The major purposes of this thesis are to investigate the firms' activities of on-line brand community in new product development process. Previous researches have focused only on the marketing side of on-line brand communities, such as relationship between brand communities and brand royalty. Recently, some researches have started to articulate that on-line communities could be the sources of innovation and the internet could accelerate new product development process. However, these researches have failed to show the detailed mechanism of on-line communities in new product development (NPD) process.
In this thesis, the utilization of on-line brand communities throughout NPD process and the relating factors (organizational, customer, product and information processing) were investigated. Research on Mp3 player and handheld set industries was carried out because many customers participate in on-line brand communities. Three firms in handheld set and four firms in mp3 player industry were selected and thirteen people in total were interviewed for the in-depth case study. All leading companies were included to represent the industries.
The first research question was how on-line brand communities are utilized throughout NPD process. On-line brand communities can be utilized in many ways during NPD process. At the first stage, on-line communities can help to build a strong insight into customer needs, characteristics and trends. At the second phase, they help to find out opinion leaders of target customers and provide an efficient method of communicating with them. At the third phase, an on-line brand community is an efficient and effective way of advertising your brand since customers consider true what other customers say. At the last phase, it is the most effective and efficient method of hearing customer's voice, the true good and bad sides of your product. By communicating with customers through on-line brand communities firms can discover underlying basic needs and fulfilling these will raise the customer satisfaction.
The second question was how the utilization of on-line communities affects external and internal communications required in NPD process. On-line brand communities are expected to influence three sides of communication activities essential in new product development process. These are firm-customer(external) communication, dept.-dept.(internal) communication and customer-customer(word of mouth) communication. In addition, organizational, product, customer and information processing factors can affect this communication process.
As brand communities get activated, the scope of external communication expands and firms are able to communicate in many areas through brand communities. And this is also affected by the amount of early adopters in the customer segment. If there are many early adopters, the scope of areas which firms can communicate through brand communities expand. As brand communities get activated internal communication is also stimulated. However, in large corporate this is unlikely to happen because the organization has many internal barriers inside. And activated on-line communities strengthen the word of mouth effect, both positive and negative. Negative word of mouth arises due to series of product flaws. Therefore, firms should pay a great attention to make high quality product.
The third question was how the utilization of on-line communities varies with its activity level. When on-line communities are inactive, firms utilize them only to monitor complaints. As on-line communities get more active, firms expand the scope of the utilization.
The last question was how to make brand communities alive. In this thesis, three factors are proposed. The very first is high quality product. The product should provide something particular such as design, performance, and not price advantages. Firms should attract many early adopters to the community as they are the most active ones. Last, the attention of top management is the most critical factor. Without this appropriate resources can not be allocated and the community will never see the light.
In spite of several limitations, this thesis offered a new perspective on on-line brand communities. This has shown that on-line brand communities can play a critical role not only in marketing area, but also in new product development process, as a source of innovation and method of communication. Firms in the internet era face risks and opportunities together. On-line brand community is surely a risk for those who are not prepared and an opportunity for those who see its advantages.
본 연구의 목적은 온라인 브랜드 커뮤니티가 NPD 과정에서 어떻게 활용되며 왜 성과에 영향을 주는지 알아보는 데 있다. 이를 위해 mp3 플레이어 및 휴대폰 단말기 산업의 7개 기업을 심층사례분석 하였다. 온라인 브랜드 커뮤니티는 고객의 니즈를 파악하고, 핵심고객과의 커뮤니케이션을 촉진하며, 구전효과를 통해 신제품을 확산시키고, 고객들의 불만/요구 사항을 파악하여 고객 만족도를 높이도록 한다. 그리고 온라인 커뮤니티가 성과에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 이유는 온라인 커뮤니티를 통해 기업과 고객간, 고객과 고객간, 부서와 부서간 커뮤니케이션을 촉진하기 때문이다. 또한 온라인 커뮤니티가 활성화될수록 활용 범위가 늘어나므로 이를 적극 활성화할 필요가 있다. 활성화를 위해서는 우선 제품의 품질수준이 높아야 하며, 고객 중 얼리 아답터가 많아야 하고, 경영진의 관심 및 지원 수준이 높아야 한다. 이와 같이 온라인 커뮤니티를 통해 NPD의 효율성을 높이고 신제품 성과를 높일 수 있다.
