Brand community research has gained prominence over the past decade due to the increasing complexities of modern business and the goal of remaining profitable. As a result, "more and more companies are attempting to build deep, meaningful, long-term relationships with their customers" (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003, p. 76). In an effort to foster such relationships, researchers have proposed a communal approach to consumption (Cova and Pace 2006). A classic example of this community-based consumption is the subculture formed by Harley-Davidson devotees (Schouten and McAlexander 1995). Schouten and McAlexander (1995) were drawn to the thought that a single product (i.e., the Harley-Davidson motorcycle) defined a distinctive, homogeneous, and enduring subculture. The behavior of consumers driven by similar passions to form a group has come to the forefront as an object of study with relevance for marketing researchers (Cova and Pace 2006). The study of brand communities has revealed (in the aggregate) that these specialized subcultures enable an organization to better communicate, establish, and foster rich consumer relationships. Moreover, such relationships have been found to significantly and positively affect consumer behavior (e.g., Carlson, Suter, and Brown 2008;Homburg, Wieseke, and Hoyer 2009).From a sociological perspective, considerable progress has been made in examining both the existence and characteristics of brand communities (Luedicke 2006;Moore and Mazvancheryl 1996;Muniz and O'Guinn 2001;Schouten and McAlexander 1995) and the psychological connections consumers develop with these communities (Algesheimer, Dholakia, and Herrmann 2005;Carlson, Suter, and Brown 2008;McAlexander, Schouten, and Koenig 2002). Currently, however, the relationship between the brand community and the consumer has been examined as if it existed in a vacuum, unaffected by the identity process a consumer has with other communities. Little attention has been paid to the way in which consumers identify with other communities or how this process influences the way they identify with the focal brand community. This comes as a bit of a surprise since identification with other communities (e.g., religion or nation) should be assumed to influence brand perceptions and subsequently the decisional processes required to become part of a brand community.The purpose of this study was to measure consumer identification with several (brand) communities using a multidimensional psychometric community identity instrument grounded in social identity theory. Use of such instrumentation allowed the authors to examine how consumer identification with associated communities affected identification with the brand community. Data were collected on four different community identities (college football team, university, city, state) among students at the three major Florida universities. Results indicated that identification with the respective teams was affected by identification with other communities surrounding the team. This interplay among communit...
