LEGO COMMUNITIES
The increasing use of social media has made it extremely easy for consumers to interact with each other and share their interests and experiences about the brand. A brand community is a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand. (Muñiz and O’Guinn 2001)
Historically marketing scholars have focused on consumer behavior from the perspective of the individual. In recent years, however, researchers have highlighted the growing phenomenon of collective consumer behavior in the form of brand communities. These communities bring together (either physically or virtually) individuals who share a common affinity for a particular brand. Consumers, especially when acting together in “brand communities,” will then often reshape and change the meaning of a brand as they interact with it. One major challenge for management is to capture the knowledge being generated by users “on line” during the process of doing and producing, and to integrate it with knowledge created “off line”
Many non-profit organizations like National Wildlife Federation NWF, American Red Cross have been actively making use of social media to develop online communities like National Wildlife Federation, NWF Campus Ecology, Green Hour, Climate Classroom etc. Southwest airlines trying to enjoy the advantage from social media communities and positive responses from the consumers. The forty-year-old David Holmes, a flight attendant for Southwest Airline, has become an internet celebrity since passengers began posting videos of his cabin announcements. There are over 1.4 million views and positive comments about the airline (Lars Voedisch, Dow Jones). To build and maintain strong brand communities, companies must understand the individual and social needs of members and do everything possible to support and engage them on their own terms. The company should be more focused on the member value than any other value during brand community building exercise. Companies should have a strategy to continually keep the members of the community engaged and thus create innovative and interactive initiatives (Susan Fournier and Lara Lee 2009).
In 1998, Lego released a new product, called Lego Mindstorms. The product became an instant hit – within three months 80,000 sets were sold. Within weeks, hackers from all over the world had cracked the code of the new toy and created all sorts of new applications. Then, after a year, LEGO started to listen to those unruly users and attempted to understand what they were doing with the product and, more importantly, the LEGO brand. Lego identified that these people have actually formed a community around the LEGO brand that shared a common passion for innovation.
Having an active and innovative user community helps LEGO keep an eye on trends for new products. More importantly, it helps to develop marketable product innovations. But about 12% of all user innovations represented more radical explorations of new functionalities and new experiences. The LEGO brand community co-constitutes the culture of LEGO through the sharing of ideas and practices with employees. In other words, culture extends beyond the boundaries of the firm through consumers who form brand communities and engage in creative, unruly and co-producing practices (Martin Kornberge 2010). Today, Lego has number of natural and artificial communities active in the market and most of the products and marketing decisions are focused around them.
Historically marketing scholars have focused on consumer behavior from the perspective of the individual. In recent years, however, researchers have highlighted the growing phenomenon of collective consumer behavior in the form of brand communities. These communities bring together (either physically or virtually) individuals who share a common affinity for a particular brand. Consumers, especially when acting together in “brand communities,” will then often reshape and change the meaning of a brand as they interact with it. One major challenge for management is to capture the knowledge being generated by users “on line” during the process of doing and producing, and to integrate it with knowledge created “off line”
Many non-profit organizations like National Wildlife Federation NWF, American Red Cross have been actively making use of social media to develop online communities like National Wildlife Federation, NWF Campus Ecology, Green Hour, Climate Classroom etc. Southwest airlines trying to enjoy the advantage from social media communities and positive responses from the consumers. The forty-year-old David Holmes, a flight attendant for Southwest Airline, has become an internet celebrity since passengers began posting videos of his cabin announcements. There are over 1.4 million views and positive comments about the airline (Lars Voedisch, Dow Jones). To build and maintain strong brand communities, companies must understand the individual and social needs of members and do everything possible to support and engage them on their own terms. The company should be more focused on the member value than any other value during brand community building exercise. Companies should have a strategy to continually keep the members of the community engaged and thus create innovative and interactive initiatives (Susan Fournier and Lara Lee 2009).
In 1998, Lego released a new product, called Lego Mindstorms. The product became an instant hit – within three months 80,000 sets were sold. Within weeks, hackers from all over the world had cracked the code of the new toy and created all sorts of new applications. Then, after a year, LEGO started to listen to those unruly users and attempted to understand what they were doing with the product and, more importantly, the LEGO brand. Lego identified that these people have actually formed a community around the LEGO brand that shared a common passion for innovation.
Having an active and innovative user community helps LEGO keep an eye on trends for new products. More importantly, it helps to develop marketable product innovations. But about 12% of all user innovations represented more radical explorations of new functionalities and new experiences. The LEGO brand community co-constitutes the culture of LEGO through the sharing of ideas and practices with employees. In other words, culture extends beyond the boundaries of the firm through consumers who form brand communities and engage in creative, unruly and co-producing practices (Martin Kornberge 2010). Today, Lego has number of natural and artificial communities active in the market and most of the products and marketing decisions are focused around them.
More examplesGoogle
Dove Harley Davidson Nike+ Porsche Family Saab |
FeaturesNatural / Artificial communities
Service oriented Exclusivity Plays various roles in brands life Builds emotional connection Participative No managerial control Platform for co-creating |
