ABSTRACT

The phenomenon of brand communities has been well documented by researchers during the last two decades; however, little attention has been paid to the phase during which brand communities first emerge. Facilitating this emergence is particularly crucial for businesses operating in countries or regions in which large segments of the consumer population live at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP). But how can a brand community be generated in a BoP context? And how can organisations mobilise people living at the BoP to participate in creating and maintaining a brand community? To respond to these questions, we study the case of a Cameroonian music platform created in 2015 that was quickly able to mobilise Cameroonian music fans to spread its reputation by word of mouth and to produce content. Our case study shows that to create a brand community, startups should follow three precise steps.

摘要

在过去的二十年里，研究人员已经很好地记录了品牌社区的现象。然而，很少有人关注品牌社区首次出现的阶段。促进这种出现对于在大部分消费者生活在金字塔底部 (BoP) 的国家或地区运营的企业而言尤为重要。但是如何在 BoP 环境中生成品牌社区呢？组织如何动员生活在 BoP 的人们参与创建和维护品牌社区？为了回答这些问题，我们研究了 2015 年创建的喀麦隆音乐平台的案例，该平台能够迅速动员喀麦隆音乐迷通过口耳相传来传播其声誉并制作内容。我们的案例研究表明，要创建品牌社区，