Managing the Co-created Brand: Value and Cultural Complementarity in Online and Offline Multi-stakeholder Ecosystems

The concepts of co-creation and co-communication are emerging concepts in the brand management literature that invoke multiple stakeholder interactions. However, this literature does not consider the impact of the complex ecosystems that lie behind both the brand and its stakeholders in order to create synergistic outcomes. By analyzing LEGO's relations with four stakeholder ecosystems we find that successful co-creation outcomes are dependent on value and cultural complementarities, but that these outcomes can be jeopardized when there are not also complementarities between the cultures in the process of direct firm–stakeholder interaction. To maximize co-creation the firm should remain open to input from all stakeholders, because even opposing stakeholders at the periphery of the ecosystem can contribute with valuable adjustments at the core.