Enthused by their successful YouTube promos and Tweets, top brands like LG, Samsung, Adidas and Canon are now keen to create consumer communities online. In fact, marketers believe that online communities besides building ‘brand salience’ can well emerge as a powerful platform to cross-sell products. They clearly acknowledge the increasing prominence of the Internet as a medium to successfully reach out to a wider base of consumers.

Throwing light on this Br@nd-new game, a recent news report by Writankar Mukherjee of The ET Bureau reveals how different corporate entities are nurturing online communities. LG, for instance, envisages one ‘to receive feedback from consumers and talk to them directly, thereby increasing their bonding with the brand.’

Samsung Mobile and Canon, among the earliest to have rolled out such communities in India, have reaped rich rewards. Canon Edge community 80,000 members. Many of their community members like serious photography, which translates into almost 100% growth in the company’s digital SLR camera business. Buoyed by the response, Canon India will soon unveil an online photo gallery.

Other brands like Tata Teleservices, Sony PlayStation, Samsung Mobile, Philips, Adidas and Canon are leveraging the reach and power of the medium to connect with consumers.
Tata Teleservices is employing online communities for tracking consumer behavior for its major brands, namely Tata Indicom, Tata Docomo and Photon. Its telco division’s CMO, Lloyd Mathias, has been quoted as saying, “In a category such as telecom, tariffs are changing everyday, and it helps us to hear the consumers’ inherent voice.”

Echoing his vies, LG Electronics (India) chief marketing officer L K Gupta quips
that the Internet is fast emerging as a potential media for interacting with consumers – prospective and existing – than merely informing them. For this purpose, online consumer communities offer a perfect platform.