Community based brand equity as brand culture: advancing brand equity conceptualization for a connected world

Recent studies suggest that brand awareness and brand image do not directly influence future purchases and brand knowledge alone is not sufficient for building strong brands. Keller’s reflections, particularly pointing to a small group of highly engaged customers, call for a rethink on brand equity in the light of a fast-developing digital world. Research also indicate that in a sharing economy, there is a transformation of customer identity and identification with brand communities leads to positive outcomes. While the idea of brand community has existed for almost two decades, its role in strategic brand management is not explored. With the ideas rooted in a cognitive culture and social identity, the differential effect of brand culture—the collective memory of a brand community—can be conceptualized as community-based brand equity (CommBBE). By advancing Keller’s customer-based brand equity (CBBE) model, this paper rejuvenates the idea of the memory-based differential effect of a brand. Conceptualizing CommBBE may guide practitioners in managing brand equity in a digitally connected world. It may trigger a series of studies to provide more refined measures and directions for brand building.