INFLUENCERS AS ENHANCERS OF THE VALUE CO- CREATION EXPERIENCE

摘要

The figure of the influencer is slowly getting recognized in marketing literature. The importance of their opinions, how they present them to their audience and the level of interaction that this exchange generates represents a powerful channel for organizations to communicate products' characteristics and attributes. The concept of value co-creation, first proposed by Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2004) explored how the value of a product can be increased through the interaction between an organization and their customers, thus increasing the quality of the experience. It is through the creation of original content that the influencer sets the stage that fosters interaction to explore and sometimes deepen the level of detail with which an influencer expressed their opinion and it is through interacting with their audience that the value assigned to a product or service is increased. Though value co-creation measurement and assessment has been done through a variety of instruments, the dimensions provided by Verleye (2015) will be used as the basis for this analysis, due to the all-encompassing nature of this structure with which to evaluate the complete value co-creation experience. Interviews conducted with 13 influencers engaged in the beauty industry provide the data with which this analysis will be performed.