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The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for brand meaning co-creation between brands and fans on Facebook.

A case study methodology was applied. Brand posts in the form of text, pictures, videos and fan comments of three brand pages – Nike Run, Mizuno and Jack Daniel’s – were collected and analyzed in a netnographic manner. Seven influential fans of the Nike Run brand page, who were identified in the data, and one marketing manager of each brand were interviewed.

This paper shows how brand meanings are orchestrated by brand managers and co-created through a process in which the brand leads the dialog through several types of brand actions. It also shows how fans engage in this dialog through multiple forms of reactions. A brand page’s content should be curated by its manager based on the role of the content on fans’ lives and their potential reactions and not merely on the meanings that the brand desires to communicate.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for understanding brand meaning co-creation at the micro-level of brand-fans daily interactions. Nevertheless, this study analyzed only three brand pages in two product categories – alcoholic beverages and running. Therefore, the authors do not claim that one can extrapolate from their findings.

The brand meaning co-creation process that is identified here provides a useful frame of reference for brand managers who seek to understand how they can best influence fans to co-create brand meanings in directions that benefit their companies.

This paper evolves with the co-creation of brand meanings literature by proposing a framework of brand meaning co-creation on Facebook. This framework can help brand managers to fine tune their content strategy in social media.

This paper investigates the determinants of customer choice of a car maintenance service provider after the warranty period. It focuses on the alternative of using branded car dealers, who provide this service during the warranty period, or independent garages.

A comprehensive list of 30 service attributes is developed drawing on the service quality literature, specific previous studies on car maintenance services, and including other purchase behaviour determinants such as perceived value. Simple random sampling with replacement is used to collect data from 400 car owners using the actual choice of a service provider as the dependent variable. A quantitative analysis using a set of logistic regressions links directly customer choice to the service attributes.

Service attributes that determine customer choice are the ones consumers simultaneously consider important and perceive differences in performance between the service providers. The branded dealers service operation proved to be relatively weak, having only one of these attributes, while being better evaluated in less important ones. Independent garages have a much better offer justifying their gain in market share.

Only economic cars (1,000 cc) were analysed. Convenience and location were only partially controlled and could play a more significant role in some decision settings. Logistic regressions could effectively predict customer choice in close to 90 per cent of the cases demonstrating the adequacy of including other service attributes beyond the ones covered in the service quality literature.

Directions for improvement in the operations of both branded dealers and independent garages could be derived and some recent moves by both types of players could be supported by the results.

Investigation of the Brazilian setting and the methodological approach of linking actual customer choice to the extended set of service attributes by the combination of logistic regressions and the importance rating of the attributes.