Brand Community
A brand isn't loved because of the product. It's loved because of the people around it.
Grounded in the research on Brand community (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_community)
What it actually is
A brand community is a group of people bonded not just to a product but to each other through that product. Coined by Albert Muniz and Thomas O'Guinn in their 2001 Journal of Consumer Research paper. Their definition: a specialized, non-geographically-bound community based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand. Think Harley riders, Apple, Jeep, Lego. The brand is the excuse. The bond is the point.
The three markers
Muniz and O'Guinn found every real brand community shares three traits, lifted from classic sociology. One: shared consciousness of kind, an intrinsic 'we' feeling that you and another owner are alike and outsiders aren't. Two: rituals and traditions, the shared stories and ways of celebrating the brand (the Jeep wave, unboxing). Three: a sense of moral responsibility, members feel a duty to help each other and keep the community alive. Hit all three and you have a community, not a customer list.