The moderating effect of personal features on the consequences of an enjoyable co-creation experience

Purpose - This study aims to draw a more nuanced picture of the impact of co-creation experience shedding light on the moderating role of consumers' personal features. Virtual co-creation is considered a viable strategy to develop consumer-centered products in the digital era. As an additional effect, this research highlighted that co-creation experiences may establish beneficial consumer-brand relationships. Design/methodology/approach - Using survey data stemming from 727 consumers who virtually engaged in new product development projects, the authors test the hypotheses, applying structural equation modeling. Findings - The results of this study show that consumers' personal features such as novelty seeking and dissatisfaction with existing products moderate the impact of an enjoyable experience on aspects of the consumer-company relationship. Consumers' dissatisfaction with current product solutions is also found to moderate the relationship between an enjoyable co-creation experience and evoked product interest as well as between product involvement and evoked product interest. The study further substantiates previous findings on the relationship-effects of co-creation and particularly highlight the potential of co-creation experiences for nurturing "imaginary" relationships with the product being co-created significantly prior to market launch. Originality/value - Participants in virtual co-creation approaches are widely heterogeneous individuals ranging from customers and Facebook fans to brand community members and innovative users. The study contributes to a better understanding of how the diversity of the crowd can be handled in virtual co-creation and advances the theory of value co-creation as a new marketing paradigm.