Brand Communities: A Society of Social Relationships & Consumer Identity - Essay Sample

Introduction

A brand community is referred to as a society in which the set of social relationships is shared based upon interest in the product or mutual interaction. Initially, consumption communities existed as a result of modern marketing and mass media introduction. People have, therefore, focused more on their role of consumption based on societal identification by observing what they consume, which results in consumer identity development. The brand communities (BCs) came up at first due to increased brand engagement among customers. Recently, online brand communities are operating on a global scale due to the massive adoption of the internet, technology innovation, and social media. Organizations have, therefore, been urged to embrace online brand communities, which are a result of increased developments due to globalization.

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Characteristics of a Brand Community

The brand community consists of several characteristics that give a better understanding of society. Since BC is viewed as several people who mutually interact who share a common brand, there are certain characteristics associated with it. These characteristics include a sense of moral responsibility, shared tradition and rituals, and shared consciousness. The traditions and rituals that involve the shared history of community's consciousness and culture inculcate certain values and behavior norms which show the central part of sharing certain experiences based on brand consumption (Aksoy et al., 2013) Another critical characteristic is t moral responsibility sense which in most cases is regarded as the responsibility to the community together with individual members who contribute to group cohesion and collective action. Shared consciousness is among the brand community characteristic that involves the intrinsic connection between members. Members have to know each other through shared consciousness, despite the fact that they have never met earlier.

Compare and contrast brand communities (BC's) with online brand communities (OBC's)

There are differences between brand communities and online brand communities since the two operate in different ways. The primary mode of interaction in the online brand community is virtual identity, while that of the brand community is face-to-face (Aksoy et al., 2013). The brand community time dimensions and geographical conditions are typically present at the same time and location while online based on the interaction is unconstrained, and any geographical aspects can be used in structuring the community. In the brand community, the costs to community members based on location and time impose both effort and time costs. In contrast, in the online brand community, there is a low cost of becoming a member of the community.

References

Aksoy, L., van Riel, A., Kandampully, J., Wirtz, J., den Ambtman, A., Bloemer, J., ... & Canli, Z. G. (2013). Managing brands and customer engagement in online brand communities. Journal of Service Management.