The concept of brand community took shape in the 1990’s after several years of neglect. The concept was propelled by two main factors namely the rapid rise in competition and the advent of rapid technological innovation. In today’s competitive environment, firms have adopted the use of brand community in order to remain competitive in the industry. Marketers and organizations have adopted the concept of brand community in order to maintain close relationships with its customer base.
Traditionally, most brand communities used to be offline; this was however limited by geographical barriers. With the advent of internet and social media, online brand communities emerged. Since then marketing has never remained the same again. The essay is structured into four sections. The first section begins by giving a review of literature on brand communities. The second section discusses the different roles of brand community The third section gives the impacts of brand community on consumers attitudes and behaviour. The last section provides a conclusion of its findings.
There literature on brand community is diverse. The majority of the literature discusses the impacts of online brand community, which has taken marketing by storm because of its wide coverage. Brand community has generated massive interest among marketers. Brand community has led to emergence of customer brand engagement (CBE), which is an important tool in measuring the effects and impacts of brand community (Carvalho & Fernandes 2018).
This has changed the methodologies and ways of conducting marketing. Through brand communities, customers have taken a central role in advocating for their own voices and choices. Brand communities have become stronger with the advent of social media. According to Carvalho and Fernandes (2018), social media has facilitated easy exchange of information among members of a brand community. This trend generated and accelerated the emergence of brand communities.
Brand community is an important marketing tool for firms. It should however be used to complement other marketing tools in order to reap benefits. Through brand community, a firm can recruit many potential customers in order to improve its brand visibility. Gabrielli and Baghi (2016), argues that brand community alone cannot achieve the desired effects of propelling a brand. It should be used alongside other communication tools in order to be effective.
Organizations should therefore try to create harmony between different communication and market promotion tools in order to project a uniform message to its customers. The integrated marketing system of communication will increase consumer loyalty hence promoting brand visibility. This will eventually leads to improved sales by generating a competitive advantage for an organization.
References
Carvalho, A. & Fernandes, T. 2018, Understanding Customer Brand Engagement With Virtual Social Communities: A Comprehensive Model Of Drivers, Outcomes And Moderators’, Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice, vol. 26, no. 1/2, pp. 23-37. Gabrielli, V. & Baghi, I. 2016, Online brand community within the integrated marketing communication system: When chocolate becomes seductive like a person’, Journal of
Marketing Communications, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 385-402.
Freitas, F.D. & de Almeida, V.C. 2017, Theoretical Model of Engagement in the Context of
Brand Communities’, Brazilian Business Review (Portuguese Edition), vol. 14, no. 1, pp.
86-107.
