Strong consumer brands have shifted, lately, from a traditional—advertising-based—way of communicating with consumers to a more interactive and networked approach, which often include relevant investments in a brand community.
A brand community is described in the literature as “a specialized, nongeographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand.” These communities play a relevant role in building a stronger bond between brands and consumers, so that the affective ties tend to transform in advocative consumer behavior and loyal relationships. But brand communities can also provide a number of valuable learning opportunities for both customers and the organizations that sponsor them. This paper wants to explore the process through which these learning objectives are met, and the social level variables that influence the nature and the evolution of this process.
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Mandelli, A. (2007). Consumer Knowledge, Social Sensemaking and Negotiated Brand Identity. In: McInerney, C.R., Day, R.E. (eds) Rethinking Knowledge Management. Information Science and Knowledge Management, vol 12. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-71011-6_11
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