Brand Identity Co-creation In Video Game Communities

Abstract

This thesis originated from a personal connection to the video games industry as well as a profound interest in the concept of brand identity co-creation discovered during my MBA studies. I decided to explore the concept in this context as I had known from past experience how central thriving communities are for success of video game, wishing to understand better the dynamics of co-creation in this context, especially in relation to branding and brand identity co-creation.

In my theoretical framework, I laid out a foundation of what brand identity co-creation is and how branding theory has evolved to reach it, moving from transactional, almost one-way signalling from brands to consumers towards a relational place where consumers are active contributors instead of being considered simply recipients of brand signals. Brand identity co-creation was acknowledged to be a process of interaction and influence, which could be initiated by either brand managers or stakeholders, or taking place between stakeholders in environments facilitated by brand managers - such as online communities. Forms of active and passive co-creation were identified, active referring to conscious interactions and passive referring to collection of data and signals from the community by the brand managers. A worthy learning to note was the fact that co-creation between stakeholders may also occur in channels outside of the brand facilitated communities, potentially leading to brand identity co-creation outcomes where the brand managers have limited control over.

In the empirical part of the thesis, I contacted three industry experts to take part in a concept synthesis workshop, where my goal was to collect both practical experiences of brand identity co-creation and co-creation overall, as well as use the concept synthesis tool to begin formulation of a model for brand identity co-creation in a community driven context, such as the video games industry. The conversation revealed a great deal of practical insight and challenges regarding brand identity co-creation. Among the most important ones being that for situations of actively engaging stakeholders in co-creation, they need to understand what they are contributing to and the possibility of attempting to co-create abstract subjects like brand identity along may lead to receiving inactionable input. Brands should thus understand what they are attempting to achieve in the brand identity co-creation process to be able to engage stakeholders in co-creation processes that deal with elements and concept they can understand easily. I demonstrated the different steps happening in brand identity co-creation and what aspects of it relate to the community heavy context of the video games industry in a process chart in this thesis.

In the thesis I conclude that community heavy businesses understanding the process and the motivations behind it have improved odds of success in engaging a community in these practices, increasing loyalty and ultimately co-creating a brand identity that becomes stronger and stronger with every input provided by community members.