EPISODE 23
From Target to Community
From segmentation to belonging: the changing role of brands
The value of collectivity is returning to our attention after years of individualism. The need to feel part of something is, perhaps, one of the deepest responses to the loneliness that contemporary society has exposed us to.
Many of the social reference points of the past have weakened or disappeared. In their place, brands are increasingly being asked to create new forms of belonging: communities of people brought together not simply by consumption, but by shared desires, values, and worldviews.
This represents a radical departure from the traditional logic of “target” segmentation, which reduced people to targets to be identified and reached. For years, we have classified individuals according to age, income, education, gender. But these categories explain less and less about who we are — and even less about what we believe in, what we desire, and what we choose to belong to.
Increasingly, new communities are formed around shared values, worldviews, and ethical sensibilities. Bringing people together on these foundations gives brands a potentially much more social role: not simply to sell or communicate, but to help create meaningful connections.
It is a transition that opens up a positive perspective, but it also brings a new responsibility. Because a community cannot simply be declared, nor can it be engineered like another market segment. Belonging cannot be bought or communicated. It has to be earned.
“Community” is now an overused word, and yet its potential remains largely unexplored. For brands, this means moving beyond communication and asking how they can create authentic, meaningful connections. Above all, it means listening.
By listening deeply to people, their needs, and their affinities, brands can uncover new services, new products, new languages, and even new places for people to meet, both physical and digital.
In this sense, building a community does not mean aggregating consumers around a brand. It means creating the conditions for people to recognize themselves in something they genuinely feel is their own.
And perhaps this is where a more plural future begins to take shape: a future in which the feeling of belonging can become a resource for navigating difficulty, fostering new forms of collaboration, and opening more authentic conversations. Starting not from what separates us, but from our shared affinities.
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23
EPISODE
From Target to Community
From segmentation to belonging: the changing role of brands
The value of collectivity is returning to our attention after years of individualism. The need to feel part of something is, perhaps, one of the deepest responses to the loneliness that contemporary society has exposed us to.
Many of the social reference points of the past have weakened or disappeared. In their place, brands are increasingly being asked to create new forms of belonging: communities of people brought together not simply by consumption, but by shared desires, values, and worldviews.
This represents a radical departure from the traditional logic of “target” segmentation, which reduced people to targets to be identified and reached. For years, we have classified individuals according to age, income, education, gender. But these categories explain less and less about who we are — and even less about what we believe in, what we desire, and what we choose to belong to.
Increasingly, new communities are formed around shared values, worldviews, and ethical sensibilities. Bringing people together on these foundations gives brands a potentially much more social role: not simply to sell or communicate, but to help create meaningful connections.
It is a transition that opens up a positive perspective, but it also brings a new responsibility. Because a community cannot simply be declared, nor can it be engineered like another market segment. Belonging cannot be bought or communicated. It has to be earned.
“Community” is now an overused word, and yet its potential remains largely unexplored. For brands, this means moving beyond communication and asking how they can create authentic, meaningful connections. Above all, it means listening.
By listening deeply to people, their needs, and their affinities, brands can uncover new services, new products, new languages, and even new places for people to meet, both physical and digital.
In this sense, building a community does not mean aggregating consumers around a brand. It means creating the conditions for people to recognize themselves in something they genuinely feel is their own.
And perhaps this is where a more plural future begins to take shape: a future in which the feeling of belonging can become a resource for navigating difficulty, fostering new forms of collaboration, and opening more authentic conversations. Starting not from what separates us, but from our shared affinities.