Empowerment within brand communities: Overcoming the Achilles' Heel of scale-free networks

This study explored how consumer interactions evolve within an emerging brand community. Since newly formed brand communities are marked by the presence of scale-free networks, an ethnographic study among individuals in their second year of tailgating at American football games was conducted to examine whether group leaders were able to empower their followers and alleviate the Achilles' Heel of scale-free networks. The authors investigated whether member empowerment led to a more balanced network of consumers, whereby individual group members increased their involvement and loyalty towards the group itself and the larger brand. Social network theory was used to examine the changes in relationships among individual consumers within the brand community, specifically focusing on the construct of centrality. Marketing implications associated with the changes and developments of these evolving brand communities are discussed. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand.