Brands Can’t Buy Community. So How Do They Build One?

HUR TABLE GUESTS

Oct 24

Brands Can’t Buy Community. So How Do They Build One?

With Charlotte Manning, Eliska Muchova, Ira Tassouli and Jordan Santos

By HURS Team

The word community is as strange to me as the word empowerment. They’re every brand and publication’s favorite buzzword, but we would never use either IRL. While both are extremely important, they are concepts that remain on the pages of strategies and briefs with only few brands and publications able to apply them authentically.

And what is a brand community anyway? Brands and publications have exchanged the word customer or reader with community — but the two couldn’t be more different. Consumers consume – it's a passive role that remains transactional – while communities are built through a two-way interaction. They are built on three key pillars: a mutual goal, belief or interest, a sense of belonging and the ability to connect with each other (either digitally or IRL). More and more consumers are actively looking for new ways to more deeply associate themselves with the brands they love, and connect on a deeper level. A Harvard Business Review study found that consumers who are fully connected to a brand are worth 52% more to a business compared to someone who isn’t. But how can brands build these tribes around their businesses in a way that brings value to today’s shopper beyond products?

Social media has created a direct line of communication between consumers and brands. And for some, brands have become the filters through which they like to see the world.. Consumers want to know where Jacquemus goes when he’s in Marseille and where The Row team would go for dinner in Paris. But while the gap between brands and consumers isn’t as large as it used to be, few have been able to develop relationships with their consumers. And even fewer have created ways for fellow brand fans to connect with each other. Most have continued to use social platforms as traditional marketing tools, using it to promote their latest products or campaigns over showcasing their complete universe or seeing it as an opportunity to have direct access to their consumer’s thoughts, ideas and feedback. How can you build an authentic relationship when there’s no way to communicate your thoughts and interests?