Week 2 Thoughts - Brand Communities

My plan this week was to get through all the assigned and suggested material earlier in the week and spend the rest of the week looking for interesting tidbits to share with the class. Unfortunately, the timing didn’t quite work out this way. But I did get through the material after all and had a few thoughts…

I didn’t get nearly as much out of the Alma Whitten discussion on Google’s privacy practices as I did the mandatory lecture on brand communities. I couldn’t help but think, though, that the strongest brand communities I have seen, such as HOG and the Deadheads discussed, all seem to have an aspect of physical, real life contact with others in the community. Web 2.0 social apps certainly help people connect with others who share similar interests. This is particularly good for those who have more focused interests or perhaps have limited access to the interest, but I have not seen this generate as strong an emotional connection as when people with similar interests can share them in person. I judge this as a function of the human condition and our need for personal contact rather than generational changes. An example of this would be sports fans. There are certainly social networks – brand communities – associated with nearly every sports team beyond little league, but the web extension of this community to me is simply a means to stay connected. The truly visceral bond is formed through the experiences and memories of ball games attended or viewed with friends and family.

So what does this all mean? I believe this means that if a company wants to create a strong brand community, it needs to find a way to get community members together in a meaningful way sharing their common interests. The company may very well be successful without such a strategy, but personal bonds will last far longer than the next killer app.