Consumers and brands

The digital age has wreaked havoc on traditional models of branding. Social media has become a key platform for branding activity, including online brand communities, promotion, and branded content, as well as a powerful forum for brand celebration, commentary, and critique. Value creation represents a key aspect of consumer-brand relationships. Consumer research on branding has identified various forms of value co-creation, including co-production, prosumption, working consumers, consumer involvement, cultural hijacking, consumer agency, consumer resistance, and so on. This chapter provides an overview of current thinking about brand culture, brand communities, brand co-creation, and so-called 'crowdculture'. The brand culture perspective highlights how brand meaning is co-created among consumers and brands, how consumers form relationships with brands, and how brands interact with culture. Co-creative consumers dedicate their energy, knowledge, time, or resources to brands, providing marketing resources, ideas, and data to help develop marketing strategy, but they still have to pay for purchasing products or services.