Brand value co-creation in a digitalized world: An integrative framework and research implications

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Abstract

We present an integrative framework of brand value co-creation with theoretical underpinnings in joint agencial experiencial creation of brand value. Central to this framework are brand engagement platforms entailing both relational activities and offerings, at the intersection of joint agency of experiencial co-creators (whether in their role as customers, employees, partners, or any other stakeholder) and co-creational enterprises as organizing the practice of brand value co-creation (whether in their role as innovating or marketing offerings, or managing network relations). Using two illustrative examples of Starbucks and Apple, we discuss how brand value co-creation is enacted through brand engagement platforms, embodied in brand experience domains, and emergent from brand capability ecosystems, valorizing outcomes with stakeholding individuals. Subsequently, using another illustrative example of Nike, we discuss the concept of co-creational enterprises as a nexus of co-creational platforms of engagements, and elaborate upon the organizational practice of brand value co-creation in a digitalized world. We conclude with several implications for future brand research.

Section snippets

Joint agencial experiencial creation of brand value

The relationship marketing and value co-creation literatures (Lusch and Vargo, 2014, Payne et al., 2005, Saarijärvi et al., 2013) have tended to focus on stakeholders as actors (Frow et al., 2015), e.g., customers, suppliers, partners, and influencers, rather than agency (Latour, 2005). Agency entails the capacity to act and actions that generate outcomes, by virtue of engagement by individuals that both reproduces and transforms structural environments in interactive response (Emirbayer &

Co-creational enterprises and brand value co-creation

Following the two examples of Starbucks and Apple, while joint agencial experiencial creation of brand value is enacted through joint agency of experiencers in designed platforms of brand engagements, it is also embodied in domains of brand experiences (top part of Fig. 1), and emergent from ecosystems of brand capabilities (bottom part of Fig. 1). A brand experience domain is an individuated stratum of events, contexts, involvements, and meanings, which in the widest sense, contributes to the

Implications and conclusion

The logic of joint agencial experiencial creation of brand value has considerable and significant implications for both academics and practitioners. This logic requires a shift in thinking to engaging stakeholders personally and collectively in creating brand value together, expanding how the enterprise connects brand value creation opportunities with brand resources, and conceiving platforms of engagements as purposefully designed assemblages of persons, artifacts, interfaces, and processes,

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