Social versus psychological brand community: The role of psychological sense of brand community

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Abstract

In the quest for building long-term successful brands, many marketers have become increasingly interested in how to create and foster successful communities of brand users. The appeal of such an approach to relationship marketing lies in the recognition that members of brand communities tend to exhibit favorable brand-related behaviors and intentions. Research examining the social influence and creation of such social relationships among admirers of a brand has revealed substantial insights about the social processes that underlie customers' involvement in brand communities. Curiously, the psychological underpinnings of a customer's perception of community with other users of the brand remain unexplored. We offer the perspective that the observable, core components of brand community outlined in previous research may represent markers of social brand communities, while psychological brand communities may be characterized by an unobservable, psychological sense of community that could precede, or even work in lieu of, social interaction.

Introduction

Marketers are increasingly interested in using brands to establish long-term relationships with their customers (Aaker et al., 2004, Fournier, 1998). Recent theory and research efforts have demonstrated the efficacy of brand communities at accomplishing this objective. Brand community research has examined social networks of brand users in which individuals acknowledge their membership in groups of like-minded brand admirers. Understanding the functional nature of groups that congregate around brands such as Jeep utility vehicles (McAlexander et al., 2002), Apple Macintosh computers (Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001), Volkswagen automobiles (Algesheimer et al., 2005), and MG automobiles (Leigh et al., 2006) has been both interesting and insightful. However, there is much to learn about brand communities beyond the social networks of brand users that made up the respondent sets of recent research.

Previous research has acknowledged that brand communities are often imagined (Anderson, 1983, Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001), yet extant research has been restricted to communities that are largely defined by social interaction. We argue that a psychological sense of brand community (PSBC) may exist even in the absence of social interaction and we propose a classification of brand communities as social or psychological. The brand communities investigated in previous research (e.g., Jeep and Mac owners) are examples of what we label social brand communities. Specifically, a social brand community is a social community of brand admirers who acknowledge membership in the community and engage in structured social relations. In contrast, a psychological brand community is an unbound group of brand admirers, who perceive a sense of community with other brand admirers, in the absence of social interaction. It is quite possible that many consumers perceive a sense of community, yet never engage in social intercourse with one another.

The purpose of our research is to delve deeper into the concept of brand community to determine empirically if a PSBC exists among brand users who may not socially interact. First, consistent with previous research, we consider a social brand community in which participants interact electronically. We then step away from existing empirical research and consider brand users with no known connections to one another, either physical or online, in an effort to investigate the presence of a psychological brand community in the absence of a social community.

This research addresses three main questions: (1) Can a psychological perspective offer additional insight to our knowledge of brand community? (2) Can brand community be examined empirically from a perspective that includes psychological communities of consumers with no formal membership in a social community? (3) Do the same positive outcomes associated with social brand communities result from psychological brand communities?

In the following sections, we introduce and discuss social and psychological brand communities, introduce the PSBC concept which we adapt from community psychology (e.g., McMillan and Chavis, 1986, Sarason, 1974), develop a model of important antecedents and consequences of PSBC, and empirically test this model in two distinct studies. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results for researchers and managers.

Section snippets

Theoretical background

Muniz and O'Guinn (2001, p. 412) define a brand community as “a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand”. Consistent with Anderson's (1983) view of what he termed “imagined communities”, members understand that “there are other members of the community, just like them, in other far away places” (p. 419). For our purposes, social brand communities consist of individuals who may never interact face-to-face with other

Conceptual development

We apply social identity theory to existing knowledge on branding and relationship marketing to examine PSBC. Extant research has examined the characteristics, social influences, and positive outcomes of brand community. We add to brand community research by empirically investigating certain individual-level psychological factors that may ultimately lead to brand commitment through PSBC. Consumers may feel a sense of community as a result of identifying with the desirable characteristics of a

Method

The service brand that we selected for our research was a well-known, U.S.-based theme park. We chose this context for the empirical tests of our hypotheses for multiple reasons. Consistent with service-centered dominant logic, customers are active participants and co-producers of services and their determined value (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). The theme park industry generates in excess of $10 billion in annual revenue (Euromonitor, 2004). Most consumers spend large sums of money on tickets,

General discussion

Theorists and researchers are giving increasing attention to the notion of community, as applied in branding situations. Most researchers have investigated contexts in which members of social brand communities socially interact for various reasons. Our research extends the findings of previous research on social brand communities to psychological brand communities. Our results indicate that PSBC serves an important role in consumer–brand relationships in both types of communities.

The results

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that examining social and psychological brand communities from a psychological perspective may be beneficial for marketers hoping to capitalize on the favorable outcomes associated with brand community. Within the context of this study, our findings reveal that consumers do, in fact, perceive a sense of community with other users of the brand both in social and psychological brand communities. More importantly, irrespective of social interaction within a brand community,

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    We thank Shelby Hunt and Todd Donavan for their constructive comments and feedback on this project. We also thank Jim Wilcox and Roy Howell for their analytical insight.

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