May 26, 2010

Brands as catalyst in building consumers’ relationship!

Brands sometimes facilitate the relationship theory as people interact with each other because of different brand forums, communities & groups. In the other way Consumers develop emotions towards brands. These groups are of both types formal as well as informal. There are so many reasons to join a brand group like people feel socially strong when they identified by using a certain brand. The other reason is to fulfill need of belongingness.
Consumers can make a bad publicity even a less negative and can manage brand reputation more appropriately than any advertising campaign when they have considerable attachments, love and care for brands-these people known as brand enthusiasts. They even support a brand when due to any reason producers don’t want to produce it and the product vanishes from the marketplace.
Within brand communities individuals use brands for their own purposes as well as a medium which facilitates them to define them and express their identities within society. People in a brand community have power to influence each other. Once these communities have developed than there is no ownership exists at all in term of firm/organization. The real owner of that particular brand is now the brand community/group.
The users of these brands develop their own culture to follow keeping in mind brand’s characteristics known as brand culture. For high involvement products these communities are easy to develop and maintain as the product admirers can find each other easily and can communicate more quickly such as in online communities.
There are two ways that brands can contribute to the relationships that consumers experience in their daily life so that they will continue to be associated with and support the brand. The first type is the brand and consumer relationships, while the second is the links that consumers develop with other consumers around the brands which have been viewed as brand communities, brand tribes or brand sub-cultures.
In every case brands demand relationship of any type with the consumers but this is more favorable in those brands where consumer’s interactions with brands are on regular basis. This relationship becomes stronger when it triggers the emotional part of brain although cognitive part matters a little. Product features can be associated with cognitive part more easily.
Shortly, ‘relationship-friendliness’ depends on certain characteristics of both market segments and products features, and that relationships are more likely to exist with high involvement products characterized by inelastic demand with which consumers have regular interaction.

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