Consumer Behaviour in Brand Communities

Brand communities are widely recognised as one of the most effective ways of engaging target audiences as seen with aspirational brands like Harley Davidson and even commodity ones like the Duck brand duct tape. Instead of just focusing on the technology with presence across many social media platforms, these brands demonstrated that creating a brand community involves truly understanding the target audience’s needs. In the Consumer Insights module of the Master of Marketing programme, we looked at how consumer behaviour manifests in these communities and under what conditions a brand community is likely to evolve and be advantageous to the firm.


Brand community is essentially a group of individuals who share their interest in a specific brand and create a parallel social universe with its own values, rituals, vocabulary and hierarchy. They are becoming more and more popular due to people’s natural craving for belonging, the reaction to the individualism brought up by urbanization and the digital boom allowing people to connect more easily.


Brand communities help to define one’s identity and place in the world based on the social interactions and structures of the community. They help members to get greater access to companies, expand their brand knowledge, create relationships with like-minded people and provide support networks. They also offer an escape, the feeling of freedom or a space for fun, pride and creativity. Therefore, a brand community allows for consumption with strong social impact allowing for the bonding developed between participants to augment the bonding with the focal consumption object – the brand.


A company needs to nurture the community around a brand for it to evolve organically and become an advantageous way for customers to interact with the firm. Members will define rules to govern membership eligibility, codes of behaviour and group hierarchies. Companies, therefore, need not to set the rules but provide the structure and space to allow for members interaction and co-creation of their own shared rituals and traditions around the brand.


When designing a brand community or strengthening an existing one, companies need to incorporate tools and incentives to foster consciousness of a kind among its members, shared rituals and traditions, as well as moral responsibility. A way of achieving this is by encouraging members to share brand stories which illustrate the members’ belief in the brand and its supremacy over the rivals, promoting a close affinity towards one another based on their belief in the brand. Besides interaction with the brand, brand communities must develop tools to encourage conversation between members to further strengthen the ties among them and as result their loyalty and commitment to the brand.


Common misconceptions around building brand communities include delegating it solely to the marketing department and focusing only on an online social network, as opposed to treating it as a top-level strategy. In addition, many companies attempt to control the community instead of being guided by it and allowing it to serve the people in it. Many members will see more value in the social links that come from the brand affiliation than the brand itself but, by providing the opportunity for those links to take place, the brand increases loyalty from the members.


So, what brand communities do you belong to? What are the benefits that you get from them?

Adriana Heinzen
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Hard Work Hasn’t Changed

Over 4 years ago I started a blog (www.talkapex.com). A lot of people can say that they have done that as well. What a lot of people can’t say is that they’ve had over a quarter of a million page views since its adoption.

Though this is no Facebook success story I do consider my blog a huge personal success. For one person, who was an unknown in his respective industry at the time, going from zero page views to over 250,000 page views on a very technical specific topic is a very big feat. What’s bigger (a story for another day) is that it has opened more doors than I can ever have imagined.

How did I do it? Tons of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? Trying to cross link my site whenever possible? Paying for advertisement on Google Ad-words? The answer: none of the above. I had initially contemplated using such services and techniques when I first started out but then read an excellent article on Seth Godin’s (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/) blog. In his blog post Seth said that if you want your site to be at the top of search engines produce consistent good content.

What? That’s it? That’s all it takes? The difficult thing is found exactly in Seth’s suggestion: consistent good content. That’s the hardest part. To post a few initial articles and get people to read it was easy. To continue to produce original and new content week in and week out was the hard part.

Though my blog is focused on a specific technical domain this example is relevant to any topic or industry that you may be trying to market. If you want to promote a product you can try to buy your way to the top of search engines or roll up your sleeves and get out the proverbial elbow grease and put some hard work into it.

Just to be clear I’m not saying that SEO is a waste of time. It is only a tool that you should use to complement your hard work, not something to replace it.

Martin Giffy D’Souza (www.talkapex.com) CTO and Co-Founder at ClariFit (www.clarifit.com)

To advertise or not to advertise on 2GB’s morning show with Alan Jones?

Are brands political players that can and should use their voice to contribute to ‘a better society’? Does it matter where they advertise, even if what they advertise has nothing to do with the boarder message of the medium?

 Campaign ... shock jock Alan Jones / Pic: Ray Strange The Daily Telegraph

For two weeks 2GB management suspended all advertising on its morning show following presenter Alan Jones’ controversial public comment that the  prime minister’s father had “died of shame” over her “lies”. The comment came not long after a statement he made earlier this year that female politicians were “destroying the joint”.

The question facing advertisers today is should they return or not return to advertising on the show now that the ban on advertising has been lifted? Analysing the responses in the media today it is clear that there are two possible approaches to this wicked managerial dilemma: You do or you don’t depending on expected customer response; or you do or you don’t depending on your opinion about Alan Jones.

Underlying these responses are two distinct views of the role of brands in society: the economic view of the brand and the social-responsibility view of the brand. Taking the risk of being misunderstood, I will call the social-responsibility view of the brand the political view. With political I mean ‘having a voice in the construction of our social reality’. If we believe that brands play a role in the type of society that we are creating – whether they want to or not, then they also have a responsibility for how they play this role.

So what are the responses? Why do brand managers support – or withdraw support from – the controversial show? Respondents in the media have consistently based their argument on the economic view of the brand. They claim this is a business decision. Suzuki Australia’s general manager Tony Devers simply stated: "We're not taking sides, we just don't want to be involved in any controversy", "We have a very strong marketing program and we don't want that to be interrupted by issues that are irrelevant to our brand." The Metro Energy Group’s Tony Raya returned to advertising on the show and happily concluded that despite the fact that he received a lot of emails and phone calls of upset citizens – including one from someone who was so upset she was crying – advertising on the show worked for him. “I’ve got about 15 jobs out of it. He may be against it (green energy ed.) but it’s worked for me”. In a similar vein, A Current Affair claims that the "the strength of the 2GB audience gives us the ability to reach our target demographics".

I can only hope that the silent majority includes a great number of brands that do realise they have a responsibility that goes beyond serving the best interest of their own bottom line. What Mr Devers posits as irrelevant to his brand may not be irrelevant to society. I have always believed that social responsibility is not a role that can be delegated to a separate department in the organisation. It is the role of the brand management team to take responsibility for the kind of society their brand is co-creating. Not only for today, but also for tomorrow. And in my humble opinion, Australia would be a better place not giving airtime to people who disrespect women in leadership, including our Prime Minister herself.

Read more:
The Australian 16 Oct 2012
SMH 16 Oct 2012

Jacqueline Mees
Guest Lecturer – Masters of Marketing at the University of Sydney Business School

‘Gangnam Style’ Marketing

South Korea’s rapper Psy, the performer of viral sensation ‘Gangnam Style’ song and dance, has just reached Australia. The insanely catchy video is approaching half a billion views worldwide and has become the most ‘liked’ video on the YouTube history. If you are as intrigued as I was to find out why, below are some of the marketing strategies behind it.

 Engage through co-creation

The South Korean audience was engaged early on with crowd sourcing of dance movements during the video production, which led to the now ubiquitous horse dance. This co-design strategy was also used in previous marketing communications such as the Tippex ‘a hunter shoots a bear’ campaign, which was one of the case studies examined in the internal marketing lectures (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M).

Lose control

The video was released without copyrights allowing people to own it, make new versions like the Oregon Duck http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mDpgzn7KuzE and spread them over the web. This enhances distribution and awareness as previously seen with other viral videos such as Gotye’s ‘somebody that I used to know’ and Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘call me maybe’.

Find a unique positioning

Psy cuts through the pop music clutter by embodying the anti-pop icon. In an industry where youth and good looks rule, his less-than-polished image and ‘freak-show’ style certainly make him memorable. His satire of the materialist obsessions of the residents of Seoul’s affluent Gangnam district also gave him an element of novelty, as this kind of social commentary had not previously been done in mainstream Korean pop music.

Apply learning’s from other markets in your country of origin

Perhaps not coincidentally, Psy attended the Berkley College of Music gaining exposure into American music's fondness of social commentary. The time abroad is said to have changed his perspective on his home country and influenced his apparently critical take on South Korean society. Likewise, many brands were born out of transferring foreign knowledge and practices into their home markets like in the Red Bull case, where energy drinks regularly consumed in Asia were introduced as a new category in Western markets.

Keep it simple

While the Western dance culture abounds with ever complex body movements like ‘popping & locking’, which require a seemingly robotic figure to enact, ‘Gangnam Style’ keeps it simple with dance moves any generation or culture background can pick up on. It is the modern equivalent of the ‘Macarena’ (sudden feeling of nostalgia).

Leverage brand awareness

Once you have reached high brand awareness, leverage it through brand extensions, or endorsements in the case of a personal brand. As a result of the ‘Gangnam style’ popularity, the software company owned by Psy’s father has doubled in value since July according to Reuters. Psy has also become the Novotel Seoul ambassador endorsing a lavish package for its guests, which includes a tour of the Gangnam district.

Universal message appeal

Even though most of his worldwide audience does not understand the song lyrics, they are able to relate to the universal messages conveyed by the video. Some resonate with the more futile message of poking fun at the commercial pop music industry and Psy himself. Others see a rather notable message highlighting social differences and a lifestyle that cultivates over-the-top ostentation. Hopefully, the latter message is the predominant one.

What are other marketing lessons that can be taken from this video?


Adriana Heinzen 
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

Experience vs. Memory

Decisions are made based on MEMORIES of experiences and not the actual experiences according to behavioural economics Nobel Prize winner, Kahneman. This has important implications for the field of marketing, which is largely focused on creating the perfect customer experience.

A great example from the video below tells the story of a man who had been listening to a symphony, and it was absolutely magnificent music. However, at the very end of the recording, there was a terrible scratching sound, and he reported quite emotionally that it had ruined the whole experience. But it had not; what it had ruined was the memory of the experience. He had had the experience, 20 minutes of glorious music, which counted for nothing, because he was left with the memory. The memory was ruined, and it was all he had gotten to keep.

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html

According to Kahneman’s Peak End Theory, when we evaluate past experiences, we tend to rely on the most intense part (Peak) and on how they ended (End). As both of these moments coincided in the above example with the unpleasant scratching sound, the memory of the person was of a negative experience. Practically all of other information appeared to have been forgotten.

This is one of the many fascinating cognitive biases we have been exploring in the Market Research for Decision Making unit of study of the Master of Marketing. This concept can be applied to areas such as customer service by getting bad news over with early, so that customers focus on the more positive subsequent elements of the interaction. A positive ending, such as complimentary desserts served with the bill at a restaurant, leverage this theory as the final elements of the interaction will stick in the customers' memory.

What other decision biases do you find play an important role in consumers’ experiences?


Adriana H. Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

The 4Ps of marketing are dead. Today, it’s all about the 4Es.

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Skype, Amazon, Cloud, mobile, tablets and many other platforms and technologies have not only changed the way people can communicate and interact with each other, but have also challenged Marketers to think differently about how they go to market and engage with prospects and customers.

It used to be relatively simple to focus on the 4Ps. Create a great product with a unique selling proposition, price it at a feasible level, set-up or tap into an existing distribution channel, and create impactful promotional communications material (i.e. a TV Ad).

Today we have music artists releasing songs in social media first and cutting out the studios and stations, products being released in pop-up stores, crowd sourced stunts and branded events creating massive reverberation, citizen journalists, and people simply updating us on their every move.

Get into the 4Es or fail

• Product changes to Experience. Today it’s about an end-to-end, engaging journey of discovery about a product throughout the natural product lifecycle but more importantly throughout a customer’s lifecycle as well. Marketers must create positive product experiences that people can connect with at different stages. Zappos, the online shoe retailer, has produced over 200,000 videos to help improve the online customer experience. A mix of product, how to, behind the scenes, style and trends. Who said shoe shopping was boring?
• Place changes to Everyplace. It’s no longer good enough to put an Ad on TV and hope they will come. Nor is it appropriate to have a retail bricks and mortar presence only. Remember how Subaru launched the BRZ sports coupe online only from mid July this year? Marketers must define the role of 1-way, 2-way and many-to many media. And product content needs to be tailored and relevant at many channels for a multitude of customer needs.
• Promotion changes to Evangelism. Brand experiences need to inspire today’s consumers to engage and share their passion & product experiences with friends and colleagues. Expect good and bad sentiment in today’s globally connected social world. However both can be carefully monitored and managed.
• And Price changes to Exchange value. Products are no longer a function of the cost of inputs. In today’s digitally open world, marketers need to understand consumer permission, need state and rich engagement as a function of exchanging value. In short, what are you offering people beyond the price to differentiate a product? As Coco Chanel says, “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.”

Great Success

So as a famous actor once said, if you follow the 4Es you’ll have great success. Hopefully it also ensures that you’re always focusing your marketing from a customer perspective rather than a business perspective.

Have you come across any innovative marketing strategies and experiences that have delivered on the 4Es?

Anton Buchner
TrinityP3 – Marketing Management Consultant