Companies Fueling Brand-Name ‘Mania’

“You like it too? We seem to have the same taste!”

“We feel connected with the fact that we like ‘minis,’ even though what we do is different. We could say that we value our color and enjoy the spotlight turned on us.”

Noh Min-jeong (age 29), a researcher at an electronics company, is a huge fan of mini BMWs. It does not boast of excellent practicality, as the handling is hard to control and driving comfort somewhat poor, but Noh still loves them.

Noh runs a cyber cafe community “Mini Coupe Korea” at Daum, an Internet portal site. Among the 3,000 members, 10 percent are mini owners, and the others are “potential owners.”

The regular club meetings at Mini Coupe Korea are somewhat unusual. Some 20 to 30 members drive their minis in a row on the road, catching the eyes of other people. The club is planning a “Club Day” where the members plan to drive along the coast of Jeju Island in June.

Brand maniacs believe that “the brand preference of a person tells what kind of person he/she is.” Even though “Nike” and “Adidas” are both sports brands, the preference differs in reason.

Kim Ki-seok (age 26) manages the cyber cafe “Nike Mania” at Daum. He said, “Those who like Adidas tend to put more weight on fashion, while Nike maniacs consider functionality more.”

Senior researcher Choi Sun-hwa at the Samsung Economic Research Institute said, “Brand maniacs think that brands represent their lifestyle. There are many manias for products which can be exposed to others, such as cell phones and clothes.”

“We just cannot just look over the mistakes of our “loved ones”-

If one finds fault in others when just having a favorable impression, he or she can just leave the other.

However, if one truly loves the other and has a great affection for the loving one, he or she will try anything to mend the faults because leaving the other is just simply not an easy thing to do.

These brand maniacs willingly make bitter comments to companies and are active in becoming “prosumers” (consumers participating in the production process).

The British baby carriage maker Maclaren changed its original two-fold sunscreen design, which the company had kept for over 40 years since it was established in 1965, to a three-fold design in March.

The Korean Maclaren club (14,000 members) requested an improvement, saying “The two-fold design may be good enough for the British who welcome the sunshine, but it is not good enough to shield the sunshine in Korea.” As a result, the company made a new three-fold design which sufficiently shades the sunshine, and distributed it all over the world.

Mini maniacs met with a BMW Korea executive in charge of service center at the beginning of this year and confirmed that service improvements would be made, such as improving travel services to regional areas and placing skilled engineers in dealers at all times.

“Please become our fan”-

Not every brand has fans. The fan clubs of those companies which have low recognition are not active. This is why companies set out to make their own communities and take great efforts to change “ordinary customers” into maniacs

Agabang, a company selling baby products, opened a club for its baby clothes brand “Oz” last month at Cyworld, an Internet community service. The company made the club itself since there were no spontaneous fan clubs due to its low recognition.

Procter and Gamble created a “Head & Shoulders maniac club” after a small group of maniacs formed a club online for the dandruff shampoo.

Park Jeong-hyeon, a researcher at LG Economic Research Institute, said, “Manias for a specific brand become even more fanatic through online exchanges. They are precious assets to a company, for they play a triple role as an early adapter, publicist and prosumer.”

kimhs@donga.com