This paper explores the processes contributing to the genesis of a brand community. This ethnographic study focuses on the Beamish brand community. The Beamish beer product is a niche brand only available consistently in the locality of Cork city, Ireland. Evidence from this study shows that a collective conversion experience is foundational to the emergence of this brand community. Following this initial conversion experience, the brand community attempts to maintain the transcendent experience through practices of sacralisation maintenance. Sacralisation is maintained through the playful rituals and virtual play the community members enact. The mutual willingness of the converted to participate in these various forms of playful rituals has been a key role in the reification of the Beamish brand community. Finally, suggestions are made as to how brand management should best approach the initial attempts at brand-community formation.Brendan Richardson is a lecturer in marketing and consumer behaviour in the Department of Management and Marketing, UCC, Cork, Ireland. His research interests are primarily in collective forms of consumer behaviour such as football fandom and brand communities, but he is also interested in the motivation to participate in blogging and high-risk consumer activities such as kayaking and surfing. Related areas of interest include sacred consumption, consumer resistance, subcultures of consumption, and the further development of ethnography as a research methodology.T +35321490294

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Purpose This paper aims to highlight the role of consumption communities as a self-help support group to ameliorate loneliness. The authors suggest that the self-help element of consumption communities has been overlooked because of a focus on communities pursuing hegemonic masculinity. Instead, the authors focus on a female-led and – dominated consumption community. Design/methodology/approach A longitudinal ethnography was undertaken with the aim of understanding consumer behaviour in a “hyper-feminine” environment. Participant observation, depth interviews and netnography were carried out over five years within the Knitting community, focussing on an Irish Stitch ‘n’ Bitch group. Findings A dimension of consumption communities has been overlooked in the extant literature; this female-led and -dominated community functions as a self-help support group used as a “treatment” for loneliness. It also demonstrates all the characteristics of a support group. Research limitations/implications This study offers a framework with which new studies of community consumption can be examined or existing studies can be re-examined, through rather than cases of loneliness and self-help support groups. Practical implications Marketers have an opportunity to build supportive consumption communities that provide a safe space for support where commerce and brand-building can also occur. Groups aimed at ameliorating loneliness may wish to consider integration of the consumption community model. Originality/value Calls have been made for a reconceptualisation of consumption communities as current typologies seem inadequate. This paper responds with a critical examination through the lens of the self-help support group, while also taking steps towards resolving the gender imbalance in the consumption community literature. The paper explores loneliness, a previously underexamined motivator for consumption community membership.

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