Marketing Strategy Of A Brand Community - 1800 Words

With the advancement of consumer society , the marketers in industries from packaged goods to industrial equipment are busy trying to build communities around their own brands.Brand community is a marketing strategy which serves a brand. Brand community is the term social scientists use to describe likeminded consumers who identify with a particular brand and share significant traits. HarleyDavidson’s turnaround success was the strategic decision to become the one motorcycle company that truly represented the Brotherhood. A company that went out into the riding community to understand the needs of real bikers and the lifestyles they lived. According to Cohen brand communities operate very much as symbolic Constructions which is†¦show more content†¦The brand community is like a social category consisting of consumers who feel united by a common affiliation to brands. On the other hand consumer tribes are like the action sets where specific groupbased interactions take place, including those that take place within brand communities (e.g. forums and club meets). There is a difference between brand followers (or enthusiasts) and a brand community. The difference lies between affiliation with a brand (i.e. the brand enthusiast) and affiliation with a community of fellow brand enthusiasts (i.e. the brand community). Muniz and O’Guinn define a brand community as ‘‘a specialized, nongeographically bound community based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand’’. The definition given by Cova and Pace states that brand communities are not necessarily about social relations or even feelings of community, but a sense of collective affiliation and ownership over shared cultural elements, regardless of whether communal interactions are enacted or collectivity imagined. Attempts are also made by the analysts to identify the unique properties of brand communities so as to separate them from other types of social figurations. According to Muniz and O’Guinn. the first characteristic is acceptance of mainstream ideology. E.g. Harley Davidson enthusiasts. Second characteristic is resistance to the mainstream. The third characteristic is the way in which members exhibit self awareness and awareness of their