The dominant theory behind branding considers that brand building was exclusively a matter for marketing managers and it had to be built top-down.43 However, new technologies and the new empowered consumer have switched the paradigm and incorporated the consumer as an important element into the brand building process. Therefore it is not possible to understand the brand building process without considering that consumers also build the brand and the relational or social process involved.
In the introduction of the book “Branding with brand” by Tjaco Walvis, ex-strategy director of advertising agency BBDO, it made clear the need for a deep
understanding of the brand value creation process:
Strong brands can be worth up to 75% of the entire market value of listed companies.
However, there is a big gap between the economic value of brands and the
professionalism and image of the discipline that builds them. The point is that in many boardrooms all over the world there is no common framework for clear and intelligent discussion about how brand strategy contributes to growth.44
The importance of consumers in the process of brand value creation on the basis of their face validity is largely accepted among practitioners but to date little attempt has been made to explore how customers create this value.45
Despite the huge interest in brand value among researchers and professionals from the financial (Simon and Sullivan,46 Erden and Swait47) and marketing point
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43 Aaker, David. “Measuring brand equity across products and markets.” California Management Review.
Vol. 38 (1996), no. 3, p. 102-120.
44 Walvis, Tjaco. Branding with Brains: The science of getting customers to choose your company.
Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2010.
45 Barwise, Patrick. “Brand Equity: Snark Or Boojum?”. International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Vol. 10 (1993), no. 1, p. 93-104.
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of view (Aaker,48 Keller,49Kapferer50), the focus has been on exploration of brand value, not its sources and its development,51 and to date, the brand value co-creation has been almost neglected.52,53,54 Additionally, little conceptual development or empirical research has addressed which marketing activities build brand value.55
Until now, the concept of value co-creation has been treated as a level of
abstraction too far removed for theoretical and practical analysis. Although it has been claimed that the “customer is always a co-creator of value”,56 no thorough conceptual exploration has been made on what this really means and what implications for customers and firms follow from this. Knowledge of how value is created, by whom and for whom is scarce.57
Fyrberg and Jüriado58 confirmed that more research is needed on how brands co-create value in the market. Brodie et al.59 also pointed out that under the Service-logic paradigm more research is needed on brand experience as a
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46 Simon, Carol J.; Sullivan, Mary W. “The Measurement of Determinants of Brand Equity: A Financial Approach”. Marketing Science. Vol. 12 (1993), no. 1, p. 28-52.
47 Erdem and Swait (1998)
48 Aaker (1991 and 1996)
49 Keller (1993)
50 Kapferer (2008)
51 Yoo, Boonghee: Donthu, Naveen. “An examination of selected marketing mix elements and brand equity”. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Vol. 28 (2000), p. 195.
52 Juntunen, Mari; Juntunen, Jouni; Autere, Vesa. “Co-creating non-profit brand equity”. International Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing. Vol. 18 (2013), no. 2, p. 122.
53 Rios and Riquelme (2010) p. 214
54 Payne, et al. (2008) p. 84
55 Barwise (1993)
56 Vargo, Stephen L.; Lusch, Robert. F. "Service-dominant logic: continuing the evolution." Journal of the Academy of marketing Science. Vol. 36 (2008), no. 1, p. 3.
57 Grönroos, Christian; Ravald, Annika. "Service as business logic: implications for value creation and marketing." Journal of Service Management. Vol. 22 (2011), no. 1, p. 6.
58 Fyrberg, Anna; Jüriado, Rein. “What about interaction? Networks and brands as integrators within service-dominant logic”. Journal of Service Management. Vol. 20 (2009), no. 4, p. 420-432.
59 Brodie, Roderick; Glynn , Mark S.; Little, Victoria. "The service brand and the service-dominant logic:
missing fundamental premise or the need for stronger theory?" Marketing Theory. Vol. 6 (2006), no 3, p.
363-379.
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symbolic resource in the value process. Vallaster60 stated that so far brand literature does not provide a theoretical conceptualisation of brands as online social processes or as empirical insights into the social dynamics characterising online multi-stakeholder brand meaning co-creation. Yi61 also confirms that only a few studies have examined the specific nature of customer value creation
activities. Vargo62 also suggested that marketing managers might benefit from investing resources in a firm philosophy built around brand value co-creation.
Current marketing debate emphasises that customers and their view of value should be the starting-point for how value is defined,63 yet marketing terminology (e.g. product offer, value proposition, etc.) still implies that the companies have a dominant position in value creation.64
Drawing on this situation, this new approach aims to reveal how value is created, by incorporating useful insights into a new and more complete method of brand value co-creation.
This research takes a different approach and aims to establish a comprehensive understanding of brand value including not just the output of the marketing activities generated by the company (top-down approach) but also the value co-created by the consumers (bottom-up perspective). In following this approach, branding is understood not as something done to consumers, but rather as something they participate in. Therefore it is crucial to understand the final output of the process since the evaluation of the brand is in the consumer’s mind.65 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
60 Vallaster, Christine; von Wallpach, Sylvia. “An online discursive inquiry into the social dynamics of multi-stakeholder brand meaning co-creation”. Journal of Business Research. Vol. 66 (2013) n. 9, p. 1509.
61 Yi (2014)
62 Merz, He and Vargo (2009) p. 328
63 Grönroos, Christian. “Service Logic Revisited: Who Creates Value? And Who Co-Creates?” European Business Review. Vol. 20 (2008), no. 4, p. 298–314.
64 Strandvik, Tore; Holmlund, Maria; Edvardsson, Bo. "Customer needing: a challenge for the seller offering." Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing. Vol. 27 (2012), no. 2, p. 133.
65 De Chernatony, Leslie. From brand vision to brand evaluation: the strategic. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. 2010, p. 5
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As the goal of this research is to facilitate the development of more effective marketing strategies and tactics, the focus is on the effects of the brand on the individual consumer, thereby narrowing the focus of the study to customer-based-equity. As described by Keller, ‘customer-based brand equity’ is ‘the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand’.66
Having a more comprehensive model of brand value co-creation not only benefits the company because it can help to better understand the consumer response to the marketing activities but also because empirical results indicate that the ability to measure marketing performance has a positive impact on a company’s overall performance, profitability, stock returns, and the status of marketing within the company. In the words of O’Sullivan, Abela and Hutchinson, setting the basis for value creation by consumers also ends up increasing the importance of the marketing activity within the company.67
From a brand management perspective it is most relevant to gain more advanced knowledge of how brand valued is created and to create a framework to guide practitioners in their daily work.
Additionally, as identified in the state of the art, there is very little literature explaining the direct link between branding and competitive advantage; hence some authors such as Aaker68 and Urde69 indicate the need to understand the ways in which a brand can generate competitive advantage.
The aim of this research is to create a bridge between strategic management, which involves the whole company and branding, and to give more importance to developing marketing as a strategic asset for the company. This proposal seeks ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
66 Keller (1993) p. 2
67 O'Sullivan, Abela and Hutchinson (2007) p. 79.
68 Aaker, David. "The Value of Brand Equity". Journal of Business Strategy. Vol. 13 (1992), Issue 4, p. 32
69 Urde, Mats. "Brand orientation-a strategy for survival". Journal of consumer marketing. Vol. 11 (1994), no. 3, p. 121.
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to shed light on how co-created brand value can be a source of competitive advantage for companies.
By developing a framework, we want to offer a conceptual model to guide the co-creation of brand value so that it becomes a competitive advantage to the
company.
Once the expected contribution to current knowledge is explained, we
acknowledge that the much broader final of this study is to open a discussion about how brand strategy contributes to growth.
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