Brand mystique can be uncovered and used as a source of inspiration for
marketing campaigns aimed at the mainstream users of the brand. Brand meaning
attached to existing products can be applied to the marketing of new products.
User experiences and ‘grass-roots R&D’ are shared in brand communities and can
be applied to the intended marketing of the brand.
Box 9.6 Insights from the Volkswagen ‘Beetle’ community
In 1998 Volkswagen re-launched the legendary ‘Beetle’. The original
Beetle was launched in 1934. The idea was to produce a car for the people,
which at the time was a revolutionary concept. Hugely popular over many
generations, the inexpensive VW Beetle surpassed all production records,
with more than 20 million cars leaving the VW assembly lines.
In a marketing study on ‘retro-branding’, researchers Brown et al. dived
into the brand meaning shared on Beetle-related community websites. By
means of a netnographic method, they gained insight into the negotiation
and exchange of brand meaning among community members. Adopting a
holistic perspective on the community-based brand–consumer exchange,
valuable information regarding the delicate matter of re-launching a cult
brand was retrieved. Examples are: Beetle fans seem divided on the issue of
the technology of the new car. They tend to celebrate an innocent approach
to the ‘hippie’ era of the 1960s and 1970s, with which the Beetle is very
much associated. The Beetle is closely linked with family heritage and
childhood memories in many cases. Memorable advertising campaigns
from the 1960s are still fondly associated with the Beetle.
Sourceswww.volkswagen.com; Brown et al. (2003)198 Seven brand approaches
Newmarketing
ideasBrandmeaningInnovativeideasFigure 9.8The marketer as observer of a brand community