The market community as target group – this does not sound revolutionary, but it is, because it more or less turns traditional marketing thinking upside down, specifically in its core.

It was part of the basic multiplication table of marketing for decades, to query the consumer what kind of products he or she would like from industry, retail and service providers. Aren’t there legions of market researchers out there daily in order to find an answer to that question? Do we not find out from futurologists what tomorrow’s markets will look like? And if Steve Jobs wasn’t Steve Jobs, his thesis that one has to tell the people what they want instead of asking them, would most likely not have been taken notice of.

In order to be able to ask what should be produced or offered, they developed target group models in the run up. First came the socio-demographic models, where age, income, education and class and countless other criteria were formed, for instance the single female over sixty with a college degree, cat lover, of nobility, who was asked which kind of cat gourmet menu she would like to serve her beloved feline roommate on Sundays and how much she was willing to spend on it. On the generated results they based recipies, packaging, pricing concepts, distribution and communications strategies.

After the significance of the socio-demographic characteristics decreased in regard to their classification in target groups, the milieu interpreters recommended themselves. They started concentrating on, for instance, the “established”, the “modern performers”, the “conservatives”, the “tradition-conscious” and “hedonists”. Of both sexes, of course. There was talk of a need for security and orderliness for a war generation living in a petty-bourgeois world with a traditional blue collar culture. And there were also geographical and mobile open milieus or such milieus living in the here and now.

If you want to believe the case studies, then it works to a large extent. At the latest since we have experienced that each individual wants to be understood as a society in itself, in other words that the individual has become a target group, this is no longer functioning. Now products and brands have to create their lives and successes from within themselves. It is our task to create open communities for the thus developing product and brand personalities.

These are products and brands that openly approach the consumer, without paying attention to his or her rank or status. Where would a brand such as Louis Vuitton be, if it only produced for the wealthy? Where would Porsche be, if the target group only consisted of physically active gentlemen with graying hair? And where would Lindt be, if the brand only stood for those who experience the highest possible level of enjoyment when eating small and very delicate chocolate platelets?

Brand communities are multifaceted, as versatile as our society that consists of many individuals, where everyone for themselves lives his or her “world” for themselves. To create such a community and to keep it together is only possible through the power that is inherent to the personality of the brand and that stands for the product. Brand communities are the total image of the whole society. At McDonald’s you will find adults with big or small wallets just as much as children celebrating their birthdays.

Target groups of the old kind were appealed to, market communities are communicated with. The trick is to inspire the senses through communication, to explore new grounds. The opportunities for this are almost unlimited nowadays. Just remember that the most big inventions and successes of the economy were made after a few individuals summoned up the will to penetrate into new worlds. Large and small alike. The surprise eggs by Ferrero are example of this just as much as the invention of the telephone, the railroad or the automobile, which have led communication and locomotion into a totally new dimension.

„The product is the hero“, this old marketing formula from the States says it in a different way, but means the same thing.

We say time and again that we have to do the impossible, because the possible has long been done before by others. Meaning: We move the world and along with it the economy only through inventions and new ideas. And the market communities resulting from it give it wings.

The people who are committed to a brand community are the most valuable capital of a business. This is also very important for today and tomorrow. They are creating a protective bastion around the products and brands and as such protect it against every kind of manipulation, but also against the power of retail. The latter is especially important, because products and brands that are exposed to other imposing powers are easily jeopardized. There is hardly a watch brand like Rolex that’s been able to maintain its unique position thanks to a strong brand community comprised of, among others, a sheik from the Emirates as well as housewives needing a robust watch for their work. And anyone allowed to deal with Rolex watches feels privileged.

Anyone wanting to strengthen brands has to create brand communities and devise an active community life. Those are marketing tasks of the 21st century and they are set apart from those of the past.