Marketers across industries are trying to increase customer loyalty, marketing efficiency, and brand authenticity by building communities around their brands.
Susan Fournier & Lara Lee in an article in the HBR in 2009 identified 3 different forms of brand community affiliation namely -pool ,web and hub.
They define pool as a collective wherein members have a strong association with an activity but a loose connection with another.
A web consist of a network of strong one-to-one connections whereas a hub is a standalone form of community where the collective has a strong devotion to the central idea or a charismatic leader but a much looser connection to one another.
The ethnographer Arnold Van Gennep , anthropologist Victor Turner & psychologist Carl Jung developed and defined a concept called liminality.
‘Limen ‘ – doorway or threshold – in Latin.
When groups make a transition they establish a ritual symbolism to mark this.
This is the liminal stage after which the transformation occurs , older norms break down and new ones get made.
In a world where everything is becoming commoditised there is naturally a lot of unoriginality.
Tribalism / ritualism associated with a brand community helps us define who we are to ourselves.
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