A Study on the Mechanism of User Co-Creation on LEGO Brand Loyalty: The Moderating Role of Mind-Flow Experience and the Mediating Role of Community Affiliation

Abstract

Taking LEGO brand as a case study, this study constructs a chain model of “user value co-creation→community belonging→brand loyalty” based on the value co-creation theory, the mind-flow theory and the brand community theory, and explores the moderating role of the mind-flow experience in it. We collected questionnaire data from LEGO's core user group (N=310), and used structural equation modeling (SEM) and Bootstrap method to conduct empirical tests. The study found that: value co-creation significantly and positively affects brand loyalty, indicating that users' participation in product design, content generation and other co-creation behaviors directly strengthens brand identity and repeat purchase intention; community belongingness plays a partially mediating role, revealing that users' sense of belonging to LEGO's fan community is strengthened through co-creation behaviors, which is then transformed into brand loyalty; mind-flow experience has a significant effect on the above paths; heart-flow experience has a significant effect on the above paths. The co-creation behavior of the users' community of LEGO fans enhances their sense of belonging to the community, which is then transformed into brand loyalty. This study is the first to integrate the multi-stage mechanism of “behavior-emotion-loyalty” in a physical product scene, verifying the gain effect of mind-flow experience on value co-creation, and expanding the boundaries of the application of the theory of consumer engagement. In practice, companies such as LEGO are suggested to systematically enhance user loyalty through step-by-step task design (to stimulate heart flow), community belonging cultivation (e.g., offline fan festivals), and open co-creation platforms (e.g., LEGO Ideas). This study provides a theoretical basis and operational framework for user operations of high-engagement brands.