Consumer Motivation for Co-Creation and Resulting Effects on Brand Knowledge

Abstract: The aim of this study is to contribute to the existing literature on co-creation in investigating consumers’ motives for participation on the one hand and possible effects of this participation on brand knowledge on the other. It thus provides a link between co-creation, motivation, and branding literature. A constructionist ontological stance and interpretive epistemology led us to the research philosophy of hermeneutical phenomenology and the implementation of a qualitative research strategy. By conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews in the context of a case study rich respondent data was gathered. The subsequent analysis followed the hermeneutic circle approach. Our main findings showed that consumers are driven by a combination of motives for co-creation, with internalised extrinsic motivation as a main driver and skill development being the overall most emphasised incentive. Affected by consumers’ motivation and expectations, co-creation was shown to change consumers’ brand knowledge, however not necessarily with a positive impact on the brand involved.