Explaining customer participation in co-creating brand value in cyberspace

EXTENDED ABSTRACT
 
Introduction: The expansion of the use of digital technologies, including the Internet, networks, satellites and telecommunications, has led to rapid changes in the lives of human societies. These changes can be seen in various fields such as social relations, entertainment, education, business, etc. Benefits such as reducing costs, increasing the speed of doing things, universality, easy access, and its generality have led a large part of people to use this technology in a way that there are fewer professionals today. that does not use these technologies. Moving towards the world of digital technology and its application has led to the emergence of a branch of marketing called digital marketing. Digital marketing means achieving marketing goals using digital technologies, in other words, all the activities that are carried out in the field of marketing are somehow done in the virtual space with the help of digital technologies. Basically, human societies consist of people who share a value system and interpersonal trust. The main driver for the formation of societies in the 20th century was mostly based on the needs and interests of individuals; Not that it is based solely on geographical locations and family relationships. Information and communication technology strengthened the role of needs and interests, and the comprehensive expansion and presence of the Internet in most places caused the emergence of the phenomenon of virtual communities. In some cases, the shared interest in a brand is so strong that communities are created unconsciously and without the involvement of the company. It seems that virtual communities, together with other phenomena such as globalization, have created new challenges and opportunities for brands and products, because these challenges and opportunities are the ability of companies to succeed. In the current economic conditions, it increases and enables them to create their product portfolio based on social value. In this sense, the feeling of conversations of current and future consumers in virtual communities will have a strong relationship with the brand's reputation and position. If companies are supported in these communities, they can improve the efficiency of their processes in developing new products, especially in the phase of introducing new ideas or testing new products or services. Online brand communities, with their unique communication and interactive capabilities, guarantee organizations to increase brand awareness, increase trust, create positive word-of-mouth communication, and increase customer loyalty to the brand. and gain competitive advantages when marketing their products. The traditional value creation theory believes that the company is the only creator of value, while customers only consume value and depict a completely passive market. Considered customers as one of the value creators and clearly placed customers as important as the company. Value co-creation is defined as cooperation between a provider company and customers to create shared value
Methodology: In the future research, the statistical community will be the customers of J Plus company. Considering the unlimitedness of the statistical population, the sample size is calculated from Morgan's table to be 384 people. In order to collect data, it was done using the available sampling method and distributing the questionnaire virtually using the social network Insta. The process of collecting the questionnaire was done in several stages and finally the desired number of 384 people was obtained as a sample. The data collection tool in this research is a questionnaire to measure the validity, convergent validity and divergent validity were used through the software, and Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability were used to fit the reliability. In the current research, Cronbach's alpha method was used in the SPSS software environment to determine the reliability of the questionnaire.
Discussion and Results: The results of the research showed that mental factors, environmental factors and brand factors have an effect on customers' willingness to participate in value co-creation in virtual brand communities. Also, customers' willingness to participate in value co-creation in virtual brand communities has an effect on customer citizenship behavior, intention to continue membership in virtual communities, and consumer-based brand equity.
Conclusion: Considering the role of mental factors in value co-creation, it is suggested that company marketing managers in virtual communities ask questions to users and encourage them to talk specifically about the brand and their consumer experience. Holding a campaign, competition, identifying people with high self-efficacy and giving them prizes or special offers can help in this matter. Companies should carefully identify such types of existing customers, create self-efficacy indicators, distinguish customers with a strong sense of self-efficacy, and encourage them to engage with their strengths. It is suggested that companies use appropriate strategies to strengthen the brand's position in the minds of consumers, such as expanding and multiplying stories about the brand, holding meetings and meetings to strengthen its values, creating a favorable mental image of the communities, and increasing their willingness to participate. Help in co-creation. Also, through marketing researches, managers of recovery can find out about the opinions and level of satisfaction of consumers and try to overcome their weaknesses and meet the expectations of customers in order to increase the probability of them joining the brand's virtual communities. It is suggested that in line with the brand's virtual community's commitment to interactions, marketing managers should carefully review the opinions sent by users and provide appropriate and timely feedback when necessary to maintain two-way communication. Even in this regard, it is suggested that the company hires forces that, at the same time as the user registers a comment, a quick response is made immediately to give the consumer the feeling of an online conversation. Also, by providing infrastructure such as options for expressing criticisms and suggestions, they will be aware of the opinions of consumers and take advantage of complaints, suggestions and criticisms in order to improve functions and activities.