Comunidades de marca. El consumo como relación social

Abstract

This paper presents a review of the current discussion on «brand communities», i.e., specialized, non geographically bound communities, based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand. It also explores some consequences of this explicitly commercial social solidarity, such as new forms of consumer empowerment and new ways of shaping objects meanings. Finally, it proposes a relational framework in which objects, brands, social groups and corporations play a differentiated but connected role in consumption experience.