Empowerment within brand communities: Overcoming the Achilles’ Heel of scale-free networks

• In newly formed brand communities, group leaders play an important role facilitating the empowerment of other group members.
• Empowering consumers can help alleviate the Achilles’ Heel of scale-free networks.
• The evolution of a newly formed, leader-centred community of consumers into a sustainable long-term brand community is marked by the increased empowerment of followers.

This study explored how consumer interactions evolve within an emerging brand community. Since newly formed brand communities are marked by the presence of scale-free networks, an ethnographic study among individuals in their second year of tailgating at American football games was conducted to examine whether group leaders were able to empower their followers and alleviate the Achilles’ Heel of scale-free networks. The authors investigated whether member empowerment led to a more balanced network of consumers, whereby individual group members increased their involvement and loyalty towards the group itself and the larger brand. Social network theory was used to examine the changes in relationships among individual consumers within the brand community, specifically focusing on the construct of centrality. Marketing implications associated with the changes and developments of these evolving brand communities are discussed.