| Despite the centrality of brands in consumers' lives, the majority of studies to date overlook the active role of consumers in defining brand meaning. It is often posited that consumers accept or reject brands based on a match between one's self concept and an evaluation of the brand. In fact, consumers actively inspire and manipulate meanings of brands within their own symbolic household environments. From a sociological orientation, I develop a framework to account for the role of consumers in co-creating brand meaning. Such negotiated brand meanings, which I term brand essence, are the principle factor determining the subsequent use of consumer brands.;First, I establish the value of the brand essence construct as an advancement of existing constructs. Second, I create a theoretical framework to understand meaning formation based on symbolic interactionist theories. The framework represents meaning as inherently contextual and negotiated in action. Consumers engage in interpretable interactions with social, physical and atmospheric symbols in the formation of meaning. Such interactions occur at individual, household and societal levels. Thus, a brand is a mosaic of meanings, embedded in "layers of liminality." The context and consumption-use system contribute to a negotiated dominance of certain symbols over others.;Third, to understand empirically how consumers co-create brand essence, I employ a multi-method approach, focusing on brands within the dinner time consumption context. Long term field immersion, depth interviews, projective tasks and photoelicitation triangulate on brand essence. In addition, I develop a new method, personally relevant elicited projectives ( PREP), which draws upon metaphors from consumers' personally relevant activities as a basis for understanding brands.;Based on the theories and data, I advance a brand essence life cycle metaphor considering brands in terms of: (1) Birth and adoption, (2) Life/Existence, and (3) After-life. The metaphor values the lived (and reincarnated) experience of the brand, revealing the production of consumption through processes such as "rebranding," "unbranding," "counterbranding," and "superbranding." The final section discusses implications for scholarly research and management. |
