Importance of Brands and Brand Communities in Modern Business
The brand community and the role of brand in the business of a particular organization is immense in the modern world as the business market is getting complex and difficult with every passing day. The organizations are largely focusing on delivering quality on their works and are significantly appreciating the ability to provide transcendent customer experiences. That not only retains a customer but also creates possible customers as well. The competitiveness of the business market ensures that the organization create an effective strategy so that they be able to provide a good feel to their customers while doing the business and can maintain a longer relationship with the customers as that will help the business of that organization. The brand managers are liable to manage the services, products of the organization in a manner that it follows the current trends of the market and becomes incredibly familiar to the target customer (Cui, Hu & Griffith, 2014). In order to do so the brand managers need to keep continuous track of the current and evolving trends of the Business market. The aim of the paper is to analyse the significance of the brand managers in improving the brand value and generation of the brand community.
It is evident that a proactive approach in interacting with the customers is always a profitable policy to take in order to strengthen the brand community (Brodie et al., 2013). This relationship between a customer and a particular brand is always responsible in creation of the brand loyalty which adds into the list of benefits of the organization. The supreme or transcendent customer experiences are believed to produce a significant contribution in the making of a good relationship between the customer and the brand and along with the brand community. From the concept of brand community, it can be stated that the customers are considerably influenced with the performance of a particular organization and the positive impression towards the service or product of that organization will gain a sense of relativeness (Marzocchi, Morandin & Bergami, 2013). The discussed paper includes the major points which control the operation of a brand manager. The brand manager needs to protect the service or the product of his or her organization in an appropriate manner in order to align with the market trends. The research paper makes it pretty clear that the customers specifically the new ones will be attracted towards the products or services that match their interest or needs. The research paper reflects that the customers are significantly sensitive to considerably smaller changes and with that being the trend, the managers need to work on their product following the trend.
Role of Brand Managers
Hence it is significantly important for a brand manager to follow the preferences of the target customers along with a composed focus on the potential market as well as that will help the organization to not only conduct business in the usual manner but it will provide the organization with the desired chance of expanding the business. The appropriateness of the products or the services of any organization to the target customers will eventually attract the customers in a considerable number. The customer generally prefers the suitable service or product from an organization that has significant trustworthiness and the customer will only invest when he or she feels that the product or the services are designed for them. The organization needs to follow the current preferences and manipulate their product according to that. That will able the brand managers to generate the brand loyalty among the customers.
The brand loyalty is a much-needed entity for any organization to survive in the market. The brand loyalty not only enables the organization to conduct their business smoothly but it also adds an advantage in the future business as well. The research reveals the effect of brand loyalty in making sure that the organization retains the customers. The repeated consumption of the products by the customers is significantly evident with the concept of the brand loyalty even if the prices of the products or the services are increased (Romaniuk & Nenycz-Thiel, 2013). The brand loyalty enables a brand manager or the organization to get the added advantage of the relaxation of the marketing expenditure. In the competitive world of business, marketing generates a significant amount of the revenue and a considerable amount of money is invested for the marketing promotions of the products and the services. With the advantages of the brand loyalty, a renowned brand will get the much-needed breathing space in the case of marketing. The brand loyalty associates a particular organization with its corresponding customers in such a manner that other market competitors of that particular organization will find it considerably difficult to find any scope of conducting business in the same market. Hence the brand loyalty will decrease some portion of the market competition as well and will protect the organization against the threats of possible new entries. Brand loyalty for an organization will eventually increase the goodwill of the organization in the market through the loyal customers and that will be an added advantage for the organization in the sector of profitable business. This concept of brand loyalty helps the organization in launching new products and in increment of the product line as the concerned product will be subjected to the sufficient limelight reflected from the brand loyalty (Malik et al., 2013).
Transcendent Customer Experiences and Brand Loyalty
Hence all the portions relating different categories like brand community, brand values and brand loyalty required in order to hold a particular customer in the organization is a major challenge for the organization which needs to be taken care in an appropriate manner. These challenges are exclusively met by the brand managers.
The research paper includes an interesting topic which is the impact of transcendent customer experience on the brand community. Transcendent customer experiences incorporate two major parts in the form of Flow experience and the Peak experience (Lindberg & Østergaard, 2015). Flow experience is capable of encouraging individuals or an entire community. It is stated as a combination of performance and experience wrapped in a joyful positive package. In the context of the research paper, flow provides an interruption in the temporary reality or a precise sense of diversion from the ordinary experience (Klaus, 2014). Whereas the peak experience is of short duration but it consists of a strong and meaningful experience. The peak experience is stated to be different from the low as the peak is more of a natural process than the flow which seems to be a premeditated process. The flow experience seems to be generated from a crucial focus by an individual on a particular task whereas the peak experience seems to be generated without the individual’s concern and seems to transfer that person to greater heights of emotional joy (Van Cappellen, & Rimé, 2013). The conceptual change in the status of the peak experience in between the special and the sacred, holds the variation of the triggers to the concerned experience. The general triggers for the peak experience involve role transitions, notable beauty, personal crises and romance whereas the sacred status of the peak experience includes the sacred texts, rituals and symbols as the triggers. The peak experience is believed to connect an individual with some stronger phenomenon like humankind, nature or the infinite and leads to a particular individual to a state of transcendence (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2015). The transcendent customer experiences are strongly valuable for any particular organization as that has a strong power to influence the customer’s attitudes and behaviours. The research clarified the precise source of promise that the TCE holds in case of the providing advantage in the competitive market. In various industries including the hospitality, the deliberate use of this practice significantly influences the customer irrespective of their type and calibre. TCE is significantly effective in increasing the people’s relationship with the other values, objects and activities. The research clearly describes the strong bond between the individual and the consumption activity as a good result of the TCE. The major point in the research to explore is the impact of the TCE on the brand community and the development in the business resulting from the proper practice of TCE in constructing the brand community.
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, the brand community integrates people of similar tradition, choices, and pattern of consumption with a sense of relativeness and responsibility towards that particular organization. From the two-stage model of the brand community integration in the research, it is understandable that the quality of the brand community and the integration of a particular customer with the brand community will largely depend on the connection of the customer with the products, brand and the other customers of that particular organization. TCE manages the individual integration of a particular customer in an extent that the customer loyalty will generate the customer developed marketing, acceptance of the brand extensions, repetitive marketing and the strong tolerance level for the lapses in quality of the products. The major application of the TCE in the form of the marketer designed consumption activities will generally consolidate the various components of the customer relationships with a prime focus towards the increment of the customer integration to the brand community which will provide immense stability to the overall community (Harmeling et al., 2017). These sort of events are observed to be significantly influential for the new customers with less knowledge of the brand and the organization as it would be crucial in developing the brand loyalty among them.
From the paper it is evident that the TCE can be considered to have a major effect on the customers in getting associated with the brand and the organization and increasing the strength of the brand community. The peak and flow experiences in TCE were crucial in developing the brand community and the effect that the brand managers have, in making sure that the products align with the interest of the customers, is described in the paper in details. The positivity generating from the brand and the product of the organization due to the brand manager’s excellence in the concerned sector is a major reason for the development of the brand loyalty (Schouten, McAlexander & Koenig, 2007). The research is instrumental in acknowledging the importance of the marketer developed consumption events such as brand fests in gathering the new customers and developing the brand awareness and values for the brand among them.
For the actual industry purpose, the paper suggests two defined answers to cover the major queries of the brand managers. The paper describes the variety of the transcendent experiences that the customers receive with the products and the method of their fantasy fulfilment with the TCE. That describes whether they are the main focus of crucial role-related achievements or they are triggered by the external factors. The paper precisely discusses what the managers are in need to do to provide TCE to their customers. The defined solution to the later query depends on the success of the brand fests and interactive sessions.
The paper has a major contribution in relating the brand values, brand community and the services or the products of a particular organization. It plays an important role in acknowledging the significance of the TCE in integrating the new customers. The paper discusses the effect of the peak and flow experiences in ensuring the customer satisfaction and joy with the products of the organization. The effect of TCE in covering the faults or lapses of that particular organization and on the increment of the customer manufactured marketing with considerable trust is a potential advantage for the marketers. The importance of the brand community in the competitive business market with the potential focus on the brand loyalty is a genuine source or relief for any organization in the long run. It is evident that to survive in the modern competitive business market, the organizations need to manage their strategy with a prime focus on the development of brand community and loyalty by providing supreme customer experiences as that will ensure that the customers irrespective of their type, have some sense of belonging towards that particular organization. The supreme customer experiences are described as one of the major openings for the profitable business with the proof of its efficiency in the research paper.
References:
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