Co-creating A Brand Personality : An empirical case study on how a firm personifies its own brand by collaborating with other enterprises at the market

Abstract: Purpose - The objective of this paper is to investigate how a brand reinforces its own brand personality by collaborating with partnering brands.  Design/Methodology/approach - A qualitative single case study approach was undertaken on the Swedish grocery brand Coop by which data were collected through the use of both primary and secondary data. In addition data have been extracted from interviews with some of the partnering brands of Coop. Findings - The findings illustrates how Coop as the green and family-oriented brand have selected partners that meets particular associations with regards to its family-orientation and sustainable mindset. The empirical findings points to the importance of integrating a co-creating aspect within theories on brand personality as to give a complete picture of how it could be formed and implemented. Research implications/limitations - The study adds theoretically with an update on how a company could form its own brand personality by the help of others. As this research have been focused on a firm perspective it have not been possible to address whether co-creation of a brand personality actually could be seen as resulting in a greater loyalty on part of customers. Further research will hence be needed that either takes a purely customer-oriented approach to the subject or preferably a combination between a firm and customer perspective.   Managerial implications - The empirical findings points to the possibility of managers to deliberately establish a brand personality by the help of other enterprises. The study moreover points to the importance of choosing to collaborate with partners that either are aligned with a personality or complementary in some beneficial way. Originality/value - Previous research on brand personality have mainly focused on how a firm could reinforce a certain profile by the more traditional marketing tools that are under the direct control of a company. The present research assemble contributes with an update on how a personality also could be seen as being co-created between a firm and a number of partnering brands.