Building Brand Identification
Brand identification is considered a critical predecessor for building brand community. Advertising research encourages brands to become relevant for their target consumer base. Social media provides a platform wherein consumers seek brands relevant to their self-concept and, therefore, build personal identification with those brands. In addition, brand endorsements shared by consumers’ reference groups (people they identify with or aspire to) further enhance the consumer tendency to build identification with a brand and its products. The types of social media brand endorsements that consumers may encounter varies greatly, and includes status updates, paid advertising units, sponsored stories (native advertising), implied endorsements, and location check-ins. In visual networks such as Pinterest and Instagram, exposures can include image sharing by a user or the resharing of another user’s images.
Brand Identification
Identification is a form of psychological bonding between individuals and brands.1 As mentioned in the previous discussion of brand experiences, brands reflect specific values and traits that individuals consider central to their identity.2 This affective attachment leads to identification with a particular brand, making that brand stand out in the consumer’s mind relative to all others in the marketplace.
Greater identification with a brand leads to enhanced familiarity and distinctive brand associations.3 Brand identification is necessary for consumers to be open to brand experiences and brand-related social media. Online interaction in brand communities leads to a consciousness of shared rituals and traditions.4 Strong brand identification is likely when brands have developed prominent characteristics and consumers perceive the brand to be providing value.5 Brand identification is considered a critical predecessor for consumers who wish to be a part of the online brand community.
For a community to form once brand identity is realized, there are important relational factors to consider: the consumer must have experiences with the brand, the consumer needs to be exposed to social media related to the brand, and opportunities for social networking need to be available. Community formation is most likely to occur when the community group and brand messages are relevant to both the consumer and the group. Once formed, brand communities are held together by the sense of community that emerges from these shared interests.
To further solidify consumers’ identification with a brand (and building enduring bonds that can lead to the ultimate goal of brand community), social media exposure to the brand and its brand fans is necessary. Social media exposure can take many forms, depending on the social network in use. Social media vary in execution and primary content type. For instance, Facebook is a mixture of both images and text, while Twitter is a 140-character microblog that is heavily text-based; Pinterest and Instagram allow participants to share user-generated images or reshare the content of other participants.
Brand communities are made up of members who form relationships, which often lead to emotional bonds.6 Many communities exist based on identification with a brand developed through a significant consumption experience. From the customer experience perspective, brand community is a fabric of relationships in which the customer is situated. Crucial relationships include those: (1) between the customer and the brand, (2) between the customer and the firm, (3) between the customer and the product, and (4) among fellow customers. Academic research on brand community has traditionally focused on niche (e.g., Jeep) or luxury brands (e.g., Mercedes). However, the notion of brand community has been extended to convenience products (e.g., Nutella).7 For consumers who strongly support a brand like Nutella, social media channels provide an easy, effective way to organize their brand efforts. For instance, World Nutella Day, a fan organized event, boasts over 42,000 fans and is not organized or endorsed by the Nutella brand.8 Consumer-created campaigns are not the norm. A more common way to facilitate community is through the creation of social media accounts (such as branded Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Instagram channels, etc.). Through these channels, brands initiate conversations with brand fans, and brand fans interact with the brand as well as other consumers who share a passion for the brand. Content driving conversations is experiential and reinforces the brand. For instance, well-known actor Armie Hammer embarked on a journey across the United States sponsored by Vespa. Vespa documented his journey on its social channels, including Twitter, Facebook, and the branded online community La Vespa Vita (Figure 4.1). As the actor crossed the United States, images reinforced the carefree Italian spirit the brand holds as a core value.9
Figure 4.1 Armie Hammer embarks on a Vespa Adventure
Our conceptual model is rooted in social identity theory, which explores the importance of identities to the overall self-concept; identity is the single most important predictor of sustained behaviors.10 Identity theory emphasizes how using brands, symbols, and enacting-behaviors contributes to one’s self-concept. In the following sections, we discuss how brand identification, identification with others, and identity salience impact how consumers behave.
Identification with Others
Consumers share experiences to enhance their bond with others based on their passion for a brand and company.11 Staging activities and events that encourage fan interaction facilitates this bond. The American motorcycle brand Harley Davidson invites community members to take a pilgrimage to meet and interact with other Harley owners, while Vespa shares the journey of Armie Hammer via brand updates on social media. For Harley owners, taking the journey reinforces the user experience and brand image. Vespa hopes that experiencing the journey vicariously will have the same effect for its consumers. Through interaction with both the product and other consumers, a sense of community is developed. We consider these participants to be connected consumers, in that they are connected with the brand and other community members through digital technology. These connected consumers associate with not only the brand, but also other owners who share the road, locally and across the world. As brands continue to play an important role in consumers’ purchasing decisions, brand community helps to identify the perceived social image of consumers.12
An emerging interaction between consumers and brands comes in the form of interactions with company executives via social media. Prior to the open nature of social media interactions, the average consumer would rarely have the opportunity to interact with firm executives. However, as firm executives become de facto spokespeople for the brand in social media, this is changing. Perceived access to executives further enhances consumer bonds with companies, brands, and products.
At the 2014 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, T-Mobile CEO John Legere crashed the AT&T developer party featuring a performance by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. After entering the event with no problems, he was unceremoniously thrown out of the party by security after a photo of him at the event was tweeted.13 This event resulted in several additional tweets about his ejection and significant press attention to the heated competition between the two carriers. In T-Mobile’s own CES event, it was announced that the carrier would pay contract break fees for any new mobile customer defecting from a competitor, namely AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. Consumers taking advantage of the offer tweeted CEO John Legere about their “breakup” experiences with switching carriers. The tweets were accompanied with the hashtag #breakupletters, which Legere gleefully retweeted. In Figure 4.2, a new customer poses with his T-Mobile purchases and a defaced Verizon logo, which was retweeted by John Legere to his followers.14 Social media now provides more ways to interact with the brand and allows consumers to feel part of the larger community, including validation by corporate executives.
Figure 4.2 A Verizon customer defects publically to T-Mobile via Twitter
Identity Salience
Research related to identity salience is vast. Consumers embrace brands participating in online communities based on the strength and relevance of the identification. The simplest explanation for this is that consumers have multiple identities they take on in daily life, which, together, comprise what researchers call the “total self.” For example, a consumer may be a working mother of three with heavy involvement in philanthropic endeavors. Each of those roles (mother, working professional, philanthropist) is an identity the consumer embraces, and together they form the identity of the individual. Identities vary in salience and importance to the total self. This differential salience influences how consumers adapt their self-presentation to others, both offline and via social media. The level of a specific role’s salience is the single most essential predictor of sustained role-related behaviors.15 In simple terms, more salient roles (or identities) better predict behaviors of individuals. What leads to higher identity salience? Identity theory emphasizes how self-definition arises. Consumers self-define themselves more by on-going social interactions and communications instead of the larger social structure within which they operate. This tendency to focus on salient interactions and communications for defining their own identities is a form of symbolic interactionism. The tenets of symbolic interactionism suggest that ongoing communications throughout a consumer’s daily life, such as interactions with friends, strangers, online brands, and brand communities, contribute to an individual’s perception of himself or herself. Hence, the relevance of the reference group and the relevance of the message influence how consumers identify with others and how important the relationship with the brand is to the identity of a person. Social relationships related to salient identities fuel self-attributions and thus lead to modified behavior.
This somewhat dense discussion of self and the varying importance of micro-interactions with those in a person’s network can be simplified. Brand relationships vary in strength and importance; some hold greater personal meaning than others. A beloved hotel that was visited on a honeymoon would hold greater importance (and contribute to a consumer’s identity) than the consumer’s electric company (with which the consumer would interact with on a more regular basis through daily utility service, bill receipt, bill payment, etc.). Because the hotel held an emotional meaning to the consumer and perhaps activated the consumer’s sense of romance and adventure, it would hold higher importance to the utility service. Social media interaction likely follows this trend. Consumers are more likely to interact with brands and remain brand loyal when the emotional bond is salient.
Brand Community
When we use the term brand community, it transcends interaction through social media. Consumers feel a sense of attachment to the brand, beyond what would form through simple forum interactions (like a customer service forum). Formation of brand community means that consumers have forged a deeper bond with the brand than casual consumers have formed, and they actively and consciously embrace that brand and its fellow supporters. In the context of this book, consumers interact with each other through social media. Three elements must exist for a brand community to form: (1) “consciousness of kind,” meaning one consumer recognizes another as being like-minded, (2) shared rituals, meaning individuals perform social acts specific to the brand experience that only others within the group understand, and (3) consumer interactions, either in person or online.16 Consumers identify with the brand and with other consumers of the brand. This identification leads to strong bonds, a sense of kinship, an atmosphere of trust, community-specific rituals, and a shared culture. Thus, identification with the brand and identification with others who identify with the brand lead to a formation of brand community. Marketers would be well served to develop this community of devoted, loyal, and fervent consumers. When consumers interact in a community, there are interactions and shared feelings that lead to identification with others in the community. Consumers learn to identify with the brand through brand characteristics and relational factors. Identification with the brand and owners is positively related to brand community.
Examples of Brand Community and Identity Salience
One type of interaction on brand social media channels is shared content by consumers. In this case, content, such as images, video, or text testimonials, show a commitment to other brand supporters and to the brand. For example, fans of the smart watch Pebble, a wearable device that displays push notifications from smartphones, post photos of their newly received devices or creative photography of their devices in use. In the example below, a Pebble fan photographed his device and shared with Pebble on its Facebook page (shown in Figure 4.3).17
Figure 4.3 Photograph of Pebble shared with the Facebook community
When consumers share their user experiences and affinity for a brand, they conspicuously signify to other current and potential consumers that the product is of high quality, worth the cost, deserving of their loyalty, and an important part of who they are. Additionally, as social media is social by nature, shared content with an online brand community also provides incidental exposure to the network of the community member. Through incidental exposure, clues to the consumers’ identity salience with the brand are exposed to the community at large.
Key Takeaways
- Brand community is much more than consumers participating on a brand’s Facebook page; consumers feel a deeper connection to the brand, and their “membership” may signify a badge of honor or association.
- Interactions with other brand owners matter; there is a shared kinship that comes from ownership, such as the Vespa owners sharing their favorite ride images.
- Interactions with the brand can also include company executives, which is a recent development facilitated by social media.
- Consumers have multiple identities based on the roles they hold in their daily lives; these identities vary in importance, and the day-to-day interactions help predict the future behaviors as part of these identities. In short, consumers are complex and malleable in various aspects of their lives.
- Brand relationships reinforce identities, and sharing the ownership or consumption of a beloved brand reinforces identity salience.
- Content shared with the brand and fellow brand supporters on social media signals membership in the community and reinforces its contribution to the consumer’s identity.
- Brands wishing to form brand community must truly think of their social media efforts as a community forum. This is not advertising, but a community shared by consumers and facilitated by the brand.
- When brands facilitate brand interactions with meaningful content and kinship between their consumers, traditional one-to-many advertising messages are transcended.