ESADE Associate Professor Oriol Iglesias has won the best paper-presentation award at the Brand Science Slam of the 2019 Global Brand Conference (the leading academic conference on brand management) for his research on brand co-creation. The award acknowledges his research contribution on brand co-creation in both the academic and professional worlds.

Prof. Iglesias’s research findings reveal why actively involving customers in co-creation initiatives is the future of branding and how this process allows brands to develop together with their customers better strategies and innovations.

Co-creation initiatives are based on brand communities where customers can interact among themselves and with the brand to develop new ideas in an often playful environment.

“Co-creation initiatives can open up a brand to the outside world and enable it to innovate together with customers and other stakeholders,” says Prof. Iglesias. However, the issue is that most brands that embrace co-creation approach it from a tactical perspective and do not realize its full potential. The authors argue instead for a strategic approach to co-creation, where co-creation is progressively embedded into the organization as a dynamic capability.

Prof. Iglesias and his co-authors Nicholas Ind (Kristiania University College) and Stefan Markovic (Copenhagen Business School) received the award during the 14th Global Brand Conference 2019, held in Berlin on 8-10 May.

The Brand Science Slam is a science communication competition where the authors of the best papers at the conference are given 10 minutes to present the content of their academic research article in front of a large audience in an understandable, entertaining and concise way. The audience, which combines academics and practitioners, gets to vote and chooses the best contribution. The Brand Science Slam brings together practitioners and researchers to encourage dialogue on brand management and branding between the academic and business worlds.