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This paper aims to investigate the ways in which “non-collaborative co-creation” can affect brand equity as perceived by independent observers. It reports a study of the different effects on that perception attributable to non-collaborative co-creation that takes the form of either “brand play” or “brand attack” and is executed either by established artists or mainstream consumers.

A 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment (brand play versus brand attack; consumer versus artist) measured observers’ perception of brand equity before and after exposure to purpose-designed co-created treatments.

Non-collaborative co-creation has a negative effect on observers’ perceptions of brand equity and brand attack, causing a stronger dilution of brand equity than brand play. Artists either mitigate the dilution or have a positive effect on those perceptions.

Future research could usefully investigate the relative susceptibility of brands to non-collaborative co-creation, the effects on brands of higher complexity than those in our experiment, exposed in higher-involvement media, and the effects of more diverse forms of co-creation.

Brand managers must recognise that co-creation carries considerable risks for brand equity. They should closely monitor and track the first signs of non-collaborative co-creation in progress. It could be beneficial to recruit artists as co-creators of controlled brand play.

This study offers a more complete insight into the effect of non-collaborative co-creation on observers’ perceptions of brand equity than so far offered by the existing literature. It connects the fields of brand management and the arts by investigating the role and impact of artists as collaborative or non-collaborative co-creators of brand equity.

In the democratic digital environment, brand managers frequently deal with the unauthorized use of the brand by third parties. The phenomenon, known as brand hijacking, has been treated in different and sometimes conflicting ways in the academic and professional literature. The aim of this paper is to clarify the meaning of brand hijacking and to shed light on the various motivations and intentions underpinning the phenomenon.

A Delphi-based survey among both academic and professional experts was conducted to explore the key features of brand hijacking and expand existing theories.

The results of the Delphi survey enable the main brand hijacking actions to be mapped, based on two motivational axes (utilitarian–idealistic and destructive–constructive) and on the various intentions that guide the hijackers. The results help re-define the key elements of brand hijacking, through the lens of non-collaborative brand co-creation.

Managerial implications are presented in terms of the corporate response to the two main effects of hijacking, namely, brand reputational damage and brand repositioning.

The paper helps to shed light on the main components of brand hijacking, thus gaining expert consensus in refining the existent conceptualization in relation to a rapidly changing brand management scenario because of the gradual loss by brand managers of their traditional control.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the emerging crowd‐funding phenomenon, that is a collective effort by consumers who network and pool their money together, usually via the internet, in order to invest in and support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Successful service businesses that organize crowd‐funding and act as intermediaries are emerging, attesting to the viability of this means of attracting investment.

The research employs a “grounded theory” approach, performing an in‐depth qualitative analysis of three cases involving crowd‐funding initiatives: SellaBand in the music business, Trampoline in financial services, and Kapipal in non‐profit services. These cases were selected to represent a diverse set of crowd‐funding operations that vary in terms of risk/return for the investor and the type of payoff associated to the investment.

The research addresses two research questions: how and why do consumers turn into crowd‐funding participants? and how and why do service providers set up a crowd‐funding initiative? Concerning the first research question, the authors' findings reveal purposes, characteristics, roles and tasks, and investment size of crowd‐funding activity from the consumer's point of view. Regarding the second research question, the authors' analysis reveals purposes, service roles, and network effects of crowd‐funding activity investigated from the point of view of the service organization that set up the initiative.

The findings also have implications for service managers interested in launching and/or managing crowd‐funding initiatives.

The paper addresses an emerging phenomenon and contributes to service theory in terms of extending the consumer's role from co‐production and co‐creation to investment.

The purpose of this paper is to challenge a traditional image of the content of entrepreneurship, which is associated with creativity, identity and discovery recognition.

A narrative approach is used in telling the story about the artist/entrepreneur Mikael Genberg. The story is based on interviews, newspaper material and observations. Taking this story as the point of departure, an alternative image of entrepreneurship is suggested.

First, from a traditional Schumpeterian perspective Genberg could be portrayed as a good example of a hero entrepreneur, an archetype of the creative artist/entrepreneur. Instead Genberg in this paper is described in terms of a creative imitator. Second, the Schumpeterian “hero entrepreneur” is associated with a fixed and strong identity. This picture is challenged and replaced by a demonstration of how double or multiple identities are used in legitimizing work which is argued to be more illustrative to the content of entrepreneurship than finding the true identity of the hero entrepreneur. Third, discovery recognition from a traditional perspective is attributed to the individual, while in this case opportunity creation signifies the process of making discoveries collectively shared.

This study is exploratory and based on a single case, while the results cannot be taken as generalizations. Instead an alternative understanding of the content of entrepreneurship is illustrated.

The value of this study is the demonstration of an alternative image of the content of entrepreneurship.

The actual uses to which public art is put have been virtually ignored, leaving multifarious dynamics related to its esthetic encounters unexplored. Both audience agency in placemaking and sensemaking and the agentic role of place as more than a mere platform or stage dressing for transformation are routinely neglected. Such transformative dynamics are analyzed and interpreted in this study of the Derry–Londonderry Temple, a transient mega-installation orchestrated by bricoleur artist David Best and co-created by sectarian communities in 2015.

A range of ethnographic methods and supplemental netnography were employed in the investigation.

Participants inscribed expressions of their lived experience of trauma on the Temple's infrastructure, on wood scrap remnants or on personal artifacts dedicated for interment. These inscriptions and artifacts became objects of contemplation for all participants to consider and appreciate during visitation, affording sectarian citizens opportunity for empathic response to the plight of opposite numbers. Thousands engaged with the installation over the course of a week, registering sorrow, humility and awe in their interactions, experiencing powerful catharsis and creating temporary cross-community comity. The installation and the grief work animating it were introjected by co-creators as a virtual legacy of the engagement.

The originality of the study lies in its theorizing of the successful delivery of social systems therapy in an esthetic modality to communities traditionally hostile to one another. This sustained encounter is defined as traumaturgy. The sacrificial ritual of participatory public art becomes the medium through which temporary cross-community cohesion is achieved.

This paper focuses on the relationships that consumers develop with experiential objects in the context of the Biennale of Contemporary Art Exhibition, viewed from a dialogical and intersubjective approach. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the interpersonal relationships that visitors of the Biennale establish with contemporary artworks and to understand the characteristics of these relationships as well as their role in shaping Biennale visitors’ identity narratives.

This research employs an instrumental case study that draws on multiple data sources and examines consumers’ relationships with contemporary artworks.

The case study evidence introduces the relationships that emerged from Biennale visitors’ interactions with contemporary artworks and the identity narratives evolving from these relationships. The findings suggest that Biennale visitors’ relationships with the contemporary artworks take the form of I-thou and I-it relationships. These two modes of interpersonal relationships by entailing different characteristics led investigated visitors to live different types of experiences of contemporary art consumption.

The first limitation of this research is that it focuses on the establishment of interpersonal relationships at the microgenetic level. Further research can provide additional insights by conducting a longitudinal case study. The second limitation is that it provides limited insights into the relationships that are revealed by consumers’ experiences with possessive objects. Future research may examine interpersonal relationships in terms of consumers’ relationships with their brands.

The understanding of visitors’ interactions and relationships with contemporary artworks provides insights into curatorial and marketing practices for such art institutions.

The findings of the current research provide new theoretical insights into the interpersonal relationships that consumers develop with experiential objects and into the distinctive identity narratives that evolve from the establishment of different types of interpersonal relationships.

This paper aims to present historical examples of collaborations between brand strategists and artists; provide an extensive, structured overview of existing published research on such collaborations and their effects; present seven papers comprising this special issue; and discuss ideas for further research into brand–art collaboration.

This is an editorial based mainly on an extensive and broad literature review.

First, this editorial underpins the relevance of brand–art collaboration in the past and present by reference to real examples. Second, it structures the diverse literature into four key aspects of the topic: inspiration, insights, identity and image. Third, it provides a glimpse of the seven papers selected for this special issue. Fourth and finally, it identifies a total of 16 avenues for further research, on four levels (artist, brand owner, consumer and cooperation process).

This editorial and the entire special issue together represent the first anthology on the topic of the interface between brand management and arts. The collection and classification of the existing literature, the formulation of ideas for future research and the content of the seven papers are collectively excellent starting springboards for new and fresh brand research projects.

This paper aims to analyze the conditions for co-creation in a non-commercial context. The particular aim is to show how a co-creative activity is framed for the participants and the consequences of the frames for the values that are co-created in the process.

Goffman’s frame analysis is applied to investigate how co-creation is used as a marketing strategy where an art event is used as an engagement platform to involve citizens in creating visions for an urban renewal area. It is a qualitative study based on observations.

The taken-for-granted ideas of the active and creative consumer along with the focus in marketing research on the positive values achieved in a co-creative process are problematic in a public context. An unreflexive use of a co-creative strategy in a non-commercial setting and using art as an engagement platform, in combination with insufficient communication about the new framings, result in no-creation of value or even co-destruction of value.

Unclear definition of the situation for co-creation results in confusion about how to interact and how to create value. Such an outcome is highly problematic for a public organization. It is of major importance that citizens can identify and understand the type of activity. The authors argue that communication in well-defined phases of an event can facilitate desired acts of co-creation.

Value co-creation theory has been transferred between contexts, but there are few studies of what the transfer means in terms of consumer abilities to take part in the value creation process and its rules of engagement. This study demonstrates the difficulties of moving from theory to practice when the context changes from a commercial to a public participatory one. This opens for new research venues in value co-creation and marketing theory.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how art production and marketing in China is attempting to move up the value chain as increasing number of Chinese replica-selling galleries seek to break free from the image of Chinese art towns as skilled but imitative centres of art production.

In-depth interviews were conducted among seven gallery owners in Wushipu art village over three weeks to discover how art production in China has evolved and to chart its future growth.

In the Chinese setting with its distinctive cultural patterns, tensions between the emergent national pride in original art and the facile and commercial moneymaking potential of simply selling industrially produced art are revealed.

The changing dynamics of arts markets in China provide marketers and researchers a glimpse into a parallel trend: the gradual but rising shift to innovation, originality and luxury occurring in the China-based manufacturing centres of material goods.

The attempts to break from the imitative mass production of art and strike a balance between creating and meeting the art needs of the Chinese consumer indicate how domestic market priorities and economic growth are likely to serve as the new fuel for contemporary China’s socioeconomic development.

Via an interpretive look at contemporary Chinese modes of arts production and marketing, the paper revisits the antagonism between the creation of original art and the production of industrial art in a context not well-known in the west, the massive art production centres of China.

This paper aims to analyse the general effect of co-created products on the brand equity of observers (OBBE). The influence of different implementations of the co-creation approach on the OBBE is tested. It is also discussed whether co-creation can be a strategic method for companies to positively affect the OBBE in the mass market.

A between-subject experiment with a 2 (intensity of integration: democratically voted vs commonly created) × 2 (expert knowledge: no expert knowledge vs expert knowledge) design plus one control group (zero co-creation) is conducted for two brands to test the postulated hypotheses.

Co-creation can have a weak positive effect on the OBBE. Integration intensity and expertise of integrated consumer also affect the OBBE only marginally.

Further research might investigate whether the initial brand equity has a moderating effect. Also brand image and underlying product category could influence the relation between co-creation and the OBBE and would be valuable for future studies.

Brand managers should aim to convert observers into participants, instead of setting the focus on the presentation of the user-designed product to the mass market.

This study is one of the few analyzing the effects of co-creation on observers in terms of brand equity. In addition to existing research, the concept of expertise in combination with co-creation and its influence on the OBBE is explored.