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The Belong Effect Reports | Frontcover
The Belong Effect Reports
Mar 26, 2024
Summary
Collaboratively conducted by Sid Lee, a creative community and the Angus Reid Group, The Belong Effect Reports serves as valuable resources for brands seeking to understand and harness the untapped power of community participation.
The Approach
By surveying 8,000 Gen Zs and millennials in Europe and North America, the report intends to underscore the opportunity for brands to play a powerful role in creating a sense of belonging and it emphasises the need for authentic and meaningful participation in communities.
Highlighting the substantial impact of brand participation in member-owned communities, the report followed a funnel-down approach in three phases:
Looked into academic journals to determine the meaning of community, and identified four characteristics of a strong community Identity, Social Capital, Oneness and Mobilisation
Identified that communities are generally organised around one of three driving factors: People, Place and Interest.
Delved deeper to discover which forces drive community formation.
Identifying the Types of Communities
The report breaks down communities into 5 types, defined as:
Family-based
Work-based
Interest-based
Value-based
Lifestyle-based
Comparisons
updated: Jun 12, 2024
Value-based communities emerge as the strongest among the five community types, with members deeply engaging and deriving multiple emotional benefits.
In contrast, Interest-based communities, while popular for brands due to their association with entertainment and instant gratification, face challenges such as crowded landscapes and shallow connections.
Members of interest-based communities are less likely to derive their identity, have a voice, unity or collaborative spirit from these communities.
Opportunities
For brands, there lies a significant opportunity in aligning particularly with those centred around values and family-based communities. While family-based communities hold importance because they are foundational, they are often perceived as more passive.
Active engagement within communities presents brands with a competitive advantage, leading to enhanced engagement, awareness, brand value and revenue compared to their counterparts.
This strategic involvement becomes crucial as data shows that more Gen Z and millennials are deriving emotional satisfaction from values-based communities.
Community Participant Insights
The Gen Z and Young Millennial survey provided a number of insights. See many of the key findings and learnings below:
85% of participants said that their community defines them as a person.
82% rely on social media to connect with communities
80% of participants said that brands that participate in their community reflect their identity;
76% feel like they have a voice and social capital within their community;
94% say communities feed their emotions with entertainment, inspiration and joy as the top emotional benefits;
49% Almost half of Gen Z and millennials say they are a member of a sports community.
Looking at community involvement over time, community involvement is dynamic and fluid, driven by emotional attachment and individual experiences that vary across dimensions, which makes each experience unique in terms of who, what, where, when and how.
Participant Engagement
49% boost in community member participation in brand initiatives when conducted in member-owned communities compared to brand-owned communities.
We found that people in member-owned communities are 110% more likely to work together compared to brand-owned communities.
79% of adults aged 18-24 report feeling lonely compared to 41% of seniors aged 66 and older
The Opportunities (for Brands)
Brands have an opportunity to capitalise on community engagement, fostering a sense of belonging and leveraging the power of community to achieve better return on investment for marketing spend.
See below the key survey results and findings:
Only Two in five communities have a brand that is linked to it.”
Only 36% of values-based communities have brands linked to the community;
Only 30% said brands participating in their community acted like any other member.
84% would participate in an initiative launched by a brand connected to their community.
77% Say that brands linked to their communities reflect their identity.
People who self-identify with their communities are also likely to self-identify with the brands associated with them ; 39% say “yes – very much”. 85% say their community is aligned with a brand.
Despite the fact that 9 out of 10 community members would purchase from brands that participate and foster belonging in their community. Penetration is low, and brands have a lot of room in which to manoeuvre.
79% would participate in an initiative launched by a brand affiliated to a community: 90% of whom would try to get others to join the initiatives, both members from their community and people from outside the community;
Despite preferring to root together online, Gen Z and younger millennials are willing to spend money to participate in person, with these cohorts having a higher percentage of season ticket holders than older millennials.
Some Other Key Takeaways for Brands
A user in the network, or an individual of the community, can be a brand. Brands should participate as 'individual' members to create authentic advocacy.
It is critical to note that your community engagement can only positively impact your brand if you participate in an authentic way, as an individual would.
Your brand can empower communities by providing them with tailored content, products, services and actions that will help you gain traction and fuel the flywheel of engagement and participation.
Kick-Off Questions for Brands
The 2022 report identified some kick-off questions you can ask to help build your brand playbook.
How are you demonstrating tangible, measurable support — not just words — for communities of interest?
How are you inspiring and building the self-esteem of members through your participation in their community?
How does your brand foster loyalty and elicit emotions from community members?
How are you fostering genuine connections and strengthening bonds between members?
How are you enabling the sense of power and security that comes from a valuable and tight community?
How do you make sure you’re promoting and amplifying the real voices of the community, rather than telling them who they are?
Do you mirror and share the same goals as the community?
How are you helping the community move towards its objectives?
Are you creating initiatives or activations that speak to the actual collective goals and desires of the community?
How might your brand contribute to elevating individual voices? Where can you build new connections? What does the community need to become more cohesive?
Are there existing or emerging channels, both online and offline?
