Contemporary branding literature views brand identity as socially constructed through complex interactions between multiple stakeholders. Despite extant work on how brand communities and individuals contribute towards brand identity formation, our understanding of management-led processes constituting part of the wider process of a socially constructed brand identity is still under-developed. Drawing on in-depth interviews with senior executives of a luxury automotive company and a netnography of its online brand community, we develop a process model of corporate brand identity co-creation, comprising three management-led processes: ‘nurturing brand passion’, ‘bridging’ corporate brand identity meanings and ‘partnering’, and associated activities through which management contribute to the wider process of corporate brand identity formation with community members and other stakeholders. By highlighting the interlinked and recursive nature of these processes and activities in the resulting model, the study offers a deeper understanding of the ways in which management are involved in co-creating corporate brand identity.

Introduction

Complex market environments and in particular the emergence of powerful brand communities have challenged the assumption of brand identity as a static managerial creation (Aaker, 1996). Instead, the contemporary stakeholder-oriented perspective on brand management argues extensively for the brand identity as dynamic and socially constructed through complex networked interactions between the firm, the brand and a multitude of stakeholders (Da Silveira, Lages, & Simões, 2013; Merz, He, & Vargo, 2009; Von Wallpach, Hemetsberger, & Espersen, 2017). These interactions unfold as a co-creation process of brand identity construction whereby brand managers and other stakeholders, individually and collectively “use, talk about, and construct brand identity while enacting their own identities” (Von Wallpach et al., 2017, p. 443). During this process, multiple meanings are simultaneously ascribed by stakeholders to the intended brand identity, which resonate not only with them but potentially with a multitude of stakeholders. Yet, despite these contributions, recent process-oriented branding literature provides little insight into the role of brand managers in the co-creation of corporate brand identity as a dynamic social process. Traditionally, brand identity is defined in terms of concrete and tangible attributes (Kapferer, 2012), and as “a unique set of brand associations that the brand strategist aspires to create and maintain” (Aaker, 1996, p. 68). Contrary to the classical managerial-inspired approach that sees identity as static and enduring, and aligned with the process-based perspective of brand identity formation, we define brand identity as a continually evolving constellation of meanings, constructed through a dialectical process among a multitude of stakeholders in relation to their individual and collective identities. The concept of co-creation, which is viewed as the process by which firms and consumers collaborate and participate in value creation (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004), thus becomes critical to our theorisation of the brand identity as “meanings” (Csaba & Bengtsson, 2006; Da Silveira et al., 2013; Lucarelli & Hallin, 2014; Von Wallpach et al., 2017). However, the relevance of the co-creation process in brand building remains under-theorised (Csaba & Bengtsson, 2006; Ramaswamy & Ozcan, 2016). So far, only a few studies within the stakeholder- and process-oriented branding literatures have offered empirical insights into the reciprocal co-creation of brand and stakeholder identities (Black & Veloutsou, 2017; Kornum, Gyrd-Jones, Al Zagir, & Brandis, 2017; Vallaster & von Wallpach, 2013; Von Wallpach et al., 2017). Nevertheless, more is known about how consumers and brand communities engage in co-creating brand identity compared to brand managers.