Freedom and control in brand co-creation communities

The nature and orientation of brand co-creation communities is determined both by purpose and ownership. When brand co-creation communities are initiated by business organizations, they are more focused on specific goals, while fan-initiated communities are more organic. In this chapter, we use the idea of two different types of freedom - negative and positive ‚- that are derived from the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, to analyse brand co-creation community typologies. Negative freedom is concerned with the space of freedom, while positive freedom is concerned with people making their own choices and having the freedom to achieve self-realisation. For each community typology there is a different requirement in terms of the management of negative and positive freedom. After describing the different typologies, we conclude with recommendations as to how these two types of freedom can best be managed in brand co-creation communities.