Since time immemorial company’s interaction with its customers plays a vital role in co-creation of values and shared lifestyle. Similarly, for Japanese department stores passing through the declining stage of the life cycle, strategy based on maintaining relationships is important for renovating their business models. This study examines the importance of “Retail Brand Community” for Japanese department stores, considering from the perspective of Brand community and Social Identity Theory.

While social media marketing opens a variety of new windows for enlightening brand–customer relationships, a gritty puzzle is that brand recognition does not invariably echo with customers’ perceived value. This provokes the need to uncover the missing pieces in bridging the gap between brand recognition and customer perceived value. This research falls within the innovative new work in the marketing literature in positing co-creation as a crucial mediator in facilitating the impact of brand recognition on customers’ perceived value. Based on social identity theory, we also investigated how co-creation is moderated by virtual communication identification in influencing customers’ perceived value towards a brand. We conducted a survey via a sample of 386 current Gogoro customers. Gogoro is the biggest and most well-known Taiwanese producer of electric scooters. Our findings contribute to the extant marketing research by emphasizing that the key stimulus of increased customer perceived value towards a brand is active co-creation initiatives via virtual brand communities, and that the effects of co-creation are further strengthened when customers’ virtual communication identification is high.

본 연구에서는 외국 브랜드의 현지성 지각이 개도국 소비자의 브랜드 신뢰와 구매 의도에 미치는 영향을 실증 적으로 검증한다. 본 연구는, 사회정체성이론을 바탕으로, 개도국 시장에서는 브랜드 현지성이 내집단 정체성을 소비자에게 신호함으로써, 소비자의 브랜드 신뢰와 구매 의도를 높일 수 있다고 주장한다. 본 연구는 필리핀 소 비자를 대상으로 수행한 한국과 중국 브랜드에 관한 온라인 조사에서, 브랜드 현지성의 긍정적 효과를 실증적으 로 확인한다. 동시에, 브랜드 현지성 효과가 소비자 세계주의 성향이 낮거나 적대감이 높은 소비자에게서 높게 나타나는 점도 발견한다.