Does Co-Creation Have A Moderating Effect on the Relationship Between Consumer Involvement and Brand Attitude?

Researchers and practitioners have noticed that the concept of co-creation with customers has become a new trend for companies to extend their long-term competitive strategy amongst fierce competition. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) defined co-creation as a ‘joint creation of value’ involving the participation of the organisation and customers. As one of the world’s leading and innovative sports footwear designers, Nike has long been aware of the importance of being open to customer input and taking action. This iconic brand has built a platform (NikeiD.com) where the products can be generated ‘from an act of co-creation’ (Sherry, 1998). NikeiD is an online customisation programme, which enables customers to design their Nike products according to their specific demands. However, whether this type of co-creation could enhance customers’ positive brand attitude has not been fully explored. This paper aims to examine whether the Nike co-creation programme can evidently enhance customers’ brand favourability and purchase intention. An online questionnaire survey was conducted. 200 U.S responses were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. The research results suggest that sports brand companies could increase brand affiliation by providing co-creative value experience with customers; however, this only happens when the customers were highly involved in the brand. Based on the findings, an adjusted conceptual model is established, which explains the relationships through regression analysis. A follow-up focus group study was employed to confirm the model after the experiment. The findings of the present research contribute to both theoretical and business practice.