ABSTRACT
We are going through the imagined community renaissance, thanks to modern brands stepping in as the social constructs of belonging left vacant by traditional institutions of social cohesion, like organized religion, civil society institutions, and mass media. Consumer collectives are the new audience unit. In this chapter, the author suggests that, instead of focusing on individuals, brand professionals should look at the communities these individuals belong to. Equally problematic is personas’ focus on the individual, because it ignores the fact that people are social creatures. They belong to communities and are part of influence networks that they use to decide what to watch, read, buy, and pay attention to. Brands have yet to adjust their brand strategy to the fact that people are not only individuals, but that they also belong to communities and are members of a society. A good starting point is the idea of “imagined communities” coined by a political scientist Benedict Anderson.
