HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategic Marketing (with featured article "Marketing Myopia," by Theodore Levitt)

Getting Brand Communities Right

by Susan Fournier and Lara Lee

IN 1983, HARLEY-DAVIDSON FACED extinction. Twenty-five years later, the company boasted a top-50 global brand valued at $7.8 billion. Central to the company’s turnaround, and to its subsequent success, was Harley’s commitment to building a brand community: a group of ardent consumers organized around the lifestyle, activities, and ethos of the brand.

Inspired by Harley’s results and enabled by Web 2.0 technologies, marketers in industries from packaged goods to industrial equipment are busy trying to build communities around their own brands. Their timing is right. In today’s turbulent world, people are hungry for a sense of connection; and in lean economic times, every company needs ...