Marketing

Despite marketers creating multiple strategies in order to create value and brand loyalty with their consumers, through a number of communication sources that are now available, consumers can easily access knowledge, opinions and experiences about the brand in question which gives the brand transparency and can either be positive or negative or completely foreign to what the managers had in mind, depending on how the consumer ultimately decides. The combination of factors of converging industries and technologies rapidly evolving and constantly changing markets, increase in demanding customers, and ubiquitous connectivity has changed many aspects of the marketing environment. Co-creation where companies and consumers are now seen collaborating in constituting markets, companies which recognize this new collaborative commercial reality will successfully differentiate themselves from the market. This investigative essay will also discuss the themes of brand communities and self-brand connections and how all three interlink together in providing the consumer with the organisations tools to create value and significance for themselves.

Brand Communities

Muniz & O’Quinn (2001, p. 412) define brand communities as “specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand”. It is essentially a physical or virtual platform for consumers who identify with the brand to socialise in the context provided (Laroche et al. 2012). Brand communities find significance and relevance through connections between consumers, rituals and traditions and a sense of moral responsibility to share ‘creation and negotiation of meaning’ (McAlexander, Schouten & Koenig 2002) of the brand.

Understanding of brand communities is vital for marketers as they have the capability of influencing brand trust and due to the cheap and high reach of these communities; information on products and brands rapidly disseminates. Virtual or...