Collecting the Collectives: Refining and Extending Brand Community

1. Collecting the Collectives: Refining and Extending Brand Community Albert M. Muñiz, Jr. DePaul University Yun Mi Antorini Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus ACR October, 2011 

2. Conceptual context • After ten+ years of research, what the @#$%! do we know? • Lots of interesting work • Broderick, Maclaran & Ma, 2003; McAlexander, Kim & Roberts, 2003; Algesheimer, Dholakia & Herrmann, 2005; Muñiz & Schau, 2005; Cova & Pace, 2006; Carlson, Suter & Brown 2007; Ouwersloot & Odekerken-Schröder, 2007; Fournier & Lee, 2009; Schau, Muñiz & Arnould, 2009 • Still a need for conceptual clarity • 1) Over-use of the term • 2) politics of competing terms and constructs • 3) competing terms too often presented as an all or nothing sort of thing.

3. Conceptual context • In search of a multidimensional typology that includes ideal types of community, tribes and subcultures. •  Advantages (Lesage & Wechlter, 2007): • helps researchers identify the studies related to their question of research. • helps formalize the fields of research passed and future directions • We contribute to the typology by proposing a preliminary classification for different types of brand community.

4. The method to our madness • The Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOL) brand community • In 1998 the LEGO Group launched the LEGO Mindstorms RIS

5. The method to our madness • The Adult Fans of Lego (AFOL) brand community • In 1998 the LEGO Group launched the LEGO Mindstorms RIS • Sales data showed that many adult males (not the target market) bought and used the product. • They were also innovating the product, frequently quite significantly.

6. The method to our madness • KekoaProudfoot (1998), who was among the first to hack the RCX: • “While the RCX is certainly a fun and useful product out-of-box, it is even more exciting under the hood.”

7. A robot that writes (with a pen/pencil) on common paper tapes made for printing calculators or cash registers. By Mario Ferrari

8. Eastereggpainter. Creatorunknown

9. Plant sprikler, indirect fluid pump. By Mario Ferrari

10. The RCX turned into a musical instrument capable of playing 36 different notes, while using just a single RCX input port. By D. Sculley

11. A robot solving the 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube®. By JB Brown

12. The method to our madness • The Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOL) brand community • Mostly men. But more women are entering the scene. • Typically in their 20-40s. • Many have a technical/software related background. • TLG estimates that there are over 70.000 active AFOLs in the world. • Self-declared LEGO purists. • Take strong interest in the user developed creation (the MOC).

13. The method to our madness • The Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOL) brand community • Between 2003 and 2011, we engaged in multi-site, ethnographic research.

15. Toward a typology • Our study underscores the following: • A dynamic and evolutionary perspective allows us to study different forms of community. • To drive comprehensiveness and depth, emic/etic issues should be taken into account. • The social and cultural context needs to be taken into account, too.

16. An evolutionary perspective

17. An evolutionary perspective

18. An etic perspective • RTFM • Are the three markers present?

19. An emic perspective

20. A context perspective

21. A context perspective Magnus (2008 on Lugnet): • “It’s become a lot easier for me to be accepted as a LEGO builder now than when I was a teen or in my early 20s. Partly that’s because my peers are older and aren't all that concerned about being cool and doing the fashionable thing as they were. But partly, I think it's also that LEGO itself has become a little more accepted than it was before.”

22. A context perspective Dave (on EuroBrick 2009): • “My wife and I are 29 and are both AFOL's. …If co-workers or friends ask about our hobbies or what we're into, LEGO is always the first thing that gets brought up. I don't think anyone has ever said anything negative about us being into LEGO. When I tell people at work, they are always intrigued. ”

23. A typology of brand community types The Integrated Brand Community The Differentiated Brand Community The Fragmented Brand Community Strong sense of “we’ness”. Clarity about what people share and what they disagree about. Disagreements exist, but generally there is consensus throughout and one key goal is assimilation and sense of unity. An ad-hoc and situational sense of “we’ness”. Ambiguity, not clarity is the hallmark of this brand community form. Issue specific attention to things with no consensus, no central unit, fluctuating. Multiple, often times contradictory meanings that are simultaneously true and false, paradoxes and ironies thrive. Awareness of fellow members but sense of “we’ness” is experienced primarily through sub-interest groups. Like the integrated community there is clarity about what people share /don’t. However, there is no community-wide consensus, the community is clusters of sub-interest groups centered on a multitude of different experiences. The relations between these sub-interest groups can be both enhancing, conflicting and independent.

24. Exemplifying the typology

25. Thanks Albert Muñiz: amuniz@depaul.edu Yun Mi Antorini: yma@asb.dk Photo by Simpson Brothers Photography

28. Some additional conceptual context • Fournier and Lee (2009) offer interesting ideas on different forms of brand community, but their conceptualizations present some difficulties. • a) Their categories are neither exhaustive or exclusive. • Apple could be said to exhibit characteristics of both pools (shared goals and values) and hubs (admiration for an individual via the centrality of Steve Jobs). • b) It is clear whether or not all three of their forms possess the three key markers • c) Still the notion of the source of the unity for the collective is valuable and should be included in any such typology.