The purpose of this research was to explore brand management practices in UK media organizations with consideration of how brand co-creation can influence brand identity. 10 Figure 9: Transposition to the original conceptual framework for each of the British media organizations in the sample in relation to their approach to brand management practice and facilitation of brand co-creation activities.
Overview
Research aim
Research question 2 (RQ2): Does brand co-creation exist in UK media organizations and what is its role within brand management practices. Research question 3 (RQ3): What influence does co-creation of brands have on brand identity within British media organisations?
The media industry
Defining the media industry
As Aris & Burghin (2009) and Kung (2017) point out, the media industry consists of a number of sectors that do change. This thesis assumes that the media industry consists of multiple sectors, and the.
UK media industry
The continued importance of this industry provides a reason to place the context of this research in the British media industry. In addition, while evident in importance, it lacks some of the focus that other industries have received from academic studies, providing further justification for framing the research in the UK media industry.
Characteristics of the media industry
In addition to a range of inherent characteristics, the media industry is also characterized by more contemporary characteristics. The media industry operates in a fast-paced, complex and turbulent environment (Lowe 2016; Küng 2017; Oliver and Picard 2020).
Media branding and media brands
Background to the rise of brands and branding in the media industry 23
The basic function of content, an organization or person in the media industry is to satisfy a want or need of consumers and users (Kotler, Armstrong, Harris, and Piercy 2013) and it is the core value that provides benefit solutions that users or consumers seek . In the context of the media industry, for example, this can be seen when TV channels are built into separate brands, such as BBC's 'CBeebies'.
Brand and brand management research in the media industry
It is argued (Keller 2002; Kotler, Armstrong, Harris and Piercy 2013) that when something comes to market and is named;. In the case of television broadcasting, this translates into corporate organizations such as the BBC, but also genres, programmes, formats, channels, individual talent (Singh and Oliver 2015; Bryant and Mawer 2016).
Positioning this research
Finally, a literature review on media brands and media brand management is discussed. This part provides a platform for the following parts of brand identity and brand co-creation and is a starting point for the development of the conceptual framework.
Brand Management
- Defining brands and brand management
- Types of brands
- The role of brand management
- Contemporary debates in brand management
- Academic focus on media brand management
The development of brand management can be traced through a number of key periods spanning the late nineteenth century to the early 21st century (Low and Fullerton 1994; Moore and Reid 2008; Heding, Knudtzen and Bjerre 2016). 43 brand, a much greater consideration of the strategic nature of brand management and branding is needed (Malmelin and Moisander 2014).
Brand Identity
- Identity
- Defining Brand identity
- Contemporary debates in brand identity
- Academic focus on media brand identity
When implemented, the media brand identity helps establish a relationship between the brand and the user. The brand identity is commonly seen as developed internally (by the organization) and the image developed externally by consumers (although through the management of the identity organizations hope to influence the image).

Brand Co-creation
Defining brand co-creation
What is unique about co-creation is that it is different from other forms of customer engagement. When Vargo and Lusch introduced the Service Dominant Logic concept in 2004, it emphasized co-creation in the marketing discourse and presented a new.

Contemporary debates in brand co-creation
For brand co-creation to thrive, it is clear that media organizations need to create the right environment. Most of the research on brand co-creation has studied the concept from a consumer perspective (Ind et al. 2017).

Academic focus on media brand co-creation
79 media organizations and media brand management must change in the midst of this influential consumer evolution. In addition, there is limited empirical work done in the area of media co-creation, with current research.
Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework illustrates the assumption that structured brand management practices will facilitate the occurrence of co-branding activities. It hypothesizes that structured brand management practices will facilitate a higher incidence of co-branding activities.

Overview
Research aim and questions
This question sought to understand brand management practices in UK media organisations, considering whether brand management was present; the extent to which it was structured and deliberate; what were the main elements used in brand management and what was its main purpose. From here, the rationale for why UK media organizations would seek to facilitate co-branding and a consideration of the role it plays and how UK media organizations facilitate this would be explored.
Research philosophy
This fits with the overall research objective to "explore" and "investigate" brand management in UK media organisations. This study found that brand management practices in UK media organizations are carried out by people working in this role or in related positions, and therefore cannot separate their experience from the context and role they play. play, and relationships. that appear within this role.
Research methodology: Qualitative
Qualitative strategies are not without their limitations, with questions arising about rigor, reliability and demands of the data collection and analysis. Data collection can be both time-consuming and difficult, with issues arising in access to the study field and those persons in it and in the time it takes to get into the field and collect the data (Flick 2014).
Research process
However, the nuances and depth that develop from the meaning of subjective experiences that come from qualitative research provide insights that are key to understanding the topic under investigation and outweigh the limitations (Berg 2009). To overcome the limitations of this research, techniques to ensure authenticity and trustworthiness, which are particularly suited to a qualitative research approach (Guba and Lincoln 2000) were used (see Section 3.9 for further details on how authenticity and trustworthiness were considered in this study . research).
Sample
Determination of the sample: criteria, levels and size
This conceptualisation of the UK media industry as comprising a number of sectors helped to inform the sampling of participants. The sample of participants was selected based on their practical experience in branding within the UK media industry, with the aim that this group would be able to answer questions relating to the research objectives.
Purposive snowballing
Patton (1990) discussed that there is no set number for a sample size for an interpretive qualitative research, as the sample size should be relevant depending on the purpose of the research, its usefulness to the research findings and available resources. This conforms to the recommended sample size required to support the proposed research question (Gough and Conner 2006), enabling sufficient data to be collected without being too large a volume to become unmanageable (Onwuegbuzie and Leech 2005).
Participants
Chief Strategy Officer VCCP media Advertising and Marketing Chief Integration Officer VCCP media Advertising and Marketing.
Research method
Semi-structured Interviews
Interview can be defined as a conversation with the purpose of gathering information (Denzin 1978; Patton 2002; Babbie 2012) and can provide valuable insight due to the in-depth and detailed data generated. This would enable the participants to offer new meaning and thus insight to the study (Mason 2002; Galletta 2013).
Pilot interview
The purpose of this was not to limit the interview and was not intended to be prescriptive of what was asked in the interview. This was defiantly necessary as a number of participants took the conversation off in different directions and the researcher was able to bring the interview back on track.
Overview of the data collection
This impression was created after four of the participants offered to pay the researcher a visit to their workplaces after the interview was over. Immediately after the interview the researcher reflected and made notes (see appendix 11) about the interview.
Data analysis
Stage 1: Data Reduction
See Table 4 for an illustration of the units of analysis and the literature roots from which they are derived. As a starting point, coding of data was done in relation to the units of analysis and the definitions by doing word searches within each interview transcript (See Figure 7 for an illustration of a word search in Nvivo).

Stage 2: Data Display
112 While repetition is one of the most common methods of identifying patterns in the data (Bryman 2003), by itself it is insufficient to identify something as a theme.
Stage 3: Drawing and verifying conclusions
Authenticity and Trustworthiness
Authenticity
First, to ensure fair treatment of participants, all information received regarding the purpose of the study and their participation in it. To reconfirm participants' understanding of the study, clarity about the study and their involvement was checked at the beginning of each interview.
Trustworthiness
Qualitative research does place the researcher in the world of the research which must be considered to minimize bias. This ensured that the analysis had confirmability as it was not done based on the views and assumptions of the researcher.
Research Ethics
Overview
Research Question 1 (RQ1): What is the role of brand management within
- Presence of brand management
- Creation of a media brand
- Development of a media brand
- Consistency of a media brand
122 Ensuring media brand consistency is the fourth theme we identified from the data. We can clearly see from the data that creating a corporate media brand has value for media organizations in the UK.
Research Question 2 (RQ2): Does brand co-creation exist in UK media
The prevalence of brand co-creation in UK media organisations
The data revealed that the majority of UK media organizations were engaging in media co-branding. Contrary to much of the existing literature, media co-creation is perceived by some media organizations in the UK as not happening.
The role of brand co-creation within UK media organisations
From the data it was found that the role of co-creation of media brands in the majority of UK media organizations was tactical. 145 Although the majority of media brand co-creation activities were planned, there was also evidence of unplanned activity.
Rationale and opposition for brand co-creation in media organisations
From the data, it was found that the rationale for UK media organizations facilitating brand co-creation was linked to three reasons: to respond to the needs of. The final reason that emerged from the data as to why UK media organizations engage in co-creating media brands was concerned with brand management.
Brand identity existence
For the purpose of researching brand identity in the context of the media industry, these data add to the limited existing understanding supporting the importance of brand identity (Forster 2007). way to convey the brand identity.
Co creation of the extended brand identity
From the data, there appear to be two forms of interactions that lead to the co-creation of the extended brand identity. 160 The data also showed that co-creation of the extended brand identity occurs in both offline and online and offline spaces.
Overview
Key conclusions: answering the research questions
What is the role of brand management within UK media organisations?
Media brand co-creation does not occur unless a structured brand management practice is in place. This supports existing knowledge (Kennedy and Guzman 2016; Malmelin and Villi 2017) about the purpose of brand co-creation.
What influence does brand co-creation have on brand identity within
The negotiated meaning that occurred in the extended brand identity arose from brand co-creation activities. These two types of interactions facilitate the co-creation of the extended brand identity and partially agree with the research carried out by Essamri et al.
New typologies: encapsulating the relationship of structured brand
The research concluded that brand co-creation does not occur unless structured brand management practices are in place. From the sample, no UK media organizations engaged in brand co-creation activities unless they first had structured brand management practices in place.
Original contributions to knowledge
Third, this research provides completely original thinking in the development of 4 new typologies that examined the juxtaposition of structured brand management practices and brand co-creation activities (see Figure 10). 177 These papers add new knowledge in an original way, offering new insights into media brands and brands, brand management, brand co-creation and brand identity.
Implications for industry
Limitations
178 First, it is recognized that while this is a small, in-depth study, using interviews with 20 participating UK media organisations, the findings cannot be generalized to other sectors. This research has been conducted from the perspective of those who work in a UK media organization and have direct responsibility or influence over the media brand.
Areas for future research
For example, the extended brand identity can be further explored in relation to brand co-creation to understand the detailed impact on the various aspects of the extended identity of personality, image and relationship. Stakeholder co-creation during the innovation process: Identifying knowledge creation capabilities among multiple actors.
Appendix 1: Table showing inherent and contemporary characteristics of
Appendix 2: Brand Architecture typology (Aaker and Joachimsthaler 2000)
Appendix 4: Table showing the brand Identity dimensions, frames of
Appendix 5: key brand identity models
Appendix 6: email to known contact requesting their participation in the
Appendix 7: email to potential participant following introduction from
Appendix 8: Interview Guide
Appendix 9: Participant Information Sheet
Appendix 10: Participant Agreement Form
Appendix 11: example reflection of interview from notes
Appendix 12: Two full interview transcripts
Appendix 13: Definition of units of analysis sourced from