Collaboration Between Brands: From Co-Branding to Co-Embedding

Abstract

In today’s digital landscape, social media brand communities (SMBC’s) are central arenas for consumer engagement and co-creation. This thesis explores how co-branding between two globally recognized brands, LEGO and Formula 1, affects the dynamics within their respective Facebook-based SMBC’s. Drawing on netnographic methods and a hermeneutic epistemological framework, we investigate how fans engage emotionally and socially with a collaborative product line introduced as part of a major strategic alliance between the brands. Through an empirical analysis of Facebook SMBC-interactions and semi-structured interviews with community members, we identify the emergence of intensified, emotionally charged brand community practices we term enhanced. These enhanced practices are closely tied to members' brand love and to the synergistic strength of the co-branding partnership. Based on these findings, we introduce the concept of co-embedding, defined as the social integration of new members into SMBC’s when certain enhanced practices are activated in contexts of strong brand equity, co-branding and our direct involvement in the SMBC’s. Our research contributes to the literature by bridging the gap between co-branding strategy and community-based value creation. Whereas much of the existing research in co-branding remains focused on commercial or crisis-related outcomes, this study reveals how strategic brand alliances can catalyze new forms of communal participation and symbolic meaning-making. We argue that co-embedding is a mechanism that is seen in SMBC’s, where new members that contribute to and engage in these groups are socially embedded into them. We argue that further research should explore how co-embedding manifests in other contexts and whether it can be strategically cultivated to strengthen brand loyalty and advocacy across digital platforms.