How value co-creation Builds Brand Equity. Moderating role of Brand love in the Cosmetics and Personal Care Sector

Abstract

This paper analyses how value co-creation (VCC) plays a complex role in creating customer-based brand equity (CBBE) in the cosmetics and personal care industry, which is highly emotional and identity expression. Based on a service-dominant logic, introduce a model in which VCC promotes CBBE not directly, but indirectly using two major mediating mechanisms: positive behavioral consequences (e.g., loyalty, Satisfaction, word-of-mouth, and engagement), and improved experience consequences (e.g., Sensory, effective intellectual, and behavioral). Most importantly, we theorize that brand love, a strong emotional attachment to the brand, is a powerful moderator, and it enhances the power of these relationships. We test our hypotheses using a quantitative methodology, survey data consisting of consumers, and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze it. The findings affirm the entire mediation model as the results prove that both behavioral and experience outcomes are central in transforming VCC activities into increased brand equity. Moreover, brand love greatly moderates the relationships between VCC and its outcomes; customers who have a high degree of brand love obtain a significantly high level of experiential and behavioral gain by means of co-creative interactions, increasing the development of CBBE.The implications of these findings for the branding theory are that it clarifies the subtle psychological and behavioral processes that connect participatory marketing with financial brand value. To managers, the research highlights the strategic necessity of building strong emotional attachments (brand love) to ensure that the initiation of co-creation activities is maximized by positioning the brand to develop not only transactional customers, but also loyal supporters and co-creators in a consumer-driven market.