Drivers of Brand Engagement: The Role of Brand Communities

Today, all major brands are engaging their stakeholders through online and offline brand communities, fan clubs and social media groups, with the objective of attracting the right audience. Brand communities have gained importance as a branding tool for marketers because they offer values difficult to capture elsewhere. An engaged community transports results in numerous areas of the business. The principal objective of this article is to explore brand communities of radiologist and how these communities enhance brand engagement in medical equipment industry. The article has used a single cross-sectional descriptive design and is based on the data collected from 152 users of a large medical products company that comprised product managers from partner industries and radiologists across India. The results from this study confirm the proposed model of interactions between variables and revealed significant relationships between brand communities and brand engagement. The study highlights the significance of brand communities and their usage to enhance brand engagement, in high-value and high-risk product market. The instruments used for the study are validated for the constructs of brand trust, satisfaction, community and engagement.