Exploring behavioural branding, brand love and brand co-creation

Purpose - This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the complex consumer brand relationships by holistically exploring the dynamics between brand love and co-creation, how they are impacted by behavioural branding and their combined impact to brand loyalty. Design/methodology/approach - This is a conceptual paper, based on extensive and thorough literature review on the fields of brand love, behavioural branding, brand communities and co-creation, that leads to the formulation of a proposed synthesized framework. Findings - The authors propose that consumers experiencing brand love are more willing to engage in an active co-creating behaviour in the context of a brand community, especially when brand representatives vividly communicate the brand values and motivate consumers to engage. This process is moderated by the product/service category and level of customer involvement with it, and it produces a combined positive impact on brand loyalty. Research limitations/implications - The proposed conceptual framework needs to be validated through empirical research. However, even at this initial stage, it may have a significant impact, especially as it highlights the role of brand representatives and how they could drastically moderate the relationship between the brand and the consumer. Originality/value - This is the first attempt to incorporate the constructs that are significant to the consumer-brand relationship research stream in one conceptual framework. The synthesis of these concepts will contribute to the improved understanding of the consumer-brand relationship, and its dynamics and will equip managers with a novel approach to the central role of behavioural branding.