Relationship marketing and brand involvement of professionals through web-enhanced brand communities: The case of Coloplast

More and more firms are recognizing the advantages of web-enhanced brand communities as a lever for relationship-marketing communication. Brand communities not only provide companies with an additional communication channel, but also allow the possibility of establishing linkages to devoted users. So far, brand community has only been discussed in relation to B2C marketing. However, the effect of using web-enhanced brand communities in a business-to-business (B2B) context may be even greater, inasmuch as professional users have a strong and long-standing interest in exchanging product-related information. Based on the Coloplast case study, this contribution outlines a conceptual model for linking web-enhanced brand community activities and relationship building in B2B markets.