Brand co-creation in multichannel media environments: a narrative approach

ABSTRACT This paper advances knowledge of the productive, strategically important roles that media consumers play in brand co-creation in the empirical context of multichannel media outlets. Based on a qualitative study, the paper shows how a media company leverages the power of communities and networks in its strategic brand management to engage its consumers in brand co-creation by authoring, contesting, and circulating narratives about the brand and their relationship with the brand in the course of their identity work as individuals and members of the online community of the brand. The paper concludes that in the contemporary co-creative media culture, media managers might need to develop new practices and approaches to brand management that stimulate and motivate brand co-creation all the while preserving the brand’s essence.