Brand Valued: How socially valued brands hold the key to a sustainable future and business success

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Some may say we’ve taken our time to get to a more detailed investigation of what social capital is, and how it affects all of us every day. We’d counter that on the grounds that social capital is such an integral part of our lives, we have, in fact, been referring to it – or rather its benefits and costs – from the word go. In the context of brands, it is – we believe – impossible not to talk about social capital when discussing communications.

That said, in this part we’ve attempted to stop and stare directly at social capital, in an attempt to understand its anatomy and physiology. We’ve explored the forms of social capital (bonding, bridging and linking) and we’ve explored the strands or elements that make up those forms (the structural, cognitive and relational).

In an attempt to start to shape components of what we call a Social Capital Strategy, we’ve also extended the work of prominent academics to create what we feel is a process model, from which brands can start to understand the steps required to build social capital around themselves.

Despite its popularity amongst policymakers, political scientists and sociologists, it seems a clear definition of social capital is still proving elusive (maybe the social capital amongst those groups is not as high as it should be?). With this in mind, and considering the importance of establishing a definition that is tailored for the purpose of brands, we have proposed the following:

‘The quality, depth, breadth ...