations since its beginning. Traditional advertisers will date earliest influencers back to medieval times when the ruling class deeply influenced (or dictated) the behaviour of their subjects, before the influencer emerged from the film, music, sports and reality TV sector. Today we still see evidence of such influence embedded in our media and industries. Yet influencer marketing is no longer what it used to be. The popularity of social networking sites has prompted many businesses to switch from placing significant investment into traditional media like TV, radio and posters in favour of social media platforms. Despite recognition that influencer marketing dates back before the twentieth century, it is mostly recognised as a modern digital marketing term to promote products or services (Belanche et al., 2021; Campbell & Farrell, 2020; De Veirman et al., 2017; Farivar et al., 2021). Thus, influencer marketing has become an essential part of digital marketing strategy for marketing purposes and profit generation. Industry reports have indicated an increase in the use of influencer agencies. The influencer marketing agency Linqia (2019) reported that 86% of brand marketers used influencer marketing in their advertising campaigns in 2017 and 92% of them found it effective. Another agency, Mediakix (2018), reported that 89% of companies saw a better return of investment with influencer marketing than other marketing channels and would continue to increase their influencer marketing budgets in 2019. Once a minor movement, the investment and market size of influencer marketing in the digital era worldwide reached US$148 million in 2019, and this is expected to exceed US$373 million by 2027 (Statista, 2020).