Essay On Brand Community

A brand community is defined as a specialised, non-geographic community based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand. They are social entities in the day-to-day lives of consumers that connect the consumers to the brand and the con-sumers to other consumers (Albert M. Muniz, 2001).

Although brand communities form themselves with no help from the brand itself but rather form through other members of the community that share a common admiration of a particular brand. Usually these consumers or people who admire the certain brand would be very brand loyal. There are three traditional markers of community; consciousness of kind, moral responsibility and rituals and traditions (Pauline Kelly, 2010).

Consciousness of kind is the connection that members of a brand community feel to each other, they feel they sort of know each other on some level, even if they have never will notice a difference between users of their brand and users of other brands; this is referred to as legitimacy (Albert M. Muniz, 2001).

Moral responsibility is where members of a community feel a responsibility to other members and the community as a whole. Within moral responsibility there are two missions that brand communities aim to achieve. Firstly integrating and retaining members to make sure that the community stays alive. The second mission is to assist with the use and maintenance of the particular brand, whether they know the person on a personal level or not. It is something a member of a brand community does generally without thinking as they are helping other members of “their” community (ibid).

Rituals and traditions are social processes within a community that defines them as a brand community. Some of these would be...

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...iduality of every single Mini. Within the UK there are over 150 Mini clubs which were set up by Mini enthusiasts to meet with other Mini enthusiasts. These clubs are also spread out across the internet so as that they can communicate with other Mini owners and enthusiasts not only geographically close to them but around the whole world too.

Mini brand community members show a consciousness of kind; they feel a sense of “we-ness” due to their shared enthusiasm and passion for the Mini. They can distinct who belongs and who does not, they have a loyalty towards the Mini brand. There is an oppositional brand loyalty which lies with the new BMW MINI. Most of the Mini clubs do not allow owners of the BMW MINI to join as they do feel that this MINI is not a true Mini as it does not express individuality. They also feel betrayed as the MINI is not a British car anymore.