New Consumer Role in Brand Community: from Attractiveness to an Active Member and Embedded Learning

This conceptual paper aims to provide a contribution to advancing knowledge on the more recent phenomenon of social brand community. Three interrelated and consecutively developed conceptualizations resulting from a co-operation of the researchers over the last three years are presented to explain the influence of the evolution of current social trends on the relationship between consumers and brands in different contexts (socio-demographic aspects and culture). The increasing role that the brand plays in the socialization system is highlighted. The paper is based on an extensive interdisciplinary literature review in areas such as sociology, management, and marketing. The conceptualizations have been applied to a previously researched qualitative case study on Cypriot consumers, which conducted in-depth expert interviews and focus groups. The research project has been designed in three stages: the first stage elicited the nature of relationships between consumer, brands and social groups; the second stage was concerned with differentiating consumer behaviour and segmentation patterns in the various stages; finally, the last one conceptualized the influence of culture on the brand-consumer relationship and benefited from a progressive knowledge of the researchers in the field of embedded learning and human branding. The first conceptualization (Siano and Basile, 2009) explains the various stages of the evolution of the relationship between the consumer and the brand. The second conceptualization proposes a new segmentation and categorization pattern of brand consumers and their respective behaviors derived from the different stages of the consumer-brand relationship development (Siano and Basile, 2009; Siano, Kaufmann, Basile, 2009). The third conceptualization has been developed from the findings of an exploratory study on Cypriot brand related consumer behavior (Kitsios and Kaufmann, 2009), which had expanded the previous two conceptualizations by integrating cultural aspects. Beyond that, the third conceptualization integrates the influence of embedded learning and stimulant experience on the consumer-brand relationship. Whereas the focus of the research paper was on conceptualization, the results of the study provide academic and practical suggestions for segmentation and corporate branding strategies in order to develop and strengthen the relationship between brand and consumer. For example, the importance of the opinion leader in the brand community building and marketing mix suggestions to leverage embedded learning are provided. Based on the description of the chronological evolution of the relationship between consumer, brand/firm and social groups an innovative and holistic conceptual framework net consisting of three conceptualizations is provided differentiating consumer roles by the strength of the relationship to the brand and by cultures. The paper provides innovative knowledge on a new quality, even new paradigm, of consumer-brand-social group relations leading to new arising segmentation patterns and socially responsible marketing.