1.
By Carole Ryon &
Rianne Olde Keizer

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

4.
Content
• GoodCase Practice: Saab
• Bad Case Practice: Microsoft and
Porsche
• Tip to build a brand community

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

9.
Easy to establish a strong brand
community?

10.
Bad Case Practice

11.
Bad Case Practice
Partly lose control

12.
Bad Case Practice
Free an empowered
customers

13.
Bad Case Practice: Microsoft
Robert Scoble

14.
Bad Case Practice: Microsoft
Attention devoted
to one opinion
leader

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

19.
Tips
Active community
Tell stories and myths

20.
Tips
Co creation
Unique features

21.
Brand community is all about
connection