2. Brand Communities
• Good or service
• Social relationships
• Shared consciousness: legitimacy &
oppositional brand loyalty
• Rituals and traditions
• Sense of moral responsibility
3. A strong brand community
• Increases customer loyalty
• Lowers marketing costs
• Validates brand meanings
• Provides access to new ideas
5. Saab
• Owned by GM
• Swedish
• ‘unique premium
alternative to big name
luxury brands such as
BMW’
6. Saab
• Engineer the
community and the
brand will be strong
-> Forms of affiliation are
in place
1. Members recognize
each other
2. Members feel a sense
of responsibility
7. Saab
3. Saab aims to remain
small
4. Sponsors annual
conventions & provides
different opportunities of
involvement
• Serve the
customers, embrace
diversity, use offline
channels and scripts
8. Saab
• Embraces conflict
5. ‘yuppies’, ‘snaabs’
6. Saab vs. Volvo
7. GM acquisition
• Do not aim to control
your community
• Business Strategy (GM)
rather than Marketing
Strategy
15. Bad Case Practice: Porsche
Needed rivalries and conflicts with other
brands to differentiate themselves
Us AND the others
16. What should you keep in mind to
build a strong brand community?
17. “Getting brand community right “
Susan Fournier and Lara Lee
• Consider the community management as a company
strategy
• Keep in mind that the community serve the community
members
• Engineer your brand community
• Define clearly who you are regarding the other brands and
benefit from the rivalry
• Take into account all the community’s members and
understand the role that each plays
• Think further than online to build a strong community
• Do not try to control everything but provide the conditions
needed for a strong community
18. Tips
Engagement Size
Product Community
members
Individual The entire
company