No abstract

Recent research has suggested that consumers collectively co-create value through consumption practices. This paper provides additional insights into value creation by demonstrating how individual consumers play distinct roles in the value creation process. By focusing on microdimensions of co-consuming groups, we show how individual consumers engage in value creation processes in the context of brand culture. We bring together concepts of value creation, working consumers, and double exploitation to demonstrate the roles played by consumers and communities in value co-creation. We focus on value creation in a particular type of co-consuming group: an online football fan community. Results show that co-consuming groups are platforms for value creation. We argue that double exploitation is not necessarily a threat to consumers because it may instead enable them to play active roles in value co-creation and gain power against brand owners. This paper contributes to the existing literature on brand community and the value co-creation paradigm by: (1) demonstrating the dynamic roles played by consumers in the value co-creation; (2) revealing new forms of consumer organization; and (3) illustrating how working consumers work among themselves in managing brand communities.

Through explication of a visual research method, this paper theorizes how masculine identity interacts with consumption-of imagery

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to argue that greater awareness of the connections between the traditions and conventions of visual art and the production and consumption of images leads to enhanced ability to understand branding as a strategic signifying practice. Design/methodology/approach-Several prominent, successful artists served as case studies to illuminate the potential for insights into the interconnections between art, branding, and consumption by turning to art history and visual studies. Discusses the cross-fertilization of art and branding, focusing on three contribution areas: the interactions between art, brands and culture, the self-reflexivity of brands, and brand criticism. Findings-Successful artists can be thought of as brand managers, actively engaged in developing, nurturing and promoting themselves as recognizable "products" in the competitive cultural sphere. Originality/value-This paper places brands firmly within culture to look at the complex underpinnings of branding, linking perceptual and cognitive processes to larger social and cultural issues that contribute to how brands work and argues that art-centred analyses generate novel concepts and theories for marketing research.

Purpose-To help shape a more cohesive research program in marketing and consumer research, this paper presents a systematic effort to integrate current research on consumer empowerment with highly influential theories of power. A conceptual overview of power consisting of three dominant theoretical models is developed onto which is mapped existing consumer empowerment research. Design/methodology/approach-A synthetic review focuses on three perspectives of consumer power: consumer sovereignty, cultural power and discursive power, drawing from sociological, philosophical and economic literature. These models are then applied to consumer research to illuminate research applications and insights. Findings-Research of consumer empowerment has grown significantly over the last decade. Yet, researchers drawing from a variety of intellectual and methodological traditions have generated a multitude of heuristic simplifications and mid-level theories of power to inform their empirical and conceptual explorations. This review helps clarify consumer empowerment, and offers a useful map for future research. Research limitations/implications-Researchers in consumer empowerment need to understand the historical development of power, and to contextualize research within conflicting perspectives on empowerment. Originality/value-The paper makes several contributions: organizes a currently cluttered field of consumer empowerment research, connects consumer and marketing research to high-level theorizations of power, and outlines specific avenues for future research.