And for eBay, i don't see any connection between the members. The only connection they have is a relation between seller and buyer, and the buyers together only share advice about sellers. So there is no link.
What's your opinion ?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
What defines the Brand Community?
According to Albert Muniz Jr in 1995, a brand community is "a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand." Do you all agree that for eBay there is no brand community because for a brand community according to Maria Sicilia and Mariola Palazon "members feel an important connection to the brand, but more importantly, they feel a stronger connection towards one another".
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I think there is a strong connection between members in the Ebay community. The different sections are linking the members between us by different manners.
ReplyDeleteIn the article Building on line brand communities: strategies and implications (Dana A. VanDen Heuvel and P. Raj Devasagayam, 2006), they are describing the elements of a community, which are:
Consciousness of kind: Showing in the Ebay values
"We believe people are basically good. We believe everyone has something to contribute. We believe that an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people. We recognize and respect everyone as a unique individual. We encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated"
Legitimacy: mainly based on Ebay products assessment (Feedback Forum) which is linked with this concept of brand community: “Brand communities represent a form of human association situated with a consumption context.” Muniz and O’Guinn (2001, p.426)
Rituals and traditions: Calendar event
Moral responsibility: Increased by the values and buyer’s assessment
Celebrate brand history:
Share brand stories: Town Hall Forum
Assimilate new brand users: creation of “My World” and subscription to group as soon as becoming a member
Exchange: Ebay Neighborhoods (sharing the same passion and products interests), chat, forum, discussion board, help center
I didn’t see anything about the element “Celebrate brand history” and I think as you showed Julien, in the Muniz’s definition (1995) that the community has to be based on brand admirer, so this notion of history seems to be important for me. Did anyone see some elements about it?
I also reead parts of the Coca-Cola case and had a bit of chit chat before with Jerome and I actually think that this community is a real brand community.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is a lot of dry exchange information from buyers to sellers and viceversa, but there is also a more "bonding with the brand and the others" one, where people participate in workshops provided by ebay professional, people can create or belong to different neighbourhoods where they are linked with others people who share the same interests.
So there are the characteristics of both a customer-brand relationship and also customer-customer bonding like Muniz and O'Guinn (2001) described in the Coca-Cola case study.
What Coca-Cola did in Spain is what Ebay does for its customers..create opportunities to bonding beyond a simple and dry buyer-seller relationship.
People talk there about their cats (one of the neighbourhoods) , meeting in the park to continue talking..plans to buy, sell stuff through ebay..they become friends.
Yes, i read other articles and understood a bit better, now i understand that eBay has a Brand community, thanks a lot for your help guys !
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