LAUSR

Abstract The article offers a Peircean “glimpse” of the normativity of the brand community. The theoretical framework will primarily be Peirceʼs semiotics, while also adding a few insights from his thoughts on (ethical) normativity and the formal conditions of community. Firstly, I will describe the brand community as a semiotic entity based on three inter-related conditions involving “inner” and “outer” processes of branding where “inner process” is where we find the most explicit dynamics of the brand community related to a “common consent of meaning” and a “sense of community.” Secondly, I will try to describe how values and ideals can be understood within the brand community, including how the values and ideals (semiotically) transfer normative meanings by bringing together brands with consumers and thereby affect their feelings, acts, and thoughts so that they can become members within a brand community.