Materiality of Online Brand Community
The bourgeoning interest in brand communities (O'Guinn and Muniz 2009; Piller et al. 2005; Schau et al. 2009; Thomas et al. 2011; Veloutsou and Moutinho 2009) has been given a new impetus with the emergence of OBCs (Bagozzi and Dholakia 2002; Ganley and Lampe 2009; Morandin et al. 2013) These technology supported social spaces (Bagozzi and Dholakia 2002) facilitate aggregation of brand consumers allowing them to engage in relationships with each other (Wiertz 2005; Ouwersloot et al. 2005) As "enduring, self selected groups of consumers, who accept and recognize bonds of membership with each other and the brand" (Veloutsou and Moutinho 2009, p. 316) OBCs provide opportunities for collective brand co production and consumption offering new ways to exchange information, practices, and experiences (O'Guinn and Muniz 2009; Wiertz 2013) Given the widespread consumer engagement in OBC, as evidenced by the proliferation and membership of such communities, and the growing recognition of the social aspect of brands in academic literature, the understanding of OBC is at the forefront of consumer research agenda (Mathwick et al. 2008; Trusov et al. 2009)