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This study aims to add to the understanding of the interactive nature of brand love by using a multilayer perspective that incorporates individual, group and societal contexts.

The qualitative empirical study uses abductive reasoning. Its theories and conclusions are grounded in naturally occurring data from an online brand community. The approach revealed new interactive processes of brand love.

This study extends our understanding of the interactive nature of brand love by adopting a layered perspective incorporating micro- (individual), meso- (in-group), macro- (in-group vs out-group) and mega-layer (societal) social dynamics that complements the predominant focus on individual psychological processes. It challenges the linear, monodirectional trajectory approach to brand love, suggesting that brand love is in constant flux as individuals move across the layers in their identification with the brand.

This study provides data from one destination brand in Finland. Future studies could consider other types of brands and contexts in other countries and cultures.

This study shows brand managers that brand lovers can be divided into subgroups with distinct drivers of their love to which brand managers should attend.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to describe the interactive nature of brand love through interactions between and within four layers of brand love. Furthermore, this study enhances our understanding of the contradictory aspects of brand love.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the growing literature addressing whether, and to what extent, brand meaning is determined by corporate and consumer-generated processes. To do this, the authors compared the expression of brand meaning across three key sources i.e. first, brand strategy (i.e. traditional marketing mix); second, corporate-generated media (i.e. web site); and third, consumer-generated media (Facebook).

To address the research question of this study, the authors conducted an in-depth investigation into consumer co-creation experiences in the context of Facebook brand communities. The authors then interpreted the findings in relation to the brand strategy (i.e. marketing mix) and brand meaning expressed via corporate-generated online media (i.e. corporate web site). The authors achieved this by applying a narrative discourse analysis to textual data. To effectively handle the high quantity of textual data spawned via consumer-generated media (i.e. Facebook), the authors used a computer-assisted content analysis application (i.e. Leximancer).

In the analyses the authors found that brand expressions varied considerably across the chosen retail brands, but in all cases strong integration and alignment were present between the corporate and consumer-generated media. Specifically, the authors found that Facebook interactions echoed the brand meanings espoused on the corporate web sites. The findings indicate that online marketers can define the nature of brand co-creation, especially in the context of Facebook interactions.

For marketers who are eager to take advantage of Web 2.0 to build their brand, the findings of this research are highly significant. The authors showed that the brands developed their own interaction profiles, which allowed them to align the Facebook content with their core brand values. The results indicate that sound brand governance is articulated through the effective management of social media touchpoints by providing interactive, content rich, and relevant Facebook sites that echo core brand values.

Even though businesses have now started to penetrate the online social networks and offer direct links from corporate web sites to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, little is known regarding the relationship between social media and traditional media in brand building. This research addresses this gap by undertaking an exploratory study of Facebook brand communities with implications for brand co-creation and brand governance.

An essential part of any customer experience management strategy is providing a seamless experience. One of the roadblocks, often a recurring barrier, is the presence of silos. Many people see corporate silos as a function of the organisational structure. But that is only one part of the problem. Influencing siloed mindsets across the length and breadth of the organisation is probably a more significant challenge. The siloed structure and mindset together impact the culture of the organisation that, in turn, affects their quality of customer experience management. This chapter covers the essential aspects of understanding the meaning of silos, including a historical, cultural and organisational perspective on what creates silos. While silos are inevitable, their adverse consequences are not. This chapter provides directions on how to overcome the adverse aspects of silos, thereby enabling better management of customer experiences. Multiple examples, from a customer as well as an organisation point of view, are used to highlight this dimension. The chapter also covers the role of a leader in breaking a silo culture and enabling successful application of various strategies for customer experience management.

The purpose of this paper was to explore the role knowledge sharing plays in both firm-sponsored (FS) and user-generated (UG) Online Brand Communities (OBCs) on Facebook. Branding through online mediums is an under-researched area that is slowly gaining attention in the literature. In some ways, action has come first as theory struggles to catch up with technological advances. Given that social sharing behaviours (i.e. online social networking) are arguably driving the strategic direction of marketers, it is important to understand the discourse that is being communicated. One such avenue is through participation in an OBC. While it is apparent that research is growing in the OBC area, there are still areas of interest that have gained little attention.

Data were collected using netnography, an appropriate yet under-applied methodological technique used to investigate the consumer behaviour of cultures and communities present on the Internet. Specifically, Facebook Pages relating to five OBCs based on the cruise-liner P & O Australia have been chosen for this case study.

Results indicate that in both the FS and UG OBCs, knowledge-sharing was seen to have an important influence on pre-purchase decision-making. It also acted as a mechanism for trust building and sharing brand experiences and as an important encouragement to developing a sense of community among community members. A particularly interesting outcome of this research was the way in which consumers have taken on an active role in co-creating brand identity, which seemingly illuminates the role of brand management in social media.

Given that this research was conducted with a real brand, with real customers, in a real OBC, the findings also point to some important practical applications. This study has found that the role of brands in their online forums is paramount, and as such, highlights the importance of effective brand governance. The rise of technology brings increased opportunities for a brand to reach out to their consumers. This study makes a further contribution by providing insights into how the consumer–brand relationship is shaped by the communication that occurs between consumers. To this end, consumers see it as the brand’s responsibility to monitor such online platforms, thus indicating the management of OBCs needs to be at the forefront of brand management practices.

This study represents one of the earliest investigations of brand communities facilitated by social media, specifically focusing on Facebook as the communication platform. Importantly, this study increases our knowledge of consumer interaction in social media, with an emphasis towards the role that knowledge sharing contributes to OBCs and the differences prevalent between FS and UG online communities.

The authors introduce readers to the eXperience-verse revolution, the next strategic frontier of cloud business innovation and value co-creation.

The eXperience-verse revolution unfolds concurrently with the evolution of the digital technologies and as enterprises learn to harness them and create greater and more unique, personalized value to all stakeholding individuals-as-experiencers.

Unlike the previous four Industrial Revolutions driven by technology, this new era requires an “experience-first” frame of reference of value creation by every enterprise.

Emerging technologies are leveraged at the moment of engagement between the enterprise and the experiencers?the goal is to engender value to the individual-as-experiencer.

As industry clouds now accelerate strategic business innovation of interactive experience ecosystems, a whole new dimension of value-innovation and value-creation is being created - the “eXperience-verse”.

This paper aims to explore a multi-stakeholder perspective on brand meaning co-creation in the context of the Olympic Games as a unique mega sports event brand with a strong brand identity, to understand how the brand manager may integrate such co-created meanings in a negotiated brand identity.

Using a qualitative methodology, the paper provides a tentative framework of co-created Olympic brand meanings by exploring the narratives of stakeholders’ brand experiences of the brand. Sixteen semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of Olympic stakeholders were conducted and analysed to identify key meanings associated with the Olympic brand.

Through their transformational and social experiences of the Olympic brand, stakeholders co-create brand meanings based on Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect. However, at the same time, they offer their own interpretations and narratives related to competing meanings of spectacle, exclusion and deceit. Alternative brand touchpoints were identified, including blogs; fan and sports community forums; educational and academic sources; and historical sources and literature.

The brand manager must become a brand negotiator, facilitating multi-stakeholder co-creation experiences on a variety of online and offline engagement platforms, and exploring how alternative brand touchpoints can be used to access co-created brand meanings.

The study contributes to tourism branding literature by providing exploratory evidence of how brand meanings are co-created in the relatively under-researched multi-stakeholder sports mega-event context.

The purpose of this paper is to find supplier's role in brand co-creation. This paper also discusses the perspective of suppliers on the role and benefits of other stakeholders like consumers and the sponsoring organization in brand co-creation and to come up with some concepts and constructs related to these.

A qualitative approach has been used to identify supplier roles. Depth interviews were conducted on 15 selected suppliers from India already participated in brand co-creation. Grounded theory method was used to code and analyze the data and come up with important themes.

The grounded theory findings showed that suppliers need to have certain features like professionalism, willingness to invest in research and development (R&D) and flexible attitude in order to participate in brand co-creation. In turn, suppliers are benefited from participating in such an event as it improves their performance, growth and offerings. The depth interview findings also showed the reasons for successful and failed brand co-creation and the informant suppliers' view on the roles consumers and organization play in band co-creation and the benefits they receive.

This is one of the first academic studies of identifying supplier's role in brand co-creation looking beyond consumers and organization. There is no qualitative and quantitative study that was conducted to find out supplier's role. The paper conceptualizes important concepts related to supplier's features, roles and benefits in brand co-creation.

There is limited research examining social drivers and mediators of online brand community identification in the context of business models development. This study aims to identify them behind the social mechanisms and present essential factors which should be applied in business models to foster value co-creation.

Data were collected from a convenience sample of 712 cases gathered among young European Facebook users via an electronic survey and analyzed using the structural equation modeling method.

Customer–other customers’ identification is a pivotal factor in influencing brand community identification.

If companies want to implement online brand communities into business models effectively and co-create brand value, they need deliver brand content useful for customer self-expression and social interaction to enhance consumer-brand identification and customer–customer social bonds which enable to transform the audience into a community. Focusing on the constant reinforcement of online brand community by supporting customer–customer relationships is critical for voluntary value co-creation.

The main contribution of this study to the literature on online brand communities is the presentation and empirical verification of pivotal social mechanisms of online brand community identification considered as a starting point to potential co-creation and capturing value based on the social presence theory.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically validate the role of different stakeholders in a co-creation context. In this paper, a new triadic brand co-creation concept has been presented highlighting why consumers participate in brand co-creation, what is the role of the organizing company and what is the role of suppliers in such event and what are the benefits each of these three stakeholders receives in-turn of participating in such an event.

A quantitative approach has been adopted in this study using structural equation modeling to verify brand co-creation from the triadic stakeholder participation standpoint.

The empirical study validates that consumer’s perceived psychological benefits, brand self-connection and participation in brand communities all have a positive impact on the brand co-creation process. The results also suggest co-creating organizations should create an environment of trust and openness in such a brand co-creation event and they should show participatory leadership and provide proper tools and training to the participating consumers. The participating suppliers should show higher levels of professionalism, they should be willing to invest in research and development (R&D) and collaborate with organizations in their R&D effort. The results also validate that the brand co-creation event ensures increased brand knowledge and value of consumers. Also, brand co-creation is positively related to purchasing, helping others and consumers’ feedback intention. Through brand co-creation sponsoring organizations creates innovation and reduces resource issues and marketing costs. The results also show that brand co-creation can lead to better brand loyalty among consumers. Suppliers should also be actively engaged in brand co-creation as it leads to a better performance in terms of greater revenue, market offerings and reputation.

The research investigates all aspects of inputs and benefits of the three different stakeholders – consumers, organizations and suppliers. It gives a comprehensive framework to validate the roles and benefits of each of the stakeholders from a consumer’s viewpoint. It conceptualizes and validates the constructs to provide the holistic concept and its associated framework.

The findings offer new insights to brand managers, Chief Experience Officers of how a brand co-creation event can be organized successfully, what should be the role of them, how they should involve suppliers in this kind of an event and finally how this kind of event can have a long-term impact on the brand in question.

This is the first empirical research on brand co-creation which investigates the roles and benefits from a triadic stakeholders’ standpoint. This study also analyzes and validates the comprehensive framework of brand co-creation proposed.