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The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the ontological and semantic foundations of consumer-dominant value creation to clarify the extent to which the call for a distinct consumer-dominant logic (CDL) is justified. This paper discusses consumer-driven value creation (value-in-use) across three different marketing logics: product-dominant logic (PDL), service-dominant logic (SDL) and CDL. PDL conceptualises value as created by firms and delivered to consumers through products. SDL frames consumer value as a function of direct provider-consumer interaction, or consumer-driven chains of action indirectly facilitated by the provider. Recently, the research focus has been turning to consumer-dominant value creation. While there is agreement on the significance of this phenomenon, there is disagreement over whether consumer-dominant value creation is an extension of SDL or calls for a distinct CDL.

This is a conceptual paper, which is informed by five cases of consumer dominance. The cases are used to clarify rather than verify the analysis of the ontological and semantic underpinnings of consumer-dominant value creation.

The ontological and semantic analysis demonstrates that PDL and SDL have insufficient explanatory power to accommodate substantial aspects of consumer-dominant value creation. By implication, this supports the call for a distinct CDL.

This paper contributes to the ongoing theoretical debate over the explanatory power of SDL by demonstrating that SDL is unable to accommodate important ontological and semantic aspects of consumer-driven value creation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the technical and relational value proposition preferences of credit union members and to examine the relationship between their preference and patronage activity.

A total of 800 members of credit unions were surveyed. Exploratory factor analysis was used and four factors were extracted incorporating technical and relational dimensions of the credit union service. Member value proposition preferences are examined and the relationship to patronage activity of the credit union was explored.

The majority of members express a higher or equal preference for a relational rather than a technical value proposition. Those that express a greater or equal preference for relational value are more likely to have a higher level of patronage activity.

Credit unions are member-owned financial institutions and hence the study is context dependent. Credit unions are member-owned financial institutions and hence relational value may be more significant than in the case of non-member owned entities.

The research highlights the importance of consideration of relational value in financial services entities whose competitive advantage lies in the relational. In terms of the credit union, the impact on the relational value proposition of the credit union must be considered in the design and implementation of industry restructuring.

This paper extends the emotional value and interactive quality construct to incorporate a greater relational focus which the paper suggests is of greater relevance to high-contact financial services. The research in this paper also extends beyond the criticised static focus of consumer perceived scales (consumer perceived value) and the episode focused service quality scales. Hence, it has a more longitudinal and holistic focus. The paper also incorporates a preference between benefits approach rather than an evaluative or trade-off between benefits and costs framework.

The emerging consumer-dominant logic of marketing captures consumers’ active and primary role in a range of mainstream marketing processes such as branding, product development and sales. However, consumers’ active role in driving pro-social behaviour change has not yet received close attention. The purpose of this paper is to introduce and explore consumer dominance in social marketing. The authors propose a definition of consumer-dominant social marketing (CDSM) and explicate five key elements which underpin the phenomenon.

This conceptual study offers an analysis informed by exemplars with significant representations of consumer-dominant pro-social behaviours and projects. The methodological approach is characterised as “envisioning conceptualisation”, which is explained in terms of MacInnis’ (2011) framework for conceptual approaches in marketing.

As a phenomenon, CDSM operationalises the following elements: power, agency, resources, value and responsibility. The authors demonstrate how these elements are interconnected and define their meaning, significance and implications in the context of social marketing and pro-social behaviour change. The authors also identify this new form of social marketing as existing on a continuum depending on the level of involvement or dominance of the consumer and of social marketers; at one end of this continuum, exclusive CDSM is entirely consumer-driven and does not engage with businesses or organisations, while on the other end, inclusive CDSM encompasses partnership with external stakeholders to achieve pro-social behaviour change.

The existence of inclusive and exclusive CDSM points towards an intricate power balance between consumers, mainstream social marketers and businesses. While this study identifies and explains this substantial distinction, it is an important task for future research to systematise the relationship and explore the optimal balance between consumer activism and involvement of formalised organisations such as charities and businesses in pro-social behaviour change projects.

The study provides social marketing professionals with an understanding of the benefits of harnessing consumer empowerment to enhance the impact of social marketing interventions.

The study makes a theoretical contribution by introducing, defining and explicating consumer dominance as a substantive area of social marketing.

This paper aims to examine the service experience in an online support community of consumers to understand the nature of social support and how it is experienced and enacted by vulnerable consumers.

A netnographic study was conducted to examine vulnerable consumers’ participation in an online support group for weight management. The Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) program was used, and additionally data were coded using open coding. A hybrid approach to data analysis was undertaken using inductive and deductive methods.

The findings suggest online social support groups can be used as an online “third place” to support vulnerable consumers, with vulnerable groups engaging with the online support group differently than those in the normal weight group. Social support was also found to be bi-directional in nature.

This study only investigates one online support group. To gain deeper insights, other support groups should be examined over a longer period.

This paper demonstrates that transformative services have the hidden capacity to optimize their services to enable vulnerable consumers to co-create social support in a safe place, thus providing a non-judgmental environment with the end goal of improving their health and well-being.

Findings reveal how services can enable marginalization and stigmatization to be overcome and inspire social action through the use of online support groups.

This research is unique in that it used a netnography approach to examine how vulnerable consumers interact in an online service setting, reducing self-report bias and allowing for a natural research setting, thus allowing a unique understanding of how vulnerable consumers experience and enact social support.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework of experience co-creation that captures the multi-dimensionality of this construct, as well as a research process for defining of the antecedents of experience co-creation.

The framework of experience co-creation was conceptualized by means of a literature review. Subsequently, this framework was used as the conceptual basis for a qualitative content analysis of 66 empirical papers investigating alternative consumption models (ACMs), such as renting, remanufacturing, and second-hand models.

The qualitative content analysis resulted in 12 categories related to the consumer and 9 related to the ACM offerings that represent the antecedents of experience co-creation. These categories provide evidence that, to a large extent, the developed conceptual framework allows one to capture the multi-dimensionality of the experience co-creation construct.

This study underscores the understanding of experience co-creation as a function of the characteristics of the offering – which are, in turn, a function of the consumers’ motives as determined by their lifeworlds – as well as to service design as an iterative approach to finding, creating and refining service offerings.

The investigation of the antecedents of experience co-creation can enable service providers to determine significant consumer market conditions for forecasting the suitability and viability of their offerings and to adjust their service designs accordingly.

This paper provides a step toward the operationalization of the dimension-related experience co-creation construct and presents an approach to defining the antecedents of experience co-creation by considering different research perspectives that can enhance service design research.

By combining consumer culture theory and service dominant logic, this study proposes that value might be understood as value-in-acquisition, such that value outcomes result from the acquisition process in which broader social forces shape the exchange process.

This study addresses low-income consumers, for whom societal arrangements strongly determine service interactions. Qualitative interviews reveal service value processes and outcomes for low-income consumers during acquisition processes.

For low-income consumers, inclusion, status, resource access and emotional relief represent key value outcomes. Important value processes shape those value outcomes, reflecting broader societal arrangements at macro, meso and micro levels. Marketing constitutes an institutional arrangement that establishes an empowered “consumer” role. Value processes are hindered if consumers sense that their agency in this role is diminished, because marketing interactions give precedence to other social roles.

Marketing should be studied as an institutional arrangement that shapes value creation processes during acquisition. Micro-level value processes have important implications for service quality and service value. Value outcomes thus might be designed in the acquisition process, not just for the offering.

The acquisition process for any good or service should be designed with its own value proposition, separate to the core product or service. Careful design of value processes during acquisition could mitigate conflict between social roles and those of consumption.

There is value in the acquisition process, independent of the value embedded in the goods and services.

Social media has significantly impacted the value creation processes within the consumer–brand relationship. This study aims to examine value formation processes within a cosmetics social media brand community and to establish the types of value formation associated with different categories of interactions within a social media brand community.

The research adopted a netnographic approach and followed the operational protocols of netnography. Conversations in one large cosmetics social media brand community were observed and downloaded for analysis over a two-month period. Examples of value-creation and formation processes were identified using netnographic interpretative procedures to develop higher-order themes.

The findings supported the creation of a “Consumer and brand value creation and co-creation framework” highlighting disparate value types within the following interactions: consumer-to-consumer; brand-to-consumer; and consumer-to-brand. The identified value types were specific to the actors (i.e. consumers and brands) involved in value formation processes. The analysis also revealed consumers’ ability to independently generate value through direct interaction with a social media brand community and the brands’ role in supporting consumers in value formation through value facilitation.

The pivotal role of disparate actors’ interactions in value formation processes is highlighted, alongside the autonomous ability to form value with the aid of resources stored and shared within the social media brand community. The network of interactions and value-creation processes contribute to a holistic understanding of the interactions in a social media brand community. Furthermore, the research explores and highlights the emerging role of social media brand communities as “value vestiges”.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the theoretical and practical implications of adopting customer-dominant logic (CDL) of service, focusing on how firms can become involved in the customers’ context.

Inspired by the conceptual discussion of service logic and service-dominant logic, this paper focuses on the conceptual underpinnings of CDL. CDL is contrasted with other service perspectives in marketing; CDL is a marketing and business perspective dominated by customer-related aspects instead of products, service, systems, costs or growth. It is grounded in understanding customer logic and how firms’ offerings can become embedded in customers’ lives/businesses.

The conceptual analysis challenges the prevailing assumptions of key phenomena in service research, including interaction, co-creation, service value and service. The paper presents five essential foundations of CDL: marketing as a business perspective, customer logic as the central concept, offering seen through the customer lens, value as formed and not created and the prevalence of customer ecosystems.

The paper differentiates CDL from other marketing perspectives. Further empirical research is needed in different empirical settings to provide guidelines for adopting the perspective on a strategic and operational business level.

As a firm’s holistic and strategic foundation, marketing is based on understanding how providers participate, at a profit, in customers’ value formation. The paper suggests how firms can successfully conduct business in dynamic markets with empowered customers.

This paper expands marketing and business logic based on customer dominance. It accentuates the importance of understanding customer logic and stresses the presence of providers in the customer ecosystem.

This conceptual paper aims at developing a customer-centric marketing communications approach that takes the starting point in the customer ecosystem.

After a critical analysis of existing marketing communications and integrated marketing communication (IMC) approaches, a customer-driven view of marketing communications is developed using recent developments in relationship communication, customer-dominant logic and the notion of customer value formation as value-in-use.

A customer-integrated marketing communication (CIMC) approach centred on a communication-in-use concept is conceptually developed and introduced. The analysis results in a CIMC model, where a customer in his or her individual ecosystem, based on integration of a set of messages from different sources, makes sense of the many messages he or she is exposed to.

The paper presents a customer-driven perspective on marketing communication and IMC. The analysis is conceptual and should trigger future empirical grounding. It indicates the need for a change in mindset in research.

CIMC requires a turnaround in the mindset that steers how companies and their marketers communicate with customers. The CIMC model provides guidelines for planning marketing communication.

The customer-driven communication-in-use concept and the CIMC model challenge traditional inside-out approaches to planning and implementing marketing communication.