Value Capture and Brand Community Management

Abstract

Purpose: This is a conceptual paper drawing upon a solid bibliographic base; its intended contribution is to create a linkage among constructs. Its aim is to depict the entity of ‘value capture’ and its relationship with ‘value co-creation’ and ‘brand community’. Design/Methodology/Approach: The key question is: how can the firm prevent the potential community-generated value from slipping into the hands of another operator and capture it for its own benefit in order to gain ownership of the exchange value? In an attempt to answer this question, the paper mobilizes an interpretive framework which enables the multiple uses of the brand to be monitored. This interpretive framework identifies four key moments around brand uses: the creation of the brand within the firm – the place where it was created –, its passage within the brand community – with the attribution of uses and specific meanings -, the diffusion of the thus transformed brand within society in the broad sense and, lastly, the capture of value created generated by this transformation by the brand owner or, possibly, by other operators. Findings: The interpretive framework highlights three main pathways, characterizing three possible configurations of value capture: 1): The success pathway which depicts the firm’s ability to grasp the new opportunities generated by practices, uses and manifestations; 2) The emergence pathway that depicts either the refusal, or the firm’s limited or lack of ability to grasp the new opportunity, leading to counterfeiting or extension by a third party; 3) The dilution pathway which does not benefit the original firm that created the common substrate acting as a reference in the consumer’s imagination and that any operator can exploit. Research Limitations/Implications: By highlighting the risk of ‘value slippage’, this article gives way to an operational typology of strategic intelligence that allows companies benefitting from brand communities to identify the opportunities and threats stemming from community creativity. A new depiction of value capture is thus proposed based on uses that can be brought back to the market via the value slippage enabled by tribal activities. Practical Implications: The challenge for the firm is therefore to play an active role in these dynamics to gain ownership of new value that emerges beyond its confines and to offer its shareholders and/or external investors with new spaces within which to grow the value of their capital. Originality/Value: The paper connects the fields of marketing and finance and thus contributes to developing the discussion around the marketing-finance interface