Download The BPONG IRELAND Brand Community

And In the Beginning There Was a Brand: The BPONG IRELAND Brand
Community
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” – Carl
Sagan (1980)
This quote comes to mind frequently when pondering the adaptation of brand community
(Muniz and O’Guinn 2001) as a marketing strategy. There is substantial evidence that
consumer tribes centred on existing brands can be approached, fostered, supported and
included in key marketing decisions (Schouten and McAlexander 1995, Cova and Cova 2002,
McAlexander et al. 2002, Kozinets et al. 2007, Fuller et al. 2008). However, what approaches
should be used in attempting to create a brand community around a new brand? In a recent
study of a new and emerging brand (BPONG IRELAND) we found that by including an aim
of brand community initiation, the new brand achieved a loyal customer base and enjoys an
increasing consumer following. We now outline the conceptual approach followed in
detailing the current attempt to establish a brand community.
DEVELOPING A BRAND COMMUNITY
Brand communities are usually initiated by consumers, either without any corporate
involvement, or free from excessive corporate involvement (Mandelli 2004, McAlexander et
al. 2002, McAlexander et al. 2003, Muniz and O’Guinn 2001). They are a particular form of
response to the ‘desperate search’ for social links (Cova 1997) whereby brands serve as a
talismanic locus for consumer affiliation. Brand community thus incorporates a web of
interacting relationships (Muniz and O’Guinn 2001, McAlexander et al. 2002, McAlexander
et al. 2003). McAlexander et al. (2002) propose four key relationships (see Figure 1):
“A brand community from a customer-experiential perspective is a fabric of
relationships in which the customer is situated. Crucial relationships include those
between the customer and the brand, between the customer and the firm, between the
customer and the product in use, and among fellow customers”
Figure 1. Brand Community Integration model as envisaged by McAlexander et al
(2002)
There is also a consensus in the literature on the need to facilitate consumers’ desire for such
relationships, rather than to try to coerce them into community (Algesheimer et al. 2005,
Fournier and Lee 2009, Patterson and O’Malley 2006). McAlexander et al. (2002) proffer
the brandfest as a means by which consumers’ need for meaningful relationships and
experiences can be met, while brand loyalty is simultaneously enhanced. Well-designed
brandfests such as Jeep Jamborees can facilitate transcendent customer experience (TCE)
(Schouten et al. 2007) thereby strengthening mutual ties in a brand-related manner. TCE can
be defined as a sense of flow and/ or peak experience in a consumption context. This can be
characterised by feelings of awakening, epiphany and novelty of experience. It can also have
an ongoing relational dimension, whereby consumers not only seek to repeat such
experiences, but seek to do so in association with the people and brand(s) whom they
encountered via their initial experiences. Schau, Muniz, and Arnould (2009) build on this by
advocating that organisations engage in ‘seeding practices’. For instance organisations should
facilitate social networking, so that community members can both reminisce about shared
brand related experience, and anticipate future experiences. Other seeding practices include
milestoning (the acknowledgement of “seminal events in brand ownership and consumption”,
badging (“translating milestones into (tangible) symbols”), and documenting (“detailing the
brand relationship journey in a narrative way”). All such practices should be openly
encouraged because they serve to integrate members further into the brand community
(Schau, Muniz, and Arnould 2009).
A further issue arises in relation to service brands. How might the brand community concept
be applied in the context of intangible service brands such as higher education (McAlexander
et al. 2006) or charity marketing (Hassay and Peloza 2009). Hassay and Peloza (2009)
advocate application of the brandfest approach to the charity sector, arguing that participation
in charity brandfests will result in full brand community integration. They also advocate
badging, through the provision of badges such as t-shirts, pins, or car stickers, to charity
brandfest participants. In relation to alumni brand communities, McAlexander et al. (2006)
propose that marketing efforts target essentially the same four relationship categories
identified by McAlexander et al (2002). However this approach possibly separates rather than
integrates the various relationships involved. It may be that BCI is more readily achieved by
designing brandfests that primarily aim to facilitate the key relationship illustrated in Figure 2
(below).
Figure 2. Simple Brand Community Relationship Model (based on triadic model of Muniz
& O’Guinn 2001)
Finally, we propose that successful efforts at brand community building are likely to have
borrowed from Cova and Cova’s (2002) model for tribal marketing. The three distinct phases
of tribal marketing are identified as Phase 1, Ethnomarketing, which involves full participant
ethnography, Phase 2, co-design, which involves collaboration on product design and
development; and Phase 3, Tribal Support, whereby facilitation of the tribe is systematically
developed from within. Organisations who have established their bone fides as members of
the community retain subcultural credibility and their efforts at facilitation have a much
greater impact than attempts to impose seeding practices from the outside. This shared
passion is clearly illustrated in the practices of Harley Davidson in their relationship with the
Harley Davidson brand community, for instance (Fournier et al. 2001).
THE CURRENT
COMMUNITY
STUDY:
CREATING
THE
BPONG
IRELAND
BRAND
This paper outlines the lead author’s experiences in attempting to apply the brand community
concept in establishing beer pong in Ireland, specifically via the BPONG IRELAND brand. In
terms of methodology the study is therefore being implemented via an ongoing participant
ethnography (Stewart 1998). Participating in various beer pong events has allowed for
participant and non-participant observation, photography, videography and informal
conversations with a vast amount of community members on an international scale. The study
also includes a virtual aspect with the application of ‘netnography’ (Kozinets 2002).
The sport of Beer Pong
Beer pong involves two players per team, an 8ft long table, and ping-pong balls that are
thrown into a triangle formation of 10 cups slightly filled with beer on the opposite side of the
table. When a ball is sunk in one of your opponent’s cups, that cup is taken away. Victory is
achieved when all your opponent’s cups are taken away. Beer pong combines the intensity of
a boxing match, the self-congratulation of a football touchdown, and the pressure of a gamewinning free throw (Applebaum and Disorbo 2009).
The lead author first experienced beer pong when he attended the World Series of Beer Pong
(WSOBP) V in Las Vegas, from Jan 1st to 5th 2010. This event combined the sport of beer
pong with a carnival ethos:
“The level of organisation that went into this entire thing shocked me,… it has been
very professionally put together… The music, people dancing, jumping, laugh joking,
making friends. I couldn’t believe how friendly people were, everyone was included in
the fun. The tournament is almost designed to be as much fun off the tables as on
them.… some players were in fancy dress, it was very much a festival of fun and
enjoyment.”
–Fieldnotes, WSOBP V
WSOBP V thus provided participants with a high level of personal interaction not only with
the sport of beer pong but also with other members of the ‘BPONG’ community. This left the
lead author with an unshakable sense of conversion (Belk et al 1989) and a strong desire to
maintain membership of the community. Post the WSOBP V attendees befriended other
‘pongers’ on Facebook, began participating in conversations on the BPONG.COM forum, and
uploading various photographs and videos on-line. However, virtual participation in an online
community could not prove adequate as a means of replicating the full beer pong experience.
Ultimately the desire to recreate this transcendent experience led to the decision to establish
BPONG IRELAND.
Establishing a Brand Community
The BPONG IRELAND brand began in May 2010 with the goal of being Ireland’s premier
beer pong provider. An awareness of the benefits of the brand community approach led the
founders to believe that they had to firstly facilitate transcendent experience for consumers,
and secondly, facilitate consumers’ needs for maintaining that experience both socially and
virtually. It was also felt that participation by the founders as full members of the BPONG
IRELAND community would allow symbiotic relationships to emerge organically between
organisation and consumers as the community grew. Thus the first objective was to organise
initial beer pong events that facilitated, rather than tried to coerce, conversion to the beer pong
community. This was achieved by focusing very much on people’s enjoyment of their first
experience rather than trying to enforce the rules;
“We (BPONG IRELAND) were very aware of trying to create an atmosphere people
could make their own so, we were very slack with orders, rules, and we left lots of
things (rules) go, in order that first of all people had a good time, the first night was
not about raising standards, it was about having a good time…. Conversion
experience was the aim, we believed (we)... achieved this for most people who were
playing….. “
- Fieldnotes, BPONG IRELAND, 05/05/2010
From the outset the attempt at providing a unique experience for consumers to make their
own appeared to be successful.
“If I just came in randomly, I would definitely come back again”
-D______, Fieldnotes. BPONG IRELAND, 05/05/2010
Given the founders’ awareness of the importance of sacralisation maintenance through
seeding practices (Schau et al. 2009), consumers were provided with online opportunities to
interact. BPONG IRELAND thus encouraged players to engage with the BPONG IRELAND
Facebook page to maintain their sense of sacred experience through interaction with each
other. This allowed the emerging customer-customer relationships to be facilitated via the
shared link (Cova 1997) of the brand;
“When filming I was trying to get as much as the new teams as possible, I try to make
sure they can see themselves the next day playing and in photos. It inspires
communication between groups of people. A lot of people have become good friends
on Facebook now since the BPONG IRELAND has started”
-Fieldnotes, BPONG IRELAND, 16/06/2010
Brand Community Evolution
In the context of an activity based brand there remains a need to continuously create an
atmosphere that facilitates TCEs and supports the group’s sense of consciousness of kind.
However as the number of participants grew it became less feasible for the founders of
BPONG IRELAND to personally engage with ‘newbies’ and to co-create transcendent
experience with them. However, neophyte community members began to take on this role
spontaneously without waiting for encouragement from the founder members;
“We didn’t do a demo tonight, other players already were explaining to the new
friends they brought how to play….. the newbies were unaware of some of the lingo,
one of the lads shouted ‘Reform!’ he then said 3,2,1 and made (a) triangle shape with
his hands and showed them.”
- Fieldnotes, BPONG IRELAND, 16/06/2010
This highlights the importance of the customer-customer-brand fused relationship over other
relationships associated with brand community formation. Marketers can support and
facilitate, but they cannot control all factors surrounding brand community marketing.
Consumers form bonds of kinship (Schouten et al. 2007), develop their own rituals and
traditions (Muniz & O’Guinn 2001), their own system of cultural capital (Leigh et al. 2006)
and hierarchy (O’Sullivan et al. 2011). Members of an emergent brand community will also
often engage in their own seeding practices, even if the marketer is already partially
facilitating their needs in this respect. In practice, the need for personalised, tangible
expressions of this new communal identity meant that new members began to make their own
jerseys;
“People began asking us when are selling t-shirts, that they’d definitely buy one, also
we then announced that we are considering selling BPONG IRELAND tables, people
immediately said they would put off buying them from ebay and wait for ours to be on
sale”
-
Fieldnotes, BPONG IRELAND, 10/11/2010
“Teams got their own jerseys made up, displaying our logo and theirs, a considerable
expense, it was great to see players do this all off their own back to make the day
special for them – we didn’t encourage any of this – it was like a mini WS”
–Fieldnotes, Irish Beer Pong Championship, 27/11/2010
Thus in the relative absence of provision of customised badges (Hassay and Peloza 2009) by
BPONG IRELAND, new members engaged in several seeding practices (Schau et al 2009)
themselves, thereby incorporating the brand more deeply into their identities. Members’
spontaneous co-creation of the atmosphere thus increased the possibility of ‘newbies’ having
a conversion experience and also served as a means of sacralisation maintenance for current
members via enactment of the brand ambassador role. Newly immersed community members
also began to display additional forms of ownership of the BPONG IRELAND experience;
“Bpong Ireland members started making the BPONG IRELAND poster (see appendix)
their profile picture (on Facebook), people everywhere are beginning to tag
themselves and other friends in the States and throughout Ireland on the poster, this is
something I really wanted to happen and it did, pressure free, I had chills”
– On-line observation, 15/11/2010.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
We have thus outlined how a brand community has begun to emerge around the BPONG
IRELAND brand. We believe that conscious adherence to the principles of brand community
development, with a primary focus on co-creation of transcendent experience, full community
participation by the brand founders, and facilitation of various forms of seeding practice
(Schau et al. 2009) has successfully led to a situation where consumers are facilitating
transcendent experience for each other and the central brand community relationship of
consumer-brand-consumer has taken root in their identities. Brand community members have
taken an element of control over the brand’s direction and evolution (Cova and Pace 2006).
We therfore believe that new members of the community have undergone conversion
experiences and are seeking to maintain and replicate their experiences by developing brandcentred relationships with each other. Further research needs to be conducted to verify
whether this is the case.
Participative knowledge from ongoing ethnomarketing (Cova and Cova 2002) should help to
clarify the extent to which neyophyte ‘pongers’ have indeed undergone a conversion
expereience, while also shedding light on the transition from converison experiecen to full
integrationinto the community. By continuing as full members of the community, the
marketers can remain focused on faciliating the community’s co-creation of transcendent
experience. Further research will seek to document the relationship between this and brand
community development.
Appendix
Image 1. BPONG IRELAND poster for the Irish Beer Pong Championship 2010
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