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Academics and practitioners acknowledge the relevance of integrating customers in the development of new products and recommend the use of new technologies to this end. However, though they play an important role, the development of an online platform is not sufficient for effective engagement of customers, yet considered as a key predictor of successful co-creation initiatives. Despite the large body of research regarding value co-creation, little is known about how to design interactive platforms to engage consumers. To address this gap, based on an in-depth case study including longitudinal data and rich qualitative material, this research investigates the impact of two gamification mechanics: cooperation and competition. This research highlights the existence of four user profiles. We then assess their emotional, cognitive and behavioral engagement with the gamified co-creation platform over time.

Academics and practitioners acknowledge the relevance of integrating customers in the development of new products and recommend the use of new technologies to this end. Although they play an important role, the development of online platforms is not sufficient for effective engagement of customers, and yet it is considered a key predictor of successful co-creation initiatives. Despite the large body of research regarding value co-creation, little is known about how to design interactive platforms to engage consumers. To address this gap, this research investigates the impact of two gamification mechanics: cooperation and competition. Based on an in-depth case study including longitudinal data and rich qualitative material, we highlight the existence of four users’ profiles and then assess their emotional, cognitive, and behavioral engagement with the gamified co-creation platform over time. We also emphasize the issues that may be induced through gamification.

PespiCo, Danone and Starbucks are examples of firms empowering their consumers for their new product development and their number is growing. Recent research highlighted that non-participants, representing the bulk of the brand audience, are sensitive to knowing that their brand appeals to consumers for developing their offer but their reactions are not always positive. A thorough understanding of the circumstances under which these (negative) effects occur and of how to attenuate them is therefore needed. To address this gap in the literature, we adopt a qualitative approach and we shed light on the unexpected and unwanted reactions from non-participants towards CES. Using gift-giving as a metaphor, we provide a thorough understanding of those reactions and propose a theory able to explain the mechanism behind, both for participants and non-participants in their exchanges with the brand.

Today, more and more firms develop customer empowerment strategies (CES) to empower their customers in ideation or selection of new product developments (Fuchs and Schreier 2011). Research in that field has mostly focused so far on customers actively participating to CES. Another influential and bigger group might be studied: the brand audience as a whole, not participating to the initiatives. Labelling innovation as being designed/selected by consumers may have a positive impact on brand evaluations (Fuchs and Schreier 2011). Yet, marketers must know that communicating their co-creational efforts is not always positive. There might be only one step for the audience to interpret the message as another brand marketing means aiming at improving, overly and unduly, perceived customer orientation. With this research, we examine effectiveness conditions of CES-communication to the non-participants. More specifically, we highlight reasons for non-participants to be sceptical. We here suggest that brand trust is a central concept after exposure to CES-communication, especially in the current context of greater suspicion toward brands. If the ultimate objective of marketing is to create and nurture a long-term relationship between consumers and companies, trust constitutes the main ingredient of this relationship (Morgan and Hunt 1994). First, we empirically show the importance for non-participants to publicly see the brand feedback on participant’ submitted ideas and to be transparent in the process, which is counterintuitive. Second, our study enhances understanding of how trust influences non-participants’ brand relationship. We examine that influence on both fictive and well-known brands.

Customer engagement in co-creating customer experience and value has raised growing interest in the past decade, both for scholars and professionals. PespiCo, McDonald’s, Lacoste are examples of firms developing online engagement platforms to co-create their new products with their customers and advertising them and more is to come. We design a between-subject experiment where we manipulate the firm’s philosophy (user-generated-idea vs firm-driven) and the product category. This research advances extant literature by showing that advertising co-created new products on social media can drive “willingness-to-engage” of the observing brand audience despite her non-participation. We empirically confirm recent research suggesting that engagement can be seen as a broader system. We also show that the impact of communicating a user-driven brand philosophy on non-participants’ willingness-to-engage is serially mediated by non-participants’ perceived empowerment and brand integrity.