Brands Are Relationship Facilitators In Consumers’ Minds & Markets!

There are two types of relationship developed through brands. First is a direct relationship between consumers and brands and the second is relationship of consumer with other consumers using the same brands. The brand is just like a human personality which has characteristics as human so that identification can be easy for consumers-it is just of my type!

Brands sometimes facilitate the relationship theory as people interact with each other because of different brand forums, communities and groups. 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 belonging.

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.

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.

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. On certain occasions brand communities may take greater control over the association that characterizes the brand rather than the brand team which actually supports the brand. Brand enthusiasts may support a brand that the producer attempts to remove from the market, to the extent that companies are forced to re-introduce the discontinued products into the marketplace.

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.