Consumer responses to pictures of co-creating consumers in marketing communications
ISSN: 0736-3761
Article publication date: 31 August 2020
Issue publication date: 13 October 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Co-creating consumers are often featured prominently in marketing communications for new co-created products. Previous research has only investigated the responses of non-participating consumers by describing co-creating consumers in text. This paper aims to examine consumer responses to combinations of text descriptions and pictures of co-creating consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
An experimental study used a reference group perspective to explain non-participating consumer responses to communications about co-creation with consumers in new product development.
Findings
Pictures of co-creating consumers moderate the effects of texts describing consumer co-creation on brand attitudes. The brand effects of describing the co-creating consumer in text as belonging to a dissociative group are negative when the picture looks similar to the non-participating consumers. If the co-creating consumer looks dissimilar to the in-group, the reference group text has no effect. Self–brand connection mediates these effects on brand attitudes.
Research limitations/implications
A reference group perspective is introduced as a boundary condition to the research on the communication of consumer co-creation. The effects on brand attitudes depend on the pictorial representations.
Practical implications
Companies should be advised to avoid portrayals of co-creating consumers that could cause dissociation in relevant consumer groups.
Originality/value
Neither reference group associations nor pictorial descriptions of co-creating consumers, have hitherto been investigated with regards to consumer co creation, despite the frequent inclusion of consumer imagery in advertising for consumer co-created new products.
Keywords
Citation
Liljedal, K.T. and Berg, H. (2020), "Consumer responses to pictures of co-creating consumers in marketing communications", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 37 No. 7, pp. 775-784. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-12-2019-3544
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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