You will prepare and submit a term paper on Brand community. Your paper should be a minimum of 2500 words in length. Brand community is a set of individuals who relate to each other for their interest in some brand or product (Flavián & Guinalíu, 2005). Such brand communities have become the focus of attention for marketers of all products and services. Sports and particularly football has become big business, drawing the attention to brand communities.

The brands communities, according to Seo et al., are not bound by personal relations but are based on looser, more impersonal links. The strength of the community and the members’ identification with the community are associated with consumers’ consumption of the core product or product augmentations or brand extensions. The members of the community feel an intrinsic connection with one another which Muniz, Albert and O’Guinn describe as ‘consciousness of kind’ – a shared consciousness, a way of thinking about things that is more than shared attitudes. Such communities also share rituals and traditions and they have a sense of moral responsibility to the community as a whole and to the individual members. This sense of morality can in times of threat, protect the community and produce collective action. A community forms because of certain shared traditions, rituals, behavior patterns or values. According to Muniz and Schau (2005) religious affiliation are vital to brand communities. Consumer behavior thus depends on the individual society and its characteristics. The character and structure of the communities are further affected by the commercial and mass-mediated ethos.

Brand communities are different from subcultures although they may have some commonalities. The meaning that sub-cultures create stand in opposition or indifference to the meanings that is generally accepted. Brand communities are united by their commonalities and they are communities of limited liability (Muniz, Albert and O’Guinn).