Individual Branding Essay

Submitted By Connolly3
Words: 706
Pages: 3

Brand Relationship Experience
One of the key foundational propositions of this logic is the customer as “always being a co-creator of value” where “the brand becomes the experience” [Prahalad, C.K., The cocreation of value. J Mark 2004; 68 (1): 23.]. * The customer is a co-creator of value, they are involved in the value creation process * The brand becomes the experience in the value creation process.

The evolving definitions of Co-Creation “….the active involvement of actors” (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2000, 2004) * Actors must be involved, it comes from any dialogue or interaction between actors.
“….the outcome of engagment “ (Prahalad 2000)
“.. collaboration” (Huxham and Vangen 2000)
“…..interactions and encounters” (Sheth, Sisodia and Sharma 2000, Payne, Storbacka and Frow 2009)
“….spontaneous discretionary participation” (Bolton and Saxenalyer 2009)
“…innovation and co-creativity”(O’Hern and Rindfleisch 2009)
“….reciprocal knowledge sharing” (Sawhney and Prendelli 2000)
“…resource integration” (Borys and Jernison 1989, Vargo and Lusch 2004)

Theme of the Text - Service-dominant logic and co-creation
A common theme in this body of work is that the dominant logic of marketing is shifting from the exchange of tangible goods to the exchange of intangibles such as skills, knowledge and processes. * The customer used to be seen as a consumer that purchased the goods a company created and that was their value. (This is goods-dominant logic). Now customers engage in a dialogue and exchange of value with their suppliers, from conception to delivery and consumption. * This dialogue is now referred to as co-creation. * This service-dominant logic is suggesting that value starts with the supplier understanding the customer’s value creating abilities and learning how to involve their skills and abilities in the value creation process.
Co-creation and brands
This research concurs with earlier work on experiential marketing (e.g., Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982) which emphasizes emotions, contexts and symbolic aspects of experiences. Later work suggests that creating value is not so much about conventional advertising and branding, but focuses on building processes to support the customer experience (e.g., Pine and Gilmore, 1999).

Brand relationships, customer communities and customer experience
Brand relationship concept is an important research topic because of the potential advantages such as; * reduced marketing costs * ease of access to customers * improved acquisition of new customers * improved customer retention and profitability.
Some brands are more likely than others to form a Brand relationship with their customer base. * Once the customers have formed this brand relationship, customer to customer interaction can generate and lead to Brand Tribes and communities * Consumer Tribes * Brand communities * User communities * These communities have a large say in the Brand identity as the brand image is in the eye of the beholder, and controlled by individual