Capturing customer emotions and experiences to enhance value co-creation: the Ichnusa online brand community

Abstract

Purpose of the paper: This study aims to explore how business-to-consumer interactions within an online brand community leverage and capture consumers’ emotions and experiences to perform value co-creation processes in the realm of customer engagement theory. Methodology: Given the explorative nature of the research, the study adopts a qualitative methodology through a case study method. In particular, it focuses on Birra Ichnusa’s Facebook page in order to investigate how the brand fosters the logic of value co-creation by leveraging consumers’ emotions and experiences within its online community. Findings: The brand largely adopts different types of “emotional messages” and “experiential messages” that are strictly correlated in order to deliver memorable and unique consumer experiences of value co-creation. Research limits: This study represents a preliminary approach to capture the complexity of consumers’ emotions and experiences within the customer engagement theoretical framework in order to explore value co-creation within online brand communities. In turn, such research will require further theoretical contributions and refinements, as well as appropriate empirical tests. Practical implications: This study may represent a useful framework for managers and decision makers to better understand the strategic advantages that could derive from leveraging on consumers’ deeper emotions and experiences within customer engagement practices. Originality of the paper: This study analyses the concept of value co-creation from a little explored perspective: emotional and experiential dynamics with reference to a very original context represented by an online brand community of food and beverage. In doing so, it deals with the validation and enrichment of the theoretical foundations of customer engagement.