Communal Consumption and the Brand
Thomas C. O’Guinn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
and
Albert M. Muniz, Jr., DePaul University, Chicago
in
Inside Consumption: Frontiers of Research on Consumer Motives,
Goals, and Desires David Glen Mick and S. Ratneshwar. (eds.)
(Routledge, forthcoming), 2004.
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Communal Consumption and the Brand
Thomas C. O’Guinn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
and
Albert M. Muniz, Jr., DePaul University, Chicago
The vast majority of the marketing and consumer behavior literature is about one
quasi-dyadic relationship: marketer and individual consumer. In this literature, why is
typically explained in terms of attitudes, evaluation of attribute bundles, affect, judgment
biases and decision heuristics…all at the individual level. While these factors are no
doubt important, the truly social aspects of consumption have been largely overlooked
and undervalued. To be sure, social psychologists attempt (more or less) to account for
the influence of others on individual consumer’s thoughts and judgments. But this is
hardly the same as studying social behavior as social behavior: consumer behavior
formed and enacted within aggregations shaped by, sanctioned by, and grounded in the
role of relationships, institutions and other social collectives. In the “field” (the one as
defined by researchers in U.S. business schools) of consumer research, the social is most
often constructed as a moderating variable to the cognitive processes of individuals, a
weak modifier of the Über Namen, “psychology,” and little more. In our view, the truly
social is exceptionally rare in this discourse. Of course, to those outside this generally
insular American field, the social means much, much more.
Take community. This idea has been used in the pursuit of understanding human
beings for over two hundred years. Community was important to Immanuel Kant in
1781, and still to Fredrich Nietzsche a century later (1886). It was important to Karl Marx
in that same year (1867), and Durkheim in 1893, and was given its modern sociological
nomenclature in 1887 by Ferdinand Tonnies: Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (roughly
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Community and Society). From that point forward it is canonical sociology. Simmel in
the early twentieth century (1904), Max Weber (1922), and Freud in 1928, were all
convinced of its fundamental place in explaining human behavior. So central was the
word “community,” that it stood in actual opposition to the word “society,” they were
functional antonyms, truly antagonistic forces. According to these founding social
theorists, community was being destroyed by the forces of society; society is, of course,
modernity’s defining form. Community is thus arguably the founding word in social
thought (Lasch 1991). Further, community has remained a key construct for two
centuries, and continues to be a staple of political, religious, scholarly and popular
discourse (Bauman 2001, Bellah et al. 1985; Boorstin 1973; Etzioni 1993; Fischer 1975;
Lasch 1991; Maffesoli 1996; Wellman 1979). Most recently, it is the subject of Robert
Putnam’s (2000) remarkable Bowling Alone, and is present in everyday utterance.
Critical to the present writing is that fact that as broadly as the notion of
community applies, marketplace behavior has a particularly important place in
community theory. The very idea of community is historically bound to its condition and
fate in the wake of modernity, itself driven by market capitalism and then consumer
culture. The branded society in which we now live, how we now behave as consumers, is
the assumed cause (and result) of community’s demise. To make it simple: community is
a consumer behavior term. The interplay of community and consumption is central to a
fuller understanding of how we live and why we consume as we do.
Yet, it has taken the nascent field of consumer research well into its third decade
to more than mention community, even in passing. To this point, the why of consumption
almost never touched on this core and defining social construct, at least in the field as
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defined above. The reasons for this are, as always, essentially political in nature, and are
tinged with the vagaries of academic history. It is in no small part due to the hegemony of
the field’s psychological atomism that holds that while there is a social, it must be
relatively inconsequential relative to cognitive process. It is the product of a field where
meaning is essentially set aside along with institutional social relations, social production,
politics, and history, or it is ridiculously reduced to summed and weighted attitudes. It is
a field that celebrates a certain kind of narrowness, a narrowness grounded in the cult of
the individual. So, quite understandably, the social gets short shrift. But now we are
afforded a chance to address this peculiar (at least to the larger world of scholarship)
absence in the discourse of the why of consumption.
Brands
To most scholars, it is absolutely axiomatic (Goody 1993, Schudson 1984) that
there is no such thing as just a thing. All material objects carry with them meaning…even
the ones grossly mislabeled as “utilitarian.” This point has been made too many times (cf.
Goody 1993; Sahlins 1972; Smith 1937) by too many celebrated scholars to belabor it
here. As Michael Schudson (1984) so famously pointed out, there has never been a
society where things were just things. The entire human record consists of no place where
materiality and meaning are strangers. Such a place, such a time, are fictions. So things
always have social meaning. But, brands go even further, are particularly marked, and
have a special relationship to modern market economies, those economies marked by
marketing, advertising and consumption.
In the late nineteenth century, brands replaced many “unmarked” commodities.
While it is true that there were some branded products prior to this period, it is during the
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last two decades of the nineteenth century that the ubiquitous branding we know today
began. In 1875, relatively few consumer items were branded. Twenty five years later
there were thousands more. The phenomenal growth first took place in package goods.
Soap, previously, sold by weight from a generally unbranded cake becomes Ivory (1882)
and Sapolio (circa 1875). Beer, previously drawn from an unnamed keg, becomes
Budweiser (1891). All across the spectrum of goods and services, commodities become
brands, as did the flood of new things designed for the modern marketplace of 1900.
In was a necessity of modern market capitalism to discover and promulgate
brands. Consider the economics. Commodities (beer, soap) have pretty elastic demand
functions. If there is no distinction between soaps, if all soaps are completely
interchangeable, then price increases are bound to be met with declines in demand. In
classic economic terms, the set of acceptable substitutes is large, so the demand is price
elastic. But when soap became Ivory in 1882, all that changed. Procter and Gamble
began to impart different, additional and particular meaning on the previously unmarked
commodity. Due to the new marketplace meaning of Ivory brand soap, there were far
fewer acceptable substitutes, at a given price, and thus value was added…as was profit
for Procter and Gamble. Ivory’s demand function was, compared, to mere “soap,”
inelastic. Brands made good economic sense, and modern market capitalism became
reliant on branding.
It is no coincidence that this period is also known as the birth of the modern
advertising industry (Fox 1984). Major advertising agencies such as J. Walter Thompson
and N.W. Ayer were founded during this period. The growth is obvious in a ten fold
increase (Fox 1984) in advertising spending between 1864 ($50 million) and 1900 ($500
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million.) Brands were created and projected into national consciousness by men Roland
Marchand (1985) called “apostles of modernity,” that is, ad men. Ivory would claim
purity as its own during a period when purity was of vital concern to Americans. The
average life expectancy in the US in 1900 was 49.2 years (Sullivan 1926). Infant
mortality was twice what it would be just twenty—five years later (Sullivan 1926). A
concerned public pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1904. Purity
was a more than a word; it was, at that time, one of the few things the public believed
might prevent them or the children from dying young. So, Ivory floats. Its purity was
demonstrated by the fact it floated. Of course, no one really had to understand the
physical mechanism relating purity to floating…it became a marketplace truism. Social
context gave meaning to Ivory’s branding, its advertising claim, and the meaning of a bar
of soap that floated. Soap was not merely a “utilitarian” product, and certainly Ivory was
not. Ivory meant something. Ivory was pure, it was 99 44/100 pure. Ivory, in the collective
late 19th century mind, was no longer a commodity…its set of acceptable substitutes
shriveled. The same was true of countless other branded goods and services. During the
last years of the nineteenth and the first two decades of the twentieth century branding
literally exploded. Commodities dropped by the hundreds. Advertising and branding
pushed marketplace modernity along: they were its engines, they were its mode.
Over the next eight or so decades, the branding tide rose to cover just about
everything. By the end of the twentieth century dirt was branded and water was branded.
Few things were left out. Religions rushed to brand, so did universities, cities, and
national parks. Brands came to be important in the lives of citizens. Citizens became
consumers, consumers of brands. We became a branded society, and brands had meaning,
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social meaning, meaning that cannot be neatly isolated from its historical, political,
cultural and social grounding.
The Modern Concern with Community’s Demise
The parallel story-line of this play was about what was supposedly happening to
community. Remember, it was mass-marketed, branded society that was the prime
suspect in the slaying of community. This meta-narrative is the leitmotif of modern
social thought: commercial urban life destroyed “true” community. And of course,
driving modernity was market capitalism. One does not have to look very far for the
perfect icon of the capitalist marketplace: the brand. The rise of the brand, and branded
society, is traditionally thought to be at the expense of community. How ironic is it to
now be writing of their admixture: brand community? Yet, since the post-modern is
marked by irony, then perhaps brand community is perfectly and precisely of its time. Or,
maybe the two constructs (brand and community) have always shared more, and were
less antithetical, than modernist social thought allowed. The latter is our belief.
Now, after two centuries or so, we arrive here, at this moment where three things
are true: (1) brands are a ubiquitous aspect of daily life in market economies, (2) brands
are often meaningful to contemporary citizens, and (3) community was not so easily done
way with; the communal urge of humans and the benefits that accrue to collectives and
institutions ensured community’s adaptive longevity. Community endures in all sorts of
forms, in all sorts of places, including in the marketplace.
Finally, we assert a fourth thing to be true: meaningful marketplace communities
exist today. We argue here that community, of a particular sort, is alive and well in the
form of brand community. Brand communities possess the hallmarks of traditional
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communities, but have their own unique market logics and expressions. After making the
case that brand communities possess the defining characteristics of traditional forms of
community, we discuss particular forms of brand communities. We discuss brand
community and market-place rumor, and the newly empowered communal consumer.
We discuss the polit-brand (the particularly politicized brand of the political left), and a
brand community with a particularly religious ethos. We discuss these communities in
the context of the on-line communications revolution. We conclude by offering a basic
model of the social construction of brands.
This paper casts the why question differently due to its alternative cast of social
actors in the social construction of consumption practice: not a single heuristic is
mentioned. Instead, we observe active and meaningful negotiation of the brand itself
between consumer collectives and marketing institutions. We further break with
traditional modernist thought by not focusing on authenticity. These are, in our pragmatic
view, largely irrelevant at this point: that train has left the station. These contemporary
social forms clearly exist, and do not appear to be going away anytime soon. So rather
than documenting yet one more of late capitalism’s subversions of “the real,” we will
instead focus on what consumers derive from these social forms, and what the
communities themselves and other social collectives derive.
Evidence of Community Characteristics: Branded consumption has become so
central to contemporary societies that social aggregations form around consumption
practices and objects, and possess the traditional markers of community. Some of these
are brand communities, communities that have at their center some form of branded
consumption. As noted by Muniz and O’Guinn (2001), brand communities, just like other
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forms of community, posses three defining characteristics: consciousness of kind,
evidence of rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral obligation to the community and
its members.
consciousness of kind: First, and by far the most important attribute of community is
consciousness of kind. To be a community, a group of people have to feel a collective
similarity to one-another and the group, and a collective difference both individually and
collectively from other groups. Consider this from an on-line Mazda Miata on-line
community post:
Truth be told, I just “found” this group and I’m a happy little person now that
I’ve found there are other people out there like me that love their Miatas!
This verbatim reveals language of someone being happy because they realized that there
are others just like them…out there…who get it…who see what they see. The promise of
community…not to be alone…to share adoration…no matter how odd or inappropriate
others feel it to be, is revealed here. The language looks much like that of someone
saying that they discovered others with the same sexual orientation, the same health
problems, the same religion, the same love of an in-common object, in this case a brand
and model of car. It is consciousness of kind. Bender (1978) describes it as Awe-ness.@
And the why is addressed simply: a consumer is made happy because of the traditional
promises of community…the rewarding and embracing collective. To the collective
derive the benefits of name, allegiance and social power.
Members of a brand community feel an important connection to the brand, and
toward one another. This multi-node, rather than dyadic social constellation is a defining
facet of brand community. Informants also note a critical demarcation between users of
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their brand and users of other brands. There was some important quality, not always
easily verbalized, that set them apart from others, and makes them similar to one another.
Such a demarcation usually included a reference to brand users being Adifferent@ or
Aspecial@ compared to users of other brands.
When I see another SAAB, and I think about it for a second, I not only
have a feeling for the SAAB, but I kind of know what that guy is like...he=s
kind of like me....or she=s kind of like me. - Bob
These types of comments were common among brand community members. One Saab
webpage describes itself as being Amade by a Saab=er for other Saaber=s . . . to enjoy.@
Others included references to ASaab spirit,@ or Athe cult of Macintosh,@ or noted that a
Mac site was, like the brand, Afor the rest of us.@ Such sentiments illustrate
consciousness of kind in their recognition of a distinct category of people (e.g., Saabers,
Mac people). But, it’s not as simple as “I’m like him or her,”… it is membership in a
collective, a collective with rules, sanctions, obligation, and with a social identity greater
than the simple sum of its members.
Further, the consciousness of kind felt among brand community members extends
across many other categories that would normally divide consumers. In brand
communities, stratification characteristics that might determine an individual=s standing
in another community, such as income, age or gender, are said to be unimportant. Rather,
status in brand communities is more often influenced by such factors as how long
consumers have been using the brand, the historical value of the model they own, the
number of models that they own, and their experiences with the brand. In this way, brand
communities are officially egalitarian, at least in a traditional socioeconomic sense. One
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informant, a successful professional, tells of holding up traffic at a McDonald’s one
morning because the Aguy at the window,@ was a Saab owner, and they Ahad to talk for a
minute.@ Even though the McDonald=s employee was assumed to be of a lower SES
category, he owned a much older Saab that by virtue of the historical value of older
models had enhanced social cachet. The two members ignored their stratification
inequities and seemed obliged to carry out an expected ritual of Saab community
members, even if it meant holding up everyone else in the busy service line. Benefits
accrue to the individuals in several ways, not least of which is a sense of their own
egalitarianism, fairness and goodness. This market mythology also has institutional
beneficiaries. The belief in a “democracy of goods,” (Marchand 1985), certainly serves to
ameliorate and justify the realities of even severe social stratification inequities in market
economies. It protects and reifies marketplace ideology. If a community of things can
make us equal, then other inequalities may be more easily accepted.
Consciousness of kind also transcends geographic boundaries. The following
field notes from a Saab club meeting reveal the international nature of brand
communities.
The club president proudly shows a letter (postal) he received from a sixteen
year-old Italian boy who is a big fan of Saab, despite the fact that he doesn’t=t
drive yet. He got the club=s address from their web page. The letter says that he
is a fan of pre-changed 900, especially liking the 83 and 84 3-door models. He is
seeking pictures of these cars that the club members might own. This letter is big
news at the meeting and is shown to everyone over the course of the evening.
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This posting reinforced the understanding, among members of the club, that there were
other members of the community, just as devoted to the brand, in other far away places.
Rituals and Traditions: Communities typically develop rituals and traditions
that serve to reify the community. This is how communities stay alive. Brand community
examples of this are plentiful. Methods and modes include celebrating the history of
brand, sharing brand stories and myths, ritualistic communication and utterances,
communal appropriation of advertising, market icons, commercial text, and a special
lexicon. One obvious example was the way Saab drivers waved, beeped their horn, or
flashed their lights to other Saab drivers. One informant told us: “if you own a Saab, you
just do this, it’s expected.” When asked who expected it, he said: “the Saab folks,” in
other words, the brand community. The social collective has behavioral expectations.
One of the most traditional of all forms of communal affirmation is ritualized
story telling. Communities (re)create their history, their values, and other aspects through
communal stories. Religious narratives, stories of national heroes and battles, and even
school anthems are examples of this. The same is true in brand communities. In the Saab
brand community a common critical communal myth is the “saved my life story.” Saab
positions itself as a safe car, and its brand community embraces this positioning as well.
So, it is not unexpected that members of the Saab brand community would tell, and re-tell
a story about how Saab saved their life. Here is one example of its telling.
Chuck: The car I had before this one, I was going down the road and a fella in a
garbage truck made a left hand turn in front of me and I hit him broadside and
totaled the Saab. The policeman sitting at the corner having lunch saw it happen
and thought I was dead. I stepped out of the car and didn’t have a scratch on me.
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Yeah. It looked like an accordion. The whole thing just collapsed right up in
front. Actually, it broke the wheel on the garbage truck. Broke it off.
Think about this story: garbage truck (big, mean, ugly, ferocious, smelly, Goliath
of the streets) vs. small, meek, but strong and smart Saab (David). The Saab is totaled (it
gives its life for its driver). A policeman is present (modern miracles often need an
objective authority figure as confirmation). The Saab driver “didn’t have a scratch” (a
miracle). The wheel of the garbage truck is “broken right off,” (even though the Saab
was totaled, it inflicted damage on the evil aggressor). This story is full of critical
distillations of the brand’s constellation of meaning. It is economical in its conveyance.
This a familiar story among Saab community members, ritualistically told, narratively
and substantively similar. Most importantly, it is told, and re-told, and re-told again.
Communal myth is vital to traditional communities and brand communities. These stories
are not generated by Saab, but are organic, created by consumers for consumers.
Another community ritual is a communication phenomenon we term ritualistic
affirmation. When one thinks about communication from a psychological point of view,
communication is typically explained as the transmission of information bundle x
between parties a and b. Here, in a communal setting, we see something completely
different, a different sort of communication. Here, the purpose is not to get consumer b to
know something that consumer a already knows. Here, both consumers already possess
this knowledge. They know “that Saab also builds jets.” Saab brand community
members say this to each other, and to the group, frequently. Why do they do this, if all
the parties already possess information bundle x? The why here is communal affirmation,
communal reification. Here the speech act is to publicly affirm a key community belief:
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Saab’s are like jets. It typically occurs when Saab members are chatting, and something
regarding technology arises, then one will say to the other (one or many): “You know
Saab builds jets”. Here is an on-line example:
the cabin of a Saab 900 “looks kind of like an airplane cockpit,” and “you know
Saab builds jets.”
Of course they knew that; both parties knew that, and both knew they knew. But it is said
anyway, and publicly, as religious or national affirmations are done. It is affirmative and
ritualistic communication…but not in the very narrow x-tells-y- z. It is communication
that serves a larger social purpose, to maintain the collective and its boundaries, and keep
its rules. It is communal communication serving the individual and the collective.
Likewise, communities educate their members (particularly the young) in
community history. Communities, whether traditional, or brand, rely on a known-incommon history to keep the community alive, vital and centered. Apple brand
community members are no different.
In 1974, Apple Computer, Inc. was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
(also the founder of Unuson). You can find out more about the history of Apple,
but arguably its most important contribution to the world was introduced on
January 24, 1984, under the leadership of founder and chairman Steve Jobs.
Apple introduced Macintosh, the machine that would change the world. –webpage
This date, January 24, 1984, and/or the surrounding events have significance for Apple
brand community members. Communities need marked dates or celebrated events,
through this the community bestows significance upon the event and gives it meaning,
meaning which is transmitted though the socially enacted celebration. Brand
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communities have user created and posted histories. This one is from a Saab brand
community web site:
The history of Saab is colorful and interesting. There are dozens of stories that
when brought together lead us to where Saab is today. The European situation of
the thirties necessitated the creation of Svenska Aeroplan AB, born May 20, 1937.
Current government philosophy was neutrality, yet one must defend its homeland.
Saab was, and still is today, in charge of supplying Sverige with capable aircraft.
But as the wound to a close, Saab needed to find a non-war product. On the
drawing board to choose from were aluminum boats, prefab houses, and modern
kitchen appliances. The chiefs gave the green light on boats, of which around 250
were made. But nobody wanted boats, so they sunk them in local Lake Vanern.
Then attention turned to automobiles . . .
(moral) Obligation: The third, and probably most controversial aspect of brand
community is the degree to which moral obligation is/is not present. To nineteenth
century social theorists, publicly enacted morality was a vital aspect of face-to-face
community. In more relativistic contemporary times what constitutes group morality is a
much more open question. Still, we hold that a certain type of moral obligation does exist
in brand communities. Brand communities are held by Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) to be
similar to Jannowitz’s concept of communities of limited liability (Jannowitz 1952).
Communities of limited liability are intentional, voluntary and partial in the level of
involvement they engender (Jannowitz 1952; Hunter and Suttles 1972), but still vital to
contemporary life, meaningful, and maybe modal. Brand communities are communities
of limited liability.
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Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) argue that this is a small case ‘m”, morality, even a
marketplace morality. Still, it exists. Brand community members do feel a type of
obligation to other members, and the collective, that has at its core a morality: a loosely
codified sense of right and wrong, duty and obligation. Brand communities, like
traditional communities, are often most morally offended when defections occur. In
brand communities, this means buying or using the competing brand.
“Skip used to be a Mac person, but switched. I found this morally
reprehensible . . . He’s kind of a Mac turncoat.”
In a similar fashion, Saab community members resent Saab drivers moving to another
car. One informant referred to one Saab driver who had left the fold as having Abetrayed
the brotherhood.” Reasons for staying in the community are publicly rehearsed and
restated. One example is Mac pages listing the reasons Macintoshes are superior to PCs.
While serving to elevate the brand, such pages also serve as a publicly posted reminder to
stay loyal to the brand, and to rehearse counter-arguments “against leaving the fold.@
But, do members of brand communities help with child care, or hospital visits for
others simply because they are also Saab or Apple owners? Generally, no, they don’t. But
this is partly because these are usually computer mediated relationships spread across
great distances. In face-to-face clubs and user groups Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) did
report some limited examples of traditional gestures of responsibility. But more typically,
the assistance, and the felt sense of responsibility involved brand advice, repair, and
service help. Still, Saab community members reported that they would, all else being
equal, give Saab drivers in need of road-side assistance help, simply because they were
Saab drivers.
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Yeah, we see another Saab on the side of the road, we pull over to help, no matter
what it is.
Or VW Beetle drivers:
If you do see a bug stranded by the side of the road, remember that it is good VW
etiquette to stop and see what is wrong.
There is also the apostolic function. Members of brand communities, generally
but not always, think that new members (but only appropriate new members) should be
recruited to keep the community alive. This is seen as a group moral (small m) duty
Brian: I think he was actually talking about buying something like the Ford
Maverick or something like that. I let him drive my car for a day and within the
week he had went out and bought his own first Saab. He loved it. He’s got his
third one now (printer, 38).
It makes me feel really good. I’ve turned them on to a very cool car. They are
going to be happier now, better off. Because I know that, it’s kind of my duty to
steer them in the right direction.
We hold that brand communities are communities, have the traditional markers.
This does not, by any means, assert that they are the same as pre-industrial villages, or
any such thing. It does, however, empirically make the point that brand communities, as
unabashedly commercial as they are, do, like it or not, exhibit core characteristics of
traditional communities. Why these previously antagonistic forces are now less so moves
us closer to answering the why question. Is there something so appealing about the
communal form, that consumers now living in a branded world, appropriate it, and build
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on it, with branded consumption at its center? Yes, there is. Community endures and
finds at its center the things most cherished by its members….even brands. Are there
benefits accruing to other interested institutions, political actors, ideologies, and systemic
engines? Yes, there are. There are clearly philosophical, economic and political benefits
to those collectives (institutions, communities, and other vested collectives) that make
branded consumption a social goal and desired societal outcome.
Of Particular Marketplace Relevance
There are some aspects of brand communities that have particular flavor of the
marketplace, and yet are so very similar to the same basic dynamic observed in
traditional communities.
Oppositional Brand Loyalty. This is phenomenon observed in brand
communities in which the very defining nature of a community is its opposition to
another brand…and its community. One if the strongest is the Apple MacIntosh brand
community, and its nemesis, Win(dows)-(In)Tel machines.
Oh well, just thought I'd reply to the newsgroup and let all you Mac.
lovers know that WE RULE AND WE SHOULD ALL UNITE AND FORM
A MAC USERS MEGA CULT …
We already did! Now we just need Steve Jobs to act even more like a cult leader than
he already does!
The proceeding verbatim was taken from a user-hosted Mac web site. It clearly exhibits
the oppositional nature of the community: the purpose of the Apple community is as
much anti-Win-Tel as it is pro-Apple. In fact, a good part of what the Apple brand means
is that it is not Win-Tel. Obviously, history is replete with countless examples of
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communities or other social collectives who define themselves: by who and what they are
not: Protestants (not-Catholics) being an everyday Western example. Still, brand
communities who derive their basic meaning from being not-something do have a
particular marketplace feel about them. Perhaps it’s the completely unremarkable or
everyday-ness about the opposition that marks it as so completely consumer culture. Here
one Apple user describes her ex-husband not only in terms of his not being-Apple, but
being IBM…and Brooks Brothers as well.
he still uses an IBM now, he would not be a mac user. he had an IBM
personality: traditional, preppy, east coast, Brooks brothers - you don’t deviate
from the norm in that group.
And in the following, one can even see the oppositional community as brand intertwined
with geographical metaphor, the wrong part of town:
I gave a sales rep a demo of my iPaq a few weeks ago at Franklin Covey.That
place is scary, it's like wall to wall Palm. I felt like I had wandered into the
wrong part of town. - from iPaq usenet
Or, from a Belgian teenager’s web site (Muniz and Hamer 2001), we hear of the Coke
Army, its purpose to do battle with, and vanquish the evil other: Pepsi:
Coke is the best drink ever created….And with popularity, the imitators came.
These imitators make money, are not as good as the Real Thing, they gained
popularity and must be stopped. This is why we must rally around our beverage in
its time of need. We cannot see the horrible things pepsico does anymore. It is
times these crimes stop.
Join the Coke Army- from Belgian website, 16 yr. old male
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Marketplace Legitimacy: yet another brand community facet is revealed in
issues of legitimacy. These occur on two fronts: is the brand “real,” and is the brand
community member legitimate? Again, issues of pretenders and true believers have long
been part of community discourse. Communal status hierarchies are often premised on
degrees of passion and shades of authenticity. Yet, marketplace legitimacy has a
particular dimension to it in that this brand discourse reveals the shifting power relations
between those traditionally in control of the brand (the marketer) and consumer
collectives. Here, Donald, a Saab brand community member discusses why Saab’s are
not for everyone, only those who really understand, and those willing to make a long
term commitment.
Donald: During the 80’s the yuppie attitude was really talked about quite a
bit. A lot of people actually purchased the cars who I feel shouldn’t have
purchased them. There’s a certain type of owner who is proper for the car
and people who buy one just because it’s something that they really don’t
have intentions of keeping for a long time.
Of course, from the marketer’s point of view, having its core or “lead” users actively
policing community membership (and purchase), is a problem. The very active brand
community can represent a very powerful marketplace power inversion.
Desired Marginality is a very similar brand community phenomenon. Here,
brand community members actively try to keep the community small and marginal. A
brand like Apple, with an approximate three percent of the U.S. computer market, has as
part of its brand meaning, marginality. The original VW Bug had it too, its underdog
status cleverly and famously used by Doyle Dane Bernbach to market the brand.
20
Sometimes brand community members actively work against share growth. They must
walk a tricky path between rejecting willing new members and sustaining a large enough
market share to keep the brand viable. This dynamic maps on to the alternative ethos in
which a band or a filmmaker or some other artist is deemed to be “cool” until they are
signed by a major label or too widely discovered. Cultural cachet is lost and the brand is
no longer deemed “hip.” Here the boundaries of community and brand are enforced by
the collective.
The Polit-Brand: Another entirely social form is the brand community that has at
its center the particularly politicized brand. O’Guinn and Muniz (2004) present data
regarding the post- 1972, (U.S./Western Europe) political left’s manner of fighting
market capitalism’s hegemony through purchases, as opposed to boycotts of major brands
from major corporations. The post 1960’s revolutionary leftist strikes blows against the
capitalist empire by buying things. But these things have to be brands granted community
approval. Here, the brand community is at once centered on a brand, and a political goal.
These are the “polit-brands” of the “new” left. While the use of brands in “revolution”
has been discussed elsewhere, most notably in Frank’s (1997) Conquest of Cool,
O’Guinn and Muniz (2004) offer a significantly different take on the dynamics and
meaning of the phenomenon.
Circa 1972 the old “new left,” for all intents and purposes, perished (Schulman
2001). It was replaced by a more consumption ambivalent “revolution.” In this new
socio-political order, “revolutionary” politics are enacted not through choices of
consuming or not consuming, but in identification of, group sanctioning of, and
community championing of brands that are deemed by the collective to be the best
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vessels of the group’s “alternative” politics. O’Guinn and Muniz (2004) present data
from Apple, Ben and Jerry’s, Carhart, Diesel, MAC, REI, Tom’s of Maine, and most
notably, Sweat-X brand communities. They argue “that notions of branding and their
place in social thought have something to gain from the broadening border-crossing of
brand and politics.” These are communal brands, inherently tied to communal politics,
and it is impossible to deny the inherent social nature of this consumption. Here, the why
of consumption is about advancing a social movement’s politics.
Of course, one of the earliest politicized brands was Coca-Cola, a brand whose
political legacy is still the topic of on-line communal discourse.
My mother’s family swears by Coca-Cola. It used to be, in fact, that in order to
receive permission to marry into her family, 3 basic qualifications had to be met.
The prospective in-law had to: 1)Be a Democrat, 2)Drive a Ford, and 3)Drink
Coca-Cola
More recently the more actively marketer-politicized brand has emerged on the
scene. A prime example is SweatX, an anti-sweat shop brand. It is strongly supported by
an on-line brand community. In fact, with out the associated collective, it would have far
less market meaning.
SweatX is a brand with a message. We make great quality clothes and our
workers earn enough to support themselves and their families in a decent,
secure and dignified lifestyle. We serve as a small but powerful magnet
attempting to pull up the standards in the garment industry. We are
attempting to prove that it is possible to work under conditions of fairness
with a union contract, with a living wage and ultimately with a full and
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complete stake in the company. We want to succeed here in Los Angeles
and then bring this idea to other parts of the United States and ultimately
to other parts of the world where garment workers are unfairly
oppressed. –Sweat-X web site
Intentional or not, Apple Computer has also become a politicized brand. The Apple brand
community has strong feelings about this. This is from a discussion entitled
“Apple=Democrats?” Here, the on-line Apple brand community negotiate political
ideology and brand meaning, as a collective.
Anyway, ...
1.) It's well-known that Jobs is a liberal and has contributed
liberally (pun intended) to liberal causes and liberal political
campaigns. I've heard this discussed for years.
2.) A Democratic administration has brought Microsoft to the brink of
destruction as the entity we all know. This is of benefit to Jobs and
to Apple Computer, so why shouldn't he try to do a little payback?
From another Apple community member:
At that time, it was clear: IBM people were one way, wore suits and voted
for Reagan, and Apple people were another, wore jeans and didn’t vote
for Reagan.
And then there is the BodyShop brand community, a community where politics and brand
are tightly woven.
I applaud Anita [Roddick (founder/CEO The Body Shop) commentary to
London Independent regarding American civil liberties since 9/11/2001] for
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such clear insight and having the guts to speak the truth, "To hell with George
Bush; God save America.“
Certainly, one of the most controversial polit-brands the so called “anti-brand
brand,” BlackSpot, by AdBuster. ADBusters, an ostensibly anti-advertising, and anticonsumer culture magazine is producing and “marketing” the BlackSpot sneaker.
"We take on Phil at his own game and win. We turn the shoes we wear into
a counter-branding game. The swoosh versus the anti-swoosh. Whose side are
you on?" -from ADBuster’s web site.
"We're selling real, authentic empowerment. If you wear the blackSpot sneaker,
you're helping to demolish a big, bad corporation that has done dirty deeds in the
Third World.”- Adbuster Publisher, Kalle Lasn
Very clearly, brands and politics blend, and to deny the inherently social form of human
politics would fly in the face of reason, not to mention the evidence of everyday
experience.
Newton and Godot: Recently Muniz and Schau (2004) published a piece about a
brand community in which the marketer has abandoned the brand, but the community
still thrives. This is the Apple Newton, a product that Apple discontinued in 1998.
Despite being dropped, at least 20,000 day-to-day Newton users remain, many of them
participating in on-line Newton communities. The community innovates the product and
software, provides parts sources, technical support and actually advertises the brand to
others. Very interestingly is the core sociology behind this community: religion.
Consciously or not, the Newton brand community has adopted supernatural and religious
motifs as central narrative structures. A prominent example concerns the return of the
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creator: is Apple coming back? There are also tales of Newtons being revived from the
dead, and language marked by persecution, countervailing faith, and deliverance.
Consider the following, in which a Newton thought to be dead (since one cannot
easily get replacement Newton batteries) is magically restored:
It works!!!!! I had a totally dead battery on a used Newton. I tried the battery in
fridge twice with no results. So... I plugged the unit in, and when I got the dead
battery message I unplugged the adapter for a minute then plugged it in again.
Did this about 8-9 times over 3-4 days. Simply unplugged and replugged nearly
every time I walked by. And I then saw a charging indicator! Yes, folks, it's Alive!
Hallelujah, I believe! (Patricia, listserv, March 2003)
Tales of the creator’s return constitute a recurring religious narrative phenomenon
within the community. The belief is that Apple is going to reintroduce the Newton,
despite the low-likelihood of such an action. Co-mingled with these beliefs are rumors
and tales of secret labs and hidden signs that a new Newton is being developed and
tested. Here, is such an on-line community rumor.
I dunno. I saw *something* at Disneyland out here in California. It wasn't a
newton, and they usually used newtons for taking surveys and things. It was a
color device with an apple logo. This was months ago. I know I should have
kicked his ass and ran out of the park with the device, but going to jail is not one
of my "cool" things to do on my weekends :). All I know is that there is something
going on. What with all the spare newtons on ebay, (could be a sign that apple is
about to drop some cool sh**) it will make sense. (Mick, listserv, January 2002) ]
Clearly, another core sociological construct is at work here. Consumers, operating
25
as communities, take on one of society’s oldest explanatory meta-narratives (religion) to
explain the marketplace existential. These consumers are using religious narratives to
explain the brand because it is how they understand the brand, its ethos and survival. The
brand is no longer made by the creator, but by the community. Moving beyond the cocreation of the brand, the collective becomes the marketer and keeps the brand and the
brand meaning alive.
Who Owns the Brand: One obvious but fairly profound question raised by the
coming of brand community: who owns the brand? Brand communities assert
considerable claims on ownership. They assert more channel power, more claims on core
competencies (consider the example of the Newton) formerly reserved for the marketer.
A great illustration of the resulting tensions comes from the PDA market. It is a
market with fiercely competing operating systems. Users of the two predominate
operating systems seek market dominance, recognizing the benefits afforded via network
effects. The PocketPC (a Microsoft product) user group organized on-line enough to be a
lobbying force to Microsoft…not as individual customers, but as an organized,
politicized, and powerful social collective. In the following, a member criticizes
Microsoft’s early marketing as not-aggressive enough for the category.
It would appear that Microsoft is not taking the Pocket PC platform very
seriously. Microsoft is dropping the ball – from PocketPc usenet group
Brand community members increasingly regard marketers not as owners of the brands,
but as temporary stewards, stewards who can now be held more immediately and directly
accountable. Community members recognize that their interests in the brand may surpass
those of the marketer and that they may be better aware of the realities in which the
26
product is used. Marketers must be more accountable because consumers are acting as
social collectives, not individual marketplace atoms.
When companies change their strategy, brand communities may not like it. Here,
a Body-shop customer, and brand community member goes on-line to tell the community
about her dissatisfaction with current body-shop management and policy.
I hate this sort of waste. I went to the Body Shop recently to get a refill for my
foundation and they didn't have my color. The salesbeing informed me that they
"were phasing out the refills because they *recycle*". Like that's an
environmental step forward. Sheesh. I refused to buy an entire new case, that's
absurd and wasteful. I switched brands because of it. I think Body Shop is selling
out to profits over the environment.
With the rise of brand communities, just who owns and manages the brand is called into
question, and done so by the actions of an empowered social collective.
Brand Communities in the Context of Computer-Mediated Environments
In the last decade we have experienced a true sea-change in the way marketing
works, because there has been a true sea-change in the way communication works. Circa
1957, communication scholars and the nascent field of marketing became obsessed for a
decade or so with the two-step flow hypothesis and tracking down the “generalized
opinion leader.” The idea was that rather than flowing directly from the media to
consumers, information (and influence) was more socially mediated. Influence flowed
first to opinion leaders, who then had disproportionate influence on individual
consumers. Now, brand communities (social collectives) function in the same manner: as
nodes of connected “opinion leaders.”
27
On-line brand communities may force us to see the real power of consumer-to-consumer
communication, and its ability to affect significant influence on the marketer, in rapid
order, and with the power of a social mass.
Rumor: Much content in brand communities takes the form of rumor. The history
of the brand and personal stories centered on the brand are important, and are often
transmitted via communal rumor. Rumors can play an important role in the consumer
construction of the brand as rumors allows consumers to express properties of the brand
that might not be true, but reflect what they want to be true about the brand.
Cultural capital and issues of credibility loom large in brand communities. These
communities are structured, with complex hierarchies (Muniz and O’Guinn 2001; Schau
and Muniz 2002). The notion of legitimacy, that there are proper and improper users for
the brand, is evidence of this assertion. The longer one has been using the brand, the
more knowledge of the history surrounding the brand that a member knows and the
higher their status within the community. The contribution of a new piece of communal
brand talk carries status. Those who contribute new, interesting information about the
brand are afforded more than communal status.
The search for new information, such as intended modifications to the product or
new line entries, can be intensely competitive. As a result, consumers sometimes share
28
brand-related information from non-reputable sources. Sometimes, the information
shared reflects what the consumer or other social actors want to be true (Muniz, O’Guinn
and Fine 2004). Such utterances are relevant in the internet age as they may be afforded
the same credibility as official information and become part of the brand’s communally
accepted legacy. The textual nature of the Web provides an excellent forum in which
members can share their knowledge of the brand’s origins, often replete with illustrations
and photographs. At the same time, a certain amount of cynicism is expected with regards
to rumors for a member to be considered a sophisticated, well-versed member of the
community. A member may feel the need to make cynical sentiments, arguing against
accepting rumors in order to maintain their status within the community. As a result,
members must balance maintaining credibility with not damaging communal morale
Members of the Volkswagen community differentiate between the original Beetle,
produced between 1945 and 1981, and the new VW Beetle introduced in 1997. The
original Beetle was a large part of the meaning of the VW brand community. Its unusual
appearance and underdog origins were a source of pride among VW enthusiasts. To most
long-term VW aficionados, the New Beetle is nothing but a pale, marketing-inspired
imitation of the original Bug designed to move VW upstream, and further away from its
economy-minded roots. As a result, rumors about the new model, the use of the original
plans, the re-hiring of retired designers were rife in the months leading up to the launch
of the new Beetle. Long-time members wanted to believe that the New Beetle would be
true to the ethos of the original, despite fearing otherwise.
In a similar way, members of the Saab brand community spend considerable time
discussing the future of Saab, including rumors on future Saab plans. These rumors have
29
arisen largely in response to Saab’s acquisition by GM and the fears of the impact this
acquisition would have on the essence of the brand.
Consider the following from a Saab newsgroup:
Okay next is a piece of text I found some days ago... I don't know what is
true and what is just made up by the author, but I find it quit disturbing.
Read and be afraid, be very afraid. Sorry for my comments in between.
Or a response:
Saab is on the verge of a product explosion. Today GM's Swedish
subsidiary has four models: the 9-3 fastback and convertible, and the 9-5
fastback and station wagon. GM says Saab will have five to eight models
based on the Epsilon platform. According to the following roundup of
what's coming, it looks like at least five Epsilon 9-3s: fastback, sedan,
wagon, roadster and coupe, plus however styles of new Epsilon 9-5s
arrive at the debut in 2004.
As members discuss the possibilities of such new models, unsubstantiated information
enters the conversation.
DISCUSSION
Brands are subtly (and not so subtly) co-mingling with or substantially emulating
the form and function of traditional social institutions. This obviously affects the why of
consumption. In this paper we argue that we must significantly re-think our views of
brands, brand communication, and the obsession on the individual consumer and his or
her thoughts. Contemporary society floats on a true sea-change in mediated human
30
communication, and at the nexus of all this is the brand. Brands are social creations, and
this reality has never been more important.
In brand communities marketplace power relations are destabilized. Consumers
speak to one another, aggregate and organize as brand communities. Sometimes, this is to
the benefit of the marketer, as when members help one another solve problems with the
brand, thus increasing the value derived from the brand at no additional cost to the
marketer. Other times, community strength may manifest in ways less beneficial to the
marketer. Members of a brand community may decide, with conviction, and strength of
number, that the marketer is wrong…and actually try to drown out the marketer’s voice,
or talk back. They may reject the actions of the marketer, such as a modification to the
brand, a promotional campaign, or a brand extension. Potential buyers of a new car may
“Google Saab” and be put into immediate contact with Saab community members who
present an image of the appropriate buyer that is not what Saab management would like
for them to see. With communal brand-talk so accessible, brand communities have a
significant voice in brand image shaping, and in fact may have truly competing interests
with brand management. In many ways, aggregations of consumers such as brand
communities serve very similar functions as the opinion leader models of the 1950’s…
with a major difference. Now the consumers talk to each other and to groups
instantaneously, not over the back fence. Mass media, including advertising, made
community more of an idea than a place. The idea of community evolved, and came to
terms with commercial forces in unexpected ways. Now, it seems clear to us that
community did not succumb to mass market economies. In fact, community can be found
31
alive and well in contemporary social life, sometimes in the context of brands. This is
important in the why of consumption.
Social Model of Brand Creation: All of this brings us to something quite
obvious, the need for something more sociological and communications centered when
theorizing brands. The world has changed, but most of our cherished consumer models
have not. We offer a basic social model of brand creation. It rests on the key sociological
notions of accommodation and negotiation.
Consumer interpretation and
co-production
Marketer
Production
Interaction of
marketer, experienced
market, imagined
market, brand
communication,
media, and other
social institutions that
results in the
marketer’s production
of brand meaning
content
Accommodation
and
Negotiation
Past history,
personality,
imagined marketer,
and purposes
forming context of
reception
brandtalk
Meanings
formed:
common
and
individual
The basic tenets here are that brands are not created solely by marketers, not even
close…not anymore. This model says that marketers offer their projected meaning(s) of a
brand to consumers based on their imagined and existing users. But upon reception,
consumers accommodate some of what the marketer’s brand meaning and negotiates with
the marketer through larger publics to negotiate a meaning. This meaning is rarely
determined by a lone actor, but a by inherently social actors, capable of linking to others
like them, and to interested institutions and guiding ideologies. Why is a social process.
32
Conclusion: It is time to see brands as more than summed attitudes floating in
preference factor space, and see them as complex bundles of meaning, where
accommodation and negotiation between marketer and groups of consumer is
instrumental, and meaningful to both parities, to the marketplace, its actors, and society at
large. Further, this is not just about the fanatical. More and more consumers of every
stripe are gaining more of their information about brands through non-marketer
controlled channels in a way that is unprecedented, and while brands were always
socially constructed, the power mix of their builders has changed dramatically. Hardly
brands with small shares, Pepsi and Coca-Cola have brand communities. The P&G’s, the
Coke’s, and the H.P.’, just to mention a few, actively acknowledge, court and seek to
“manage” brand community. It is not industry that has been slow to see brand
community’s power.
Ultimately brand communities matter because they look and behave like other
forms of community, and community is an essential human phenomenon. These are
socially embedded and entrenched entities, and thus extremely durable. Brand
communities and other social aggregations of empowered consumers are not going away.
In fact, society’s need for trust (Cook 200x) and security (Bauman 200x) have never been
more profound. This provides us with heretofore unknown research opportunities. But,
this requires new thinking, and conceptualizations. The old will not do.
Brands are not trivial to human existence. As branded things grew more important
in people’s lives and consumption more central to everyday life, community did not
subside, but began to coalesce around them. The importance of this should not be
underestimated. The increasing legitimacy of consumer society has changed the world. In
33
short, consumption and brands matter. Brands and the talk of brands are everywhere. Yet,
this ubiquity does not counter their importance, just the opposite. Brands are
constellations of meaning, and meaning that cannot be cleanly (or otherwise) detached
from culture and history. Brands are not just names of marketed things, but increasingly
part of social fabric, increasingly centers of social organization, and obviously socially
embedded things. Our models, our thinking, and our practice need to catch up with this
reality.
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