Dr Ekkehart Baumgartner, based in Munich, Germany, is a sociologist and economist with many years' experience in journalism and agency work. As a brand consultant, he develops communications concepts for organisations and founded an institute for brand communication called Communication Code. In his capacity as a lecturer, he teaches Marketing and Brand Management; as a journalist, he has contributed to Financial Times Germany, Wirtschaftswoche and Welt am Sonntag. He recently published his book Brand Communities as New Brand Worlds. Brand Communities are a wake-up call for many companies – they think individually and independently, and there are real brand politics to be found in web forums. Baumgartner is convinced: if brand communities can be understood, it is possible to gain from them. In this article he explains how consumer communities are creating a shift in the way companies address consumers.

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Communication Code

Artwork for this article by Ryan Christie

I.
There can be no doubt about it: consumers have undergone a radical transformation.
They are becoming less predictable. They interfere and want to join in and take part. In Western societies, we are experiencing what could be called a democratic revolution in consumerism: demands for participation are spilling over into the world of business. This new participation society is driven by brand communities, which express themselves in the freedom of online forums: consumers are swapping experiences more and more in brand communities or brand networks, in discussion forums, weblogs or web video services such as YouTube or MySpace. Brand fans communicate over the internet and meet at events or privately to talk about 'their' brand and share the common brand experience.

Harley Davidson is recognised as a successful brand network.
Other good examples are the communities for Marlboro and Jägermeister (the alcoholic drink), the latter having spread from its roots in Germany to international recognition. The following factors are part of the success of these genuine brand communities: the more individual the brand message sent out, the more sustained the effect in the brand community, maybe as a topic in web forums. The frequency of contact between the brand-owning organisation and community members is another success factor. Harley Davidson members might meet at weekends for rides out together whereas Marlboro fans organise parties. This exchange of experiences within private lives in the context of the brand has a powerful bonding effect.

One thing is evident: for companies, these large networks of private experts are increasingly fulfilling the roles of valuable providers of ideas, think tanks and disseminators of information. For the marketing departments of tomorrow, it is possible to predict already that customer dialogue will be radically different: the consumer will become an active partner of the company and will be an integral part of product development. The statistics speak for themselves: according to estimates, almost 90 million people are today networked in brand communities around the world and regularly exchange information about brands. In contrast to classic target groups, brand communities are brand-specific groups. So the question is, why has this phenomenon of brand communities come about? Why do they drive the latest consumer developments to such an extent – what is the reason for this phenomenon?

II.
In recent years there has been a rapid growth in individual, independent and dynamic brand communication, which is free from the influence of the organisation:
consumers increasingly act independently and – in contrast to how things used to be done – have a significant and creative influence on brand communications. In the media age, people are much more spontaneous when talking about brands and they make judgments in a more independent and differentiated manner. They are interested in me-focused factors. 'Cultural Creatives' or 'Lohas' (a term meaning Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) form exciting trends, functioning in what is basically a very democratic manner and exerting massive pressure on organisations. Companies such as automotive manufacturer MINI or beverage producer Coca-Cola understand well how to work with these individualistic trends to build a multi-facetted image as a lifestyle or 'lifeworld' brand. The brand is identified as a model for orientation or as a long-lost friend or enemy. And this works so well because we treat it within the context of a strong diversification of lifeworlds and lifestyles. This is the real background against which brand communities have come into being; they are structured in the same way as religious groups, they are searching for orientation and wanting to be able to communicate an exchange of values – in short: today's buyers are not just 'consumers', they are defined much more strongly by their own lifeworlds; the old class model no longer functions as it used to. This is because – in spite of social injustice being just as it was previously – we have today a clearly improved standard of living. This explains why the old class model is beginning to crumble, breaking down into a multitude of private lifeworlds and lifestyles. So brands are becoming creators of norms, creators of values, creators of lifestyles. And so bewitch the masses.

III.
So what does all this mean for organisations themselves?
What do they have to do, not to be caught in the middle and not to be driven by brand communities? One critical factor is a change of perspective in communications and marketing departments. This is where people need to be able to think sociologically, with relevance to society and why not also artistically or culturally and historically. What is missing in today's organisations is a farsighted view of the big picture. Instead of this, we see a stock market-driven or project-specific short-sightedness which stops managers thinking outside their quarterly routines. When experts in communications or marketing departments do not understand the farsighted perspective, they are at the mercy of whatever agencies send to them. When brands create consciousness and values, the intangible elements of a brand become more important. This aspect is also related to the change in the structure of markets. We used to talk about saturated markets. These have become sustainable markets. Earlier, up until well into the 1990s, brands were differentiated on products and price. This no longer works due to information overload and information over-stimulation. Today consumers want help with orientation. Price can no longer achieve this, and it can also no longer be done by the product alone. Clear and substantial messages are needed, which must be part of a communicative strategy. Put quite simply: pragmatists are being created out of consumer-dreamers. Today it is about clear messages endowed with meaning, about values. How do organisations build sustainable brand communities against this backdrop?

IV.
As strange as it may seem: there are many parallels with being in love –
in terms of credibility, sustainability and commitment. Everyone knows where and when they fell in love. It was a moment in which they felt a blind understanding, in which they could let themselves go. It was a moment in which unsuspected powers grew, the world was simple and problems were small. Falling in love is unadulterated, open, honest, credible and always full of hope that the love will never end. What can we learn about the formation of brand communities from this? At the core of models of identity which create desire and bonding, there is trust. Building and maintaining trust based on the credibility of the messages that are sent out. How does a brand create trust? Which are the messages today that ensure a durable (brand) partnership? And what is the meaning of changing consumer needs?

V.
For authors and scientists Simonetta Carbonaro and Christian Votava, the true significance of brands for consumers lies in 'real quality'.
This is the real value for consumers: 'Added value not utility value', 'Interpretation not perception', 'Being, not seeming to be'. Carbonaro and Votava propel 'a consumption which makes sense for the consumer' into the foreground of strategic brand management, to achieve a durable potential to bond. This background is evident when looking at points of interaction for brand communities of real influence – the creation of a value link between brand and consumer – as we see a paradigm shift within consumer needs and structural changes in markets. As already explained, structural change arises today because differentiation is no longer the key to the world of products: too much choice of interchangeable products accompanied by vast amounts of similar information leads to shopping stress for the consumer: 'too-muchness!' What counts today is much more the true value of the brand, the history, the attitude, the substance of the product – and not the features of excess supply. If they want to successfully form their communities, brands need to achieve a reduction in complexity in order to have some sort of basis for orientation in a world of excess supply.

Brand communities need models of identity because brand networks are today searching for common points of interaction and intersections of orientation. The knowledge of the latent needs of consumers is the signpost to creating strategies. Brand strategies for brand communities need to serve the individual uniqueness of consumer needs. This background, which is forged by associations, the unconscious behaviour and the world of motives of today's consumers, demands fresh thinking away from classic marketing strategies. The real trigger of new consumer needs is socio-cultural forces in society. The creation of identity, a prerequisite for brand communities, begins with the involvement of the consumer through the brand. This form of social interaction is successful if contact with the brand, the product, the philosophy, the norms or the values are in tune with the needs of the consumer. More than used to be the case, these needs are very much more strongly created by social and cultural forces in saturated markets, where products are interchangeable and their basic function gets lost. Snappy slogans or just broadcasting information about price or new technical features will gain attention temporarily for a company but won't make a lasting impression. Equally the following could be said about the 'world of experiences': whereas previously every events agency was aiming for excitement of the senses, today we are seeing very much more a sensibility, which the consumer is seeking – they demand today genuine, clear and relevant messages, not an ambiguous brand profile steeped in lifestyle which cannot communicate what it stands for.

As well as the creation of identity (values between consumer and brand), credible communications play a key role in the success of forming brand communities.
Finding enduring and substantial points of contact between the brand and the values of the brand networks drives the basis on which brand communities form. These points of contact can only have an enduring effect if they form part of the world of the organisation from which they originated. To achieve this unity and a maximum level of credibility, there is a further process to go through along the road to the formation of brand communities. It is the process of communication. Or to put it another way: enduring messages also have to be communicated in an enduring way. Addressing a community in the age of an excess of stimuli and information overload puts the focus on the sustainability of communication. It must reach a point where there can be no confusion. Only in this way will a brand become interesting for brand communities and establish orientation. This only happens credibly when one thing is crystal clear: the brand identity must be allied with the corporate identity. Consumers need a substantial amount of clarity when they enter the daily advertising and information battlefield that is the retail store.

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