Community marketing resources.
Insights, playbooks and field notes from inside the world of community marketing and brand activations for next-gen brands.
The 2026 Community Marketing Report
The state of community-led brand building in 2026: data, playbooks and benchmarks from the brands and crews redefining marketing.
Run club sponsorship: six examples, and what each brand actually bought
Six named brands that sponsored a run club, sorted by what each one asked for: product trial, an event, content or affiliation. What each deal bought, what it cost, the three things that go wrong, and how the same shape works for a supper club or a book club.
The four formats of community sponsorship: product, events, content, affiliation
Community sponsorship is the community marketing mechanic for backing communities you do not own. The four things you can ask for, product, events, content and affiliation, and the currency each one costs.
What a community marketing budget actually looks like, line by line
No rate card, no invoice you can copy. Here is what a community marketing budget is actually made of, what drives each number, and the five costs that never make the first draft.
How to differentiate your brand in a saturated paid social market, and where to move the budget
Paid social doesn't just cost more each year, it makes every brand look the same. Here's why saturation is a differentiation problem, not just an efficiency one, and a practical playbook for reallocating budget toward community marketing.
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Community Marketing vs. Influencer Marketing : an alternative for consumer brands
Budgets keep climbing while trust keeps falling. Here's why community marketing has become the influencer marketing alternative brands reach for, and how to start.
Why the venue you choose is a strategic advantage, not just a backdrop.
Physical venues don't gather their crowds by accident. For brands, choosing where to host an event is no longer just aesthetics or logistics: it's a chance to access a community.
Why digital ads ROI is declining, and where french consumer brands are actually finding new customers
Paid discovery keeps shrinking while word-of-mouth keeps climbing. Here's what the latest consumer research says about where French brands are actually being found.
The World Cup is starting. Most brands still don't know where to find fans.
A new Brand Innovators report shows how AB InBev, Lay's, The Home Depot, and IKEA are all betting on fan communities for this World Cup.
The Shift: why brand building is moving to communities
Reach is broken, trust lives in small rooms. How consumer brands are rebuilding growth around the communities their customers already belong to.
The New Social: mapping the communities people show up for
Run clubs, supper clubs, padel leagues, book circles. A field guide to the new social fabric and the crews shaping consumer culture.
Why community is the new marketing channel?
Paid media is broken. Here's why the brands winning the next decade are investing in real-world communities, and how to measure it.
How to find the right community for your brand.
A practical framework for matching brand values to community DNA, and avoiding the trap of vanity reach.
Measuring what matters in community marketing.
Reach is a vanity metric. Here's the framework we use at ernest to prove community ROI to your CFO.