Brand Community : every brand wants one

Abstract

Brand community is essentially what the term suggests: A community of people connected by their interest to a brand and to what it represents. For brands it is important to find how to create value through brand community and how to benefit from it financially. Brand community cannot just be a part of marketing strategy but a part of the DNA of the company and therefore needs a deep level of understanding of the process. Brand community is a business strategy.

This thesis is dedicated to understanding why companies look to build brand communities, what are the key-elements to building social brand communities, how organic they are, and to what extent a company or brand can control them. This thesis examines the topic of brand community through different successful brand community examples as well as a case study. For the purpose of the thesis, two surveys were conducted to gather information on how consumers and brands view and experience brand community.

The findings made in this thesis point out that successful brand communities cannot be forced but can be encouraged, supported, and enhanced. Ultimately, brand communities are created by the brands.