Brand and Brand Communities Assignment Samples

Introduction:

The role of brands and brand communities has risen by manifolds in the recent years. With the advent of new technological changes, the rise in the alertness among the community has been observed. This is so because the use of internet and mobile applications has facilitated the information sharing process. Thus every single person in the present day world is enlightened with the latest change happening around the world. Due to this reason the organizations are creating brand community in the form of brand forums, brand network, fan club, brand meritocracy, ambassador club, influencer group etc. with the view to maintain the interest of customers.

Real life applications:

1. Case of mobile phone industry:

Different companies are facing different problems and challenges on marketing and general management decisions. For instance the use of smart phone application imitated by Apple iPhone and they adapted similar versions by Samsung mobile added to the competition in the mobile world. The result was that the years of old major market share holder Nokia lost its existence. Along with that the marketing and legal work broke between Apple and Samsung, in which Apple claimed that Samsung has copied its concept and applications of smart phones. This led to the defeat of the Samsung Company in American continent, but level was maintained in Europe (Chikweche, 2012). Finally in Asia the war was won, when people opted to Samsung Mobile phones as an easy to understand and apply smart phone.

Also the delay in decision making by the management on applying smart phone features led to the extinction of the years old market leader Nokia from the mobile phone industry.

2. Case of electric car companies:

In another real world case, Tesla Motors which made a break through by creating electric luxury cars has to face a close competition from Ford and BMW automobile companies. This is because, Tesla Motors did not achieved the required level of expertise and accomplished success in making electric cars which led to the rise of close competition that is clearly overtaking it. The ford Focus electric car has higher speed and also available at much lower cost (Reuters, 2015). The similar is the case with the BMW i3 which has taken over from the Tesla Motors cars in speed and low cost. However the only thing left with Telsa motors is range in miles that are covered huge which is 265 miles. This way the lack of effective decision making has brought in close competition, but the years of toil has brought in economies of scale which has added an effective feature of range coverage for its cars. Therefore the need is to promote brand community at the international levels as the company earlier concentrated only on the US market. This could help the company gain access to unlimited number of customers around the globe and fight back competition (Money.cnn.com, 2016).

Implications to the brand manager:

This way the implications on the brand managers can be suggested to meet their targets and achieve the desired level of outcome for their organizations. The brand managers first need to clearly frame the strategy by identifying and bringing into alignment the company objectives. This way the integration and alignment efforts could bring out an effective strategy formulation. The second step would be to effectively scope the project and prepare the scoping document so that the future course of action can be pen down after it. This way the scope needs to be recognized before the next step is initiated. Thirdly the plan has to be framed out which offers visible steps that are needed to be taken to accomplish the required level of gains through plan application. The fourth step would be developing team after careful selection of the team members so that the cross functional project team of relevant stakeholders can be constituted. Later the manager needs to manage the teammates and direct them at regular intervals towards the project delivery. Finally the project evaluation needs to be done so that the outcome can be analyzed and compared with the estimates.

This way a number of lessons are learnt from this paper. These include the followings.

  1. The brand communities help in bringing together the existing customers.
  2. It attracts new potential customers towards the community.
  3. It helps in getting the feedback, suggestions and ideas for improvements.
  4. It represents the social entities that actually reflect the presence of the brand in the life of the customers in regular life.
  5. It brings in better insight to the real life outcome from the company business.
  6. It brings in competitive intelligence to the research and offers the ability to the company to foster the actual market needs.
  7. It helps in successful launching of new products and services.
  8. It offers crisis management plan which could safe guard the interest of the company in maintaining sustenance in the long run.
  9. It helps in reducing the customer support costs.
  10. It brings about the popularity among the masses.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the role of brands and brand communities has risen by manifolds in the recent years. With the advent of new technological changes, the rise in the alertness among the community has been observed. Therefore the role of brand manager has become really important in the present day competitive world. A number of implications on the brand managers are thus suggested to meet their targets and achieve the desired level of outcome for their organizations.