Marketing literature is exploring the strategic importance of building communities centered around strong brands – brand communities. Our research adds to the current understanding of brand communities by extending the notion of brand community being non-geographically bound. While prior research acknowledges this characteristic of brand community it fails to, firstly, illustrate the strategic importance of such freedom. And, secondly, provide directions for an operational, tactical, or strategic tool to truly build and sustain non-geographically bound brand communities. We refer to such communities as geographically free brand communities (Geo Free Brand Comms). This research presents the conceptual underpinnings and characteristics of Geo Free Brand Comms. Further, the use of Weblogs (Blogs) and related technologies such as Video Blogs, Podcasts and RSS as strategic tools in building GeoFree Brand Comms is explored. We then proceed to posit the applications of Geo Free Brand Comms in Web-based marketing strategies that find their basis in strong brands and loyal customers.
Building Brand Communities on the Internet: Geo Free Brand Comms
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Published 2007-10-30
Pages 10-16
Abstract
Keywords
Brand Community
Customer R elationship M anagement
Customer Voice
E-marketing
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