COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT
(CM2010)
Chapter 1: Consumer Tribes and Communities
- Emerging tribal and symbolic consumption patterns and subcultures of consumption were
substantial driving forces of technological adoption, with subcultures adopting online
technology as a means to network, before a more widespread adoption and adaption in
mainstream culture
Towards tribal consumption
- Rise of the internet and the emergence and influence of social media as a particular evolution
of the widespread adaption of information technology
- With the appearance of facebook and similar social media platforms has sparked a revolution
in consumer behavior
- Social media did not change existing consumer behavior but it Brough it online and made it
more visible
The ‘Usefulness’ of social media
- aAny technology needs to achieve widespread
adoption to become significant
- Technology acceptance model: highlights the
importance of usefulness as a key component
- To achieve adoption on a large scale, technology
needs to be perceived as useful by the adoptees
- Perceived usefulness is the starting variable influencing direction the intention to use new
technology in well-establish TAM
- New technology must be considered useful by many consumers to be successful
- Question: why was social media considered so useful that it did spread rapidlty?
- Which underlying needs did social media fulfil?
- Which social trends and consumer behaviours were affected by the widespread
adoption of social media?
Consumption in context: From exchange to experience
- Marketers focused rather narrowly on the concept of exchange; eg. Exchange of money for
goods or services
- Traditional view: consumption is seen as a matter of pre-purchase activities, such as
identification of need, search for information, evaluation of alternatives, followed by an
exchange succeeded by a series of post-purchase activities
- Consumption is seen as an essentially utilitarian concept- enables both parties in the process
(consumers and producer) to achieve their means through exchange
- Since 1960s-70s: utilitarian view of consumption has been replaced by more interpretative
methodologies seeking to go beyond one dimensional approaches to market exchange and
consumption
, - Consumer behaviour research have broadened their focus to include non-utilitarian
attributes (experience, meaning of consumption process) to enable a broader view of
consumption
- Consumption is no longer seen as restricted towards the sequential processes involved
in purchasing a new product
Consumer culture theory
- Enquiry that help to frame the discussion of marketplace and consumer behaviour
- CCT: family of theoretical perspectives that address the dynamic relationships between
consumer actions, the marketplace and cultural meaning
- Focuses on the contextual aspects of consumption such as the symbolic nature of
consumed products and a services, and experiential aspects of consumption activity
- CCT challenges the traditional focus on studying marketplace behaviour merely at the
purchasing stage
- Arnould: experiential aspects of consumption have become an important aspect for
contemporary consumers
- Four stages of consumption
- Pre-consumption stage: searching for, planning and imagining the actual consumption
experience
- Purchasing stage: defi nite purchase experience involving choosing, paying and service
experience linked to the actual purchase
- Core consumption stage: actual sensation and experiences during the immediately after
the consumption of the product, including satisfaction and dissatisfaction
- Remembered consumption stage: nostalgic stage following the consumption
experiences, in which the experience is relived
- Extending the researchers focus enables to explore how for contemporary consumers, the
consumption associated experiences
- The stages require an active involvement on behalf of the consumer challenging the
traditional view of the passive consumer - considers the productive aspect of consumption
- Consumers are seen as active participants in the consumption process - consumers co-
produce their experiences and the meanings attributed to the consumption process
- Extensive body of research has looked further at how consumers rework and reinterpret
meanings they encounter throughout the consumption process
- Overwhelming consensus: consumers consume as a way to express their individual personal
and social circumstances
- One can assume that current technology has played little role in instigating this type of
consumption
- Modern technology has been useful for symbolic consumption therefore extending the
experience beyond people present during the consumption process
The social context: subcultures and tribes
- Wide society has been in a state of flux and change well before the widespread adoption of
social media in the mid 2000s
- In the late 20th century, individuals around the world progressively sought to liberate
themselves from social restrictions and established social norms
- This liberation resulted in a fragmentation of society, a sever social dissolution and extreme
individualism - individuals were no longer adhering tot he constraints of previous
generations and following collective ideals
, - People increasingly sought to personalise their existence based on relatively few
constraints and on individual choice maximisation
- Goulding: individualism did not result in everyone pursuing their life alone
- Individualism impelled individuals to seek alternative social arrangements, new
communities in which they could find a sense of belonging
- Plethora of subcultures: idea of the mainstream breaking up into subcultures offering a
community to post-modern consumers seeking a replacement for vanished conventional,
social bonds
The emerging importance of subcultures
- Before the widespread adoption of the internet researchers became interested in the
consumption practices of subcultures
- What emerged was an overabundance of subcultures, frequently young consumers rebellious
against the alleged mainstream culture
- The rebellious nature of these subcultures didn’t result in an unswervingly antagonistic
relationship with mainstream culture but mainstream culture incorporated aspects of many
subcultural meanings of behaviours back into the mainstream and adopted these
- Over time, increasing number of subcultures emerged, which originally were largely based on
readily identifiable groups, existing away form the mainstream
- Historically, subcultures existed away form the mainstream, drawing together individuals who
felt neglected or outcast by the majority culture, creating their own social norms, behaviours
- Subculture members appropriated commercially available material taken from mainstream
and interpreted these items according to a different value sets
- However subcultures was by no means restricted to subcultures: individuals of all walks of life
used commercially available goods, reinterpreted these and used them as a symbol of their
individual beliefs of persuasions
- Subcultures of consumption: subculture-like groups, largely comprising self-selected
members
- Members often came from different socio-economic backgrounds, crossed diverse age
ranges had different ethnic background or bridged the gender divide
- Members of these subcultures shared certain experiences, arising from a particular
consumption activity
- While membership of subcultures of consumption was largely self-selected it was not entirely
free of the influences of established factors such as social class, gender or ethnicity
- Holt conceded that existing social patterns became subtler and started to be increasingly
complemented by consumption activities
- Members needed to have the financial means to purchase certain goods that were required
to participate in these subcultures
- Michel Maffesoli: focused on the rise of the perceived individualism in mainstream culture-
concluded that rather than rising dramatically, individualism is outdated in contemporary
society
- Post modern society is best understood as an assortment of intermittent social groupings,
which are characterised as fluid, occasional and in constant formation and dispersal
- Contemporary ‘tribes’ replaced traditional tribes which were life-long, states and
membership based by ascription or birth
- Bennett: distinguished historic tribes between contemporary fluid tributes by using neo-
tribes to describe these contemporary communities of belonging
, - Both cultures of consumption and tribes describe similar concepts characterising
contemporary consumer behaviour, based on a post-modern, fluid society, where consumers
self-ascribe to communities of meaning and belonging
- 3 functions of these tribes
- Enable sharing of functional knowledge
- Offer a place of social bonding, support and belonging- allowing individuals to create an
identity that helps distinguish them from others
- Create and share a set of collective rules and behaviours, which allows tribe users to
distinguish each other form non-tribe members
- While social barriers came down in 1970s-80s, geographical distance often made it difficult
for consumers to join tribes
- If a specific tribe was not established in the local community, consumers had no access to any
of the support functions of the time
- Many traditional, ascribed subcultures were amongst the earliest adopted of the Internet
- The internet offered subcultures social networking features by enabling individuals to
connect to fellow subculture members globally
- Offered perceived usefulness and enhanced ease of use by enabling access to social and
emotional support
- Minority groups quickly followed in the social networking footsteps with their own sites
- Subcultures have been a vital part of the early development of the internet
- Society as a whole moved from societal mainstream to a society of subcultures
- Consumer tribalism predates social networks significantly
- Social media has taken online, facilitated greatly and made more visible, the emerging
trivialisation of society
- Rather than informing consumers, social media is a means fo self-expression of consumers,
where consumers can declare their allegiance to certain tribes
From subcultures and Neo-tribes to the tribal mainstream
- The mainstream adaption of community seeking focused on gathering around shared,
ordinary possessions
- Simple goods become items through which an individual simultaneously expresses their
individuality whilst these possessions also allow the individual to buy int a community of
belonging
- Products and brands were no longer just providing a utilitarian value but became means of
self-expression through which consumers express their self-concepts and act as a linking
value
- Using social media, many consumers rely on marketing techniques in the form of self-
branding and seeking micro-celebrity status
- Aim to build their own personal brands as a way to form tribes around them using social
media
Tribes or brand communities
- Some contemporary practitioners and researchers use both terms interchangeably
- Both terms describe similar concepts but they are different in focus
- Online brand community: a specialised, non-geographically bound community, based on a
structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand
- Brand communities are not singular fused on brands and social aspects play a noteworthy
role in maintaining the community and brand loyalty
(CM2010)
Chapter 1: Consumer Tribes and Communities
- Emerging tribal and symbolic consumption patterns and subcultures of consumption were
substantial driving forces of technological adoption, with subcultures adopting online
technology as a means to network, before a more widespread adoption and adaption in
mainstream culture
Towards tribal consumption
- Rise of the internet and the emergence and influence of social media as a particular evolution
of the widespread adaption of information technology
- With the appearance of facebook and similar social media platforms has sparked a revolution
in consumer behavior
- Social media did not change existing consumer behavior but it Brough it online and made it
more visible
The ‘Usefulness’ of social media
- aAny technology needs to achieve widespread
adoption to become significant
- Technology acceptance model: highlights the
importance of usefulness as a key component
- To achieve adoption on a large scale, technology
needs to be perceived as useful by the adoptees
- Perceived usefulness is the starting variable influencing direction the intention to use new
technology in well-establish TAM
- New technology must be considered useful by many consumers to be successful
- Question: why was social media considered so useful that it did spread rapidlty?
- Which underlying needs did social media fulfil?
- Which social trends and consumer behaviours were affected by the widespread
adoption of social media?
Consumption in context: From exchange to experience
- Marketers focused rather narrowly on the concept of exchange; eg. Exchange of money for
goods or services
- Traditional view: consumption is seen as a matter of pre-purchase activities, such as
identification of need, search for information, evaluation of alternatives, followed by an
exchange succeeded by a series of post-purchase activities
- Consumption is seen as an essentially utilitarian concept- enables both parties in the process
(consumers and producer) to achieve their means through exchange
- Since 1960s-70s: utilitarian view of consumption has been replaced by more interpretative
methodologies seeking to go beyond one dimensional approaches to market exchange and
consumption
, - Consumer behaviour research have broadened their focus to include non-utilitarian
attributes (experience, meaning of consumption process) to enable a broader view of
consumption
- Consumption is no longer seen as restricted towards the sequential processes involved
in purchasing a new product
Consumer culture theory
- Enquiry that help to frame the discussion of marketplace and consumer behaviour
- CCT: family of theoretical perspectives that address the dynamic relationships between
consumer actions, the marketplace and cultural meaning
- Focuses on the contextual aspects of consumption such as the symbolic nature of
consumed products and a services, and experiential aspects of consumption activity
- CCT challenges the traditional focus on studying marketplace behaviour merely at the
purchasing stage
- Arnould: experiential aspects of consumption have become an important aspect for
contemporary consumers
- Four stages of consumption
- Pre-consumption stage: searching for, planning and imagining the actual consumption
experience
- Purchasing stage: defi nite purchase experience involving choosing, paying and service
experience linked to the actual purchase
- Core consumption stage: actual sensation and experiences during the immediately after
the consumption of the product, including satisfaction and dissatisfaction
- Remembered consumption stage: nostalgic stage following the consumption
experiences, in which the experience is relived
- Extending the researchers focus enables to explore how for contemporary consumers, the
consumption associated experiences
- The stages require an active involvement on behalf of the consumer challenging the
traditional view of the passive consumer - considers the productive aspect of consumption
- Consumers are seen as active participants in the consumption process - consumers co-
produce their experiences and the meanings attributed to the consumption process
- Extensive body of research has looked further at how consumers rework and reinterpret
meanings they encounter throughout the consumption process
- Overwhelming consensus: consumers consume as a way to express their individual personal
and social circumstances
- One can assume that current technology has played little role in instigating this type of
consumption
- Modern technology has been useful for symbolic consumption therefore extending the
experience beyond people present during the consumption process
The social context: subcultures and tribes
- Wide society has been in a state of flux and change well before the widespread adoption of
social media in the mid 2000s
- In the late 20th century, individuals around the world progressively sought to liberate
themselves from social restrictions and established social norms
- This liberation resulted in a fragmentation of society, a sever social dissolution and extreme
individualism - individuals were no longer adhering tot he constraints of previous
generations and following collective ideals
, - People increasingly sought to personalise their existence based on relatively few
constraints and on individual choice maximisation
- Goulding: individualism did not result in everyone pursuing their life alone
- Individualism impelled individuals to seek alternative social arrangements, new
communities in which they could find a sense of belonging
- Plethora of subcultures: idea of the mainstream breaking up into subcultures offering a
community to post-modern consumers seeking a replacement for vanished conventional,
social bonds
The emerging importance of subcultures
- Before the widespread adoption of the internet researchers became interested in the
consumption practices of subcultures
- What emerged was an overabundance of subcultures, frequently young consumers rebellious
against the alleged mainstream culture
- The rebellious nature of these subcultures didn’t result in an unswervingly antagonistic
relationship with mainstream culture but mainstream culture incorporated aspects of many
subcultural meanings of behaviours back into the mainstream and adopted these
- Over time, increasing number of subcultures emerged, which originally were largely based on
readily identifiable groups, existing away form the mainstream
- Historically, subcultures existed away form the mainstream, drawing together individuals who
felt neglected or outcast by the majority culture, creating their own social norms, behaviours
- Subculture members appropriated commercially available material taken from mainstream
and interpreted these items according to a different value sets
- However subcultures was by no means restricted to subcultures: individuals of all walks of life
used commercially available goods, reinterpreted these and used them as a symbol of their
individual beliefs of persuasions
- Subcultures of consumption: subculture-like groups, largely comprising self-selected
members
- Members often came from different socio-economic backgrounds, crossed diverse age
ranges had different ethnic background or bridged the gender divide
- Members of these subcultures shared certain experiences, arising from a particular
consumption activity
- While membership of subcultures of consumption was largely self-selected it was not entirely
free of the influences of established factors such as social class, gender or ethnicity
- Holt conceded that existing social patterns became subtler and started to be increasingly
complemented by consumption activities
- Members needed to have the financial means to purchase certain goods that were required
to participate in these subcultures
- Michel Maffesoli: focused on the rise of the perceived individualism in mainstream culture-
concluded that rather than rising dramatically, individualism is outdated in contemporary
society
- Post modern society is best understood as an assortment of intermittent social groupings,
which are characterised as fluid, occasional and in constant formation and dispersal
- Contemporary ‘tribes’ replaced traditional tribes which were life-long, states and
membership based by ascription or birth
- Bennett: distinguished historic tribes between contemporary fluid tributes by using neo-
tribes to describe these contemporary communities of belonging
, - Both cultures of consumption and tribes describe similar concepts characterising
contemporary consumer behaviour, based on a post-modern, fluid society, where consumers
self-ascribe to communities of meaning and belonging
- 3 functions of these tribes
- Enable sharing of functional knowledge
- Offer a place of social bonding, support and belonging- allowing individuals to create an
identity that helps distinguish them from others
- Create and share a set of collective rules and behaviours, which allows tribe users to
distinguish each other form non-tribe members
- While social barriers came down in 1970s-80s, geographical distance often made it difficult
for consumers to join tribes
- If a specific tribe was not established in the local community, consumers had no access to any
of the support functions of the time
- Many traditional, ascribed subcultures were amongst the earliest adopted of the Internet
- The internet offered subcultures social networking features by enabling individuals to
connect to fellow subculture members globally
- Offered perceived usefulness and enhanced ease of use by enabling access to social and
emotional support
- Minority groups quickly followed in the social networking footsteps with their own sites
- Subcultures have been a vital part of the early development of the internet
- Society as a whole moved from societal mainstream to a society of subcultures
- Consumer tribalism predates social networks significantly
- Social media has taken online, facilitated greatly and made more visible, the emerging
trivialisation of society
- Rather than informing consumers, social media is a means fo self-expression of consumers,
where consumers can declare their allegiance to certain tribes
From subcultures and Neo-tribes to the tribal mainstream
- The mainstream adaption of community seeking focused on gathering around shared,
ordinary possessions
- Simple goods become items through which an individual simultaneously expresses their
individuality whilst these possessions also allow the individual to buy int a community of
belonging
- Products and brands were no longer just providing a utilitarian value but became means of
self-expression through which consumers express their self-concepts and act as a linking
value
- Using social media, many consumers rely on marketing techniques in the form of self-
branding and seeking micro-celebrity status
- Aim to build their own personal brands as a way to form tribes around them using social
media
Tribes or brand communities
- Some contemporary practitioners and researchers use both terms interchangeably
- Both terms describe similar concepts but they are different in focus
- Online brand community: a specialised, non-geographically bound community, based on a
structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand
- Brand communities are not singular fused on brands and social aspects play a noteworthy
role in maintaining the community and brand loyalty
