Want to understand what drives brand communities and their behavior? Interested in discussing Netnography, a qualitative research methodology that adapts ethnographic research techniques to the study of culture and communities emerging through computer-mediated communications? See how you can gather and work with social media data using NCapture from within NVivo and then automatically code social media data quickly and easily in order to visualize the results.

1. Understanding Online Brand Communities:
The Role of NVivo 10 for Windows and NCapture
Dr. May Aung
Associate Professor
College of Business and Economics
University of Guelph, Canada
maung@uoguelph.ca

2. Agenda
• Academic Research on Brand Communities and Online Brand Communities
– Existing Research Studies
– Research Project in Progress
• Netnography Methodology
• The role of NVivo and NCapture
• Research Project: Understanding Smartphone Online Brand Communities

3. Academic Research:
Brand Communities and Online Brand Communities
The Brand Community Concept
Proposes three crucial elements; shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense
of moral responsibility relating to brand consumption behaviour (Muniz and O’Guinn 2001)
Customer-Centric Brand Community Model
Offers four relationships consumers may have with a brand community—product, brand,
organization, and other consumers—as an effective means to understand the key elements
of brand communities (McAlexander, Schouten and Koening 2002).
Brand Community Research Studies:
Algeshelmer, Dholakia & Herrmann (2005); Kozinets (2001); Holt (2002); Muniz & Schau
(2005): etc.

4. Academic Research:
Brand Communities and Online Brand Communities
Online Brand Community:
A community formed in cyberspace on the basis of attachment to commercial brands (Sung,
Kim, Kwon and Moon 2010, p. 432).
A group of individuals with common interests in a brand who communicate with each other
electronically in a platform provided by the company which supports the brand (Sicilia and
Palazon 2008. p. 257).
A specialized, non-geographically bound, online community, based on social
communications and relationships among a brand’s consumers. (De Valck et al., 2009, p
185)
Online Brand Community Research Studies:
Sicilia and Palazon, (2008); Ewing, (2008); Seraj, (2012); etc.

5. Understanding brand community: Multiple realities of
Apple iPhone consumers
Dr. May Aung, Kejia Wu, Laila Rohani and Khalil Rohani,
University of Guelph
Understanding the SuperUser:
The heart and soul of consumer-generated online
brand community
Ashley van Herten and Dr. May Aung, University of
Guelph
Consumer Culture Theory Conference, Oxford UK (August 2012)
Marketing Theory and Practice Conference, Charleston, SC 2013 (www.amtp.org)
Extended Consumer-Brand Relationship Theory
Dr. May Aung (University of Guelph), Kapil Gurbani, Samuel (Hip Seng) Lei
(University of Guelph-Humber)

6. Research Project
Understanding Online Brand Communities
(Smartphone Consumers)

7. Understanding Online Brand Communities
Research Objectives:
To understand
• what online-brand community means to consumers of high-technology brands;
• how consumers of high-technology brands create and strengthen their
relationships with their brands (within the context of online-brand communities);
and
• if these themes indicate strong brand loyalty and future purchase intentions

8. Overview of Research Study
Current conceptual underpinning can be extended by incorporating within-brand and
beyond-brand sharing behaviour.
Belk (2007, 2009) proposed that the intent of ‘sharing-in’ (within-brand behaviour) is to
extend the group of people enjoying the shared benefits of the brand. Within the context
of online or offline brand community, ‘sharing-in’ could offer collaborative ownership of
the brand (David 2005).
In addition, the research study by Aung, Gubarni and Lei (2013) found the behaviour of
beyond-brand sharing that is ‘sharing-out’ behaviour between the consumers of
competing brands. In a simplistic manner, this study proposes that sharing and
relationship building behavior can occur not only in the within-brand environment (focus
on one brand) but also in the beyond-brand environment (encompassing competing
brands).

9. Potential Research Sites:
Online-brand communities (online forums relating to smartphone consumers)
 Apple iPhone online-brand communities (consumer forums at business
affiliated website www.apple.com and consumer-initiated website
www.everythingicafe.com)
 Blackberry smartphone online-brand communities (consumer forums at
business-affiliated website www.blackberry.com and consumer-initiated
website such as www.crackberry.com)
 Samsung Galaxy smartphone online-brand communities (consumer forums
at business-affiliated website www.samsung.com and consumer-initiated
website www.samsunggalaxys3forum.com).
Research Ethics

10. Research Project
Understanding Online Brand Communities
(Smartphone Consumers) :
Netnography Research Methodology and
Qualitative Data Analysis Software NVivo

11. Research Methodology for Social Media Communities: Netnography
• “Netnography, or ethnography on the Internet, is a new qualitative research
methodology that adapts ethnographic research techniques to the study of
culture and communities emerging through computer-mediated
communications.” (Kozinets 2002, p. 2)
• Ten criteria such as coherence, rigour, literacy and groundedness relevant to
evaluate the netnographic research (Kozinets 2010) were applied.
• Data analysis was conducted utilizing pattern matching approach and
hermeneutic interpretations (Kozinets 2010).

12. Social Media Research:
To gather and work with web pages and online PDFs using NCapture.
To import Tweets from Twitter, Facebook posts, YouTube videos and comments and
LinkedIn discussions using NCapture.
To work with pictures, database tables, spreadsheets, audio files, videos
To automatically code social media data quickly and easily visualize the results.
“NVivo is more than a simple qualitative data analysis program, it is a vital resource for
planning, team coordination, literature reviews, research design, data analysis and
reporting.” (Chris Atchinson, Simon Fraser University)
NVivo: Qualitative Data Analysis Software

15. Research Project
Application of NVivo and NCapture
Demo – Online Brand Community

20. Research Project
Application of NCapture
Demo - Data Collection

23. Research Project
Application of NVivo
Demo – Building Data Sets & Data Analysis

26. Data Analysis
Preliminary Data Analysis
Word Frequency Analysis: Word Tree, Tag cloud, (NVivo 10 Window)
Advanced Data Analysis
Emic and Etic Approach (Berg and Lune 2012)
Analytical Coding and Hermeneutic Interpretations (Kozinets 2010)

31. Data Analysis
Preliminary Data Analysis
Word Frequency Analysis: Word Tree, Tag cloud, (NVivo 10 Window)
Data Analysis
Emic and Etic Approach (Berg and Lune 2012)
Analytical Coding and Hermeneutic Interpretations (Kozinets 2010)

33. Results
Consumers from
Competing Brands
Consumers from
Competing Brands
Apple
iPhone
BB
Smartphone
Samsung
Smartphone
Community

34. Future Research
Competing Brands and their Community Members

35. References
Algesheimer, R., Dholakia, U., Herrmann, A., (2005), “The social influence of brand community: Evidence from European Car
Clubs”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 69, No. 3, 19-34.
Aung, M., Gurbani, K. and Lei, S. (2013), “Extended consumer-brand relationship theory”, Association of Marketing Theory and
Practice 2013, Retrieved March 4th, from http://www.amtp.org/ocs/index.php/amtp/AMTP2013/paper/view/387.
Belk, R. ( 2007), “Why not share rather than own?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 611
(May), 126-140.
Belk, R. (2009), “Sharing”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 36 (February), 715-734.
Berg, B.L. and Lune, H. (2012), Qualitative research methods for the social sciences, 8th edition, Pearson Education, Inc.
David, P.A. (2005), “From keeping ‘nature’s secrets’ to the institutionalization of ‘open science’”, in CODE: Collaborative
Ownership and the Digital Economy, ed. Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Canbridge, MA: MIT Press, 85-108.
De Valck, K., van Bruggen, G., Wierenga, B., (2009), “Virtual communities: A marketing perspective”, Decision Support Systems,
Vol. 47, No. 3, 185-203.
Ewing, T. (2008), “Forum – Participation cycles and emergent cultures in an online community”, International Journal of Market
Research, Vol. 50, No. 5, 575-590.
Holt, D. B. (2002), “Why do brands cause trouble? A dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding,” Journal of Consumer
Research, Vol. 29, No. 1, 70-90.
Kozinets, R. (2001), “Utopian enterprise: articulating the meaning of Star Trek’s culture of consumption”, Journal of Consumer
Research, Vol. 28, No. 1, 67-88.

36. References (continued)
Kozinets, R. V. (2002), “The field behind the screen: using Netnography for marketing research in online
communities”, Journal of Marketing Research, 61-72.
Kozinets, R. V. (2010), Netnography: Doing ethnographic research online. Sage Publications
McAlexander, J. H., Schouten, J. W., & Koenig, H. F. (2002), “Building brand community”, The Journal of
Marketing, 38-54.
Muniz Jr, A. M., & O’Guinn, T. C. (2001), “Brand community”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 27, No. 4,
412-432.
Muñiz Jr., A., & Schau, H., (2005), “Religiosity in the abandoned Apple Newton brand community”, Journal
of Consumer Research, Vol. 31, No. 4, 737-747.
Seraj, M. (2012), “We create, we connect, we respect, therefore we are: intellectual, social, and cultural
value in online communities”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 26, No. 4, 209-222.
Sicilia, M. and Palazon, M. (2008), “Brand communities on the internet, a case study of Coca-Cola’s
Spanish virtual community”, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 13, No. 3, 255-270.
Sung, Y., Kim,Y., Kwon, O., & Moon, J. (2010), “An exploratory study of Korean consumer participation in
virtual brand communities in social network sites”, Journal of Global Marketing, Vol. 23, 430-445.