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Economics and Management Notes Marketing Notes

Brand Communities Notes

Updated Brand Communities Notes

Marketing Notes

Marketing

Approximately 38 pages

For each of the 7 topics I studied, I've included my finals revision notes (except Fair Trade and Services, which I did not revise but have included the full set of essay notes for). The notes are very concise (3-4 pages), with each subheading indicating a line of argument that could be taken in an essay on the topic (based on the exam questions that have come up over the last 6 or 7 years - the notes could be used to answer any of these well), and then bulletpointing how the argument could be la...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Marketing Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Brand Communities

Muniz and O’Guinn: ‘a specialized, non-geographically bound community, ased on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand.’ 3 common markers: Shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and moral responsibility.

Origins

  • Belongingness hypothesis – humans have a pervasive drive to form and maintain interpersonal relationships, these can be established through consumption.

  • Festinger: social comparison theory – group together with similar individuals and undertake behaviour that reinforces conformity.

  • Zaglia: brand communities are a reaction to traditional forms of collectivism.

  • And have been liberated from geography due to inexpensive and accessible communication.

A move to co-creation

  • General movement in marketing away from an economics derived logic, in which firm and customer are separate and discrete, towards a view of co-creation, with customers collaborating in the innovation process and becoming endogenous to the firm.

    • Brand communities have emerged as a method through which consumers have an active role in the value creation process.

    • Supports 3 emerging perspectives in marketing:

      • Value is manifest in the collective enactment of practices, favouring investments in networks rather than consumer-firm dyads.

      • Ceding control to customers enhances customer engagement and build brand equity.

      • Firms derive added value by creatively using willing customer resources.

  • Shau et al – 4 thematic categories of value creating practices in communities – work closely together to enhance the value people realize when engaged in brand communities, and promote the collective health and welfare of the social bodies centred on brands:

    • SN practices: creating, enhacing and sustaining ties among members. Highlights similarities, frequent contact enables friendships beyond brand boundaries.

    • Impression management: external, outward focus on creating favourable impressions of the brand.

    • Community engagement: badging, milestoning, documenting.

    • Brand use practices: improved, enhanced use of focal brands, grooming, customizing, commoditizing.

    • Work together: community engagement is fostered when milestoning is combined with badging, and is part of overall documentation. Brand use is magnified when a user grooms the brand by sharing homemade tips/advice, customizes the brand to his/her unique needs through modification, and then commoditises these techniques for collective use.

    • Effects evolve over time as consumer engagement deepens and practices are integrated, they present opportunities for consumers to differentiate themselves due to their brand knowledge and encourage competitive spirit.

    • Consumption patterns and behaviours are generated, reified and perpetuated.

    • Supports 3 emergent perspectives in marketing; value is manifest in the collective enactment of practices, which favour investments in networks rather than consumer-firm dyads, ceding control to customers enhances customer engagement and build brand equity, and firms derive added value by creatively using willing customer resources.

Apple Mac is an example of a positive brand community:

  • Belk and Tumbat: comparable to a cult!

    • Less than 4% of the market in 2005 – communities often thrive on a lack of success.

    • Mac customers always been distinguished by fierce loyalty to the brand and personal identification with the product.

    • Religion-like: origin myth...

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