The moral responsibility to provide assistance not only manifests itself in helping fix problems, it is also apparent in the sharing of information on brand‐related resources. These resources contain preventative materials, devices to enhance the performance of the product or brand promotional materials such as images or information. For example, in the Macintosh brand community, Mac users share information concerning where to buy Mac computers or software or where to have them serviced. These are important considerations as fewer and fewer computer retailers are supporting Macintosh. These pages also contain user‐generated promotional materials extolling the virtues of the brand and are well received by visitors: “Great page Brian!!!!! I’m new to the Mac, your page was of great help, and got me started on this new adventure. THANKS A LOT , and KEEP IT UP!!!”
In the Saab and Bronco brand communities, some of the assistance community members provide to one another includes information on recommended dealerships and parts suppliers, as well as sources for technical information. In some ways, the information provided by brand communities is more useful to consumers than information provided by marketers due to the lack of commercial self‐interest. This again represents a blurring of the marketer‐consumer role boundary.
Assisting in the use of the brand is one of the places where computer‐mediated communication offers a great deal of information. These pages are typically replete with technical descriptions of the brand and related products, advice on solving problems and troubleshooting, and lists and links of service centers and suppliers for the brand. For example, Bronco pages include information on suppliers of discontinued parts and Saab pages include lists of dealers and places to get parts. This information in turn enables consumers to solve problems and have a better consumption experience, and demonstrates commitment to a collective.
We only occasionally see situations where brand community membership extends benefits similar to those typical of a traditional face‐to‐face setting. It is somewhat rare (but not unheard of) for a member of a brand community to do something for another member such as watch their kids while they go to the store, or help them with a task in the yard, just because they are both members of the same brand community. In the Saab brand community we actually observed a fair amount of a wider construction of moral responsibility. We see hints of it with Mac and Bronco, but in more modest degrees. We do, however, believe that brand community membership does raise the probability of helping with such tasks because felt likeness of kind is not so easily, cleanly, and totally parsed in human relationships. How much such probabilities of wider responsibility are raised is a subject for further examination.
Brand communities are generally communities of limited liability (Jannowitz 1952). Much like an urban neighborhood, members’ participation is voluntary and can be withdrawn at any time. But it rarely is, as opposed to the ephemeral neo‐tribes proposed by Maffesoli (1996). And, it is true that the community sense of moral responsibility is bounded, but this does not obviate its importance or legitimacy. The type of support provided is entirely consistent with findings in urban sociology. The assistance provided between individuals sharing a communal bond is often specialized according to the primary nature of the relationship (Wellman 1990; Wellman and Wortley 1990). Thus brand communities exhibit moral responsibility, but a limited and specialized one