e-tribalized marketing? - brandthroposophy: a marketing, social

European Management Journal Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 252–264, 1999 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reservedPergamon

Printed in Great Britain0263-2373/99 $20.00 1 0.00PII: S0263-2373(99)00004-3

E-Tribalized Marketing?:The Strategic Implicationsof Virtual Communitiesof ConsumptionROBERT V. KOZINETS, J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, NorthwesternUniversity, Illinois

On the Internet, electronic tribes structured aroundconsumer interests have been growing rapidly. Tobe effective in this new environment, managersmust consider the strategic implications of the exist-ence of different types of both virtual communityand community participation. Contrasted with data-base-driven relationship marketing, marketersseeking success with consumers in virtual com-munities should consider that they: (1) are moreactive and discerning; (2) are less accessible to one-on-one processes, and (3) provide a wealth of valu-able cultural information. Strategies for effectivelytargeting more desirable types of virtual communi-ties and types of community membersinclude: interaction-based segmen-tation, fragmentation-based seg-

European Management Journal Vol 17 No 3 June 1999252

mentation, opting communities, paying-for-atten-tion, and building networks by giving productaway. 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rightsreserved

Introduction

More than three decades ago, Marshall McLuhanexpounded that ‘cool’ and inclusive ‘electric media’

would ‘retribalize’ humansociety into clusters of affili-

ation (see, e.g. McLuhan,1970). With the advent of

‘cyberspace,’

E-TRIBALIZED MARKETING?: THE STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES OF CONSUMPTION

networked computers and the proliferation of com-puter-mediated communications, McLuhan’s predic-tions seem to be coming true. Not only are peopleretribalizing, they are ‘e-tribalizing.’ Networked com-puters and the communications they enable are driv-ing enormous social changes. Networked computersempower people around the world as never beforeto disregard the limitations of geography and time,find another and gather together in groups based ona wide range of cultural and subcultural interests andsocial affiliations. Because many of these affiliationsare based upon consumption activities, including e-commerce, these e-tribes are of substantial impor-tance to marketing and business strategists. Mar-keters who rigorously understand them and theopportunities they present will be able to positionthemselves to benefit from fundamental changes thatare occurring in the ways people decide on whichproducts and services to consume, and how theyactually consume them.

By the year 2000, it is estimated that over 40 millionpeople worldwide will participate in ‘virtual com-munities’ of one type or another. Research hasrevealed that new users’ online activities tend torevolve around rapid surfing activities and e-mail.However, the longer an Internet user spends online,the more likely it is that they will gravitate to anonline group of one sort or another. Once a consumerconnects and interacts with others online, it is likelythat they will become a recurrent member of one ormore of these gatherings, and increasingly turn tothem as a source of information and social interac-tion.

These gatherings have been variously termed‘online,’ ‘virtual,’ or ‘computer-mediated’ communi-ties. The term ‘virtual community,’ was coined byInternet pioneer Howard Rheingold (1993), whodefined them as ‘social aggregations that emergefrom the net when enough people carry on... publicdiscussions long enough, with sufficient human feel-ing, to form webs of personal relationships in cyber-space.’ McKinsey and Company consultants ArthurArmstrong and John Hagel (Armstrong and Hagel,1996) have termed groups of consumers united by acommon interest ‘communities of interest.’

In spite of the prevalence of the term community todescribe these groups, there has been considerabledebate regarding its appropriateness. Online groupsoften never physically meet. Many participants main-tain their anonymity. Many interactions are fleetingand ostensibly functional. Nevertheless, research intothe diverse and full social interactions of online con-sumers has revealed that the online environment canunder many circumstances be used as a medium ofmeaningful social exchange (e.g. Clerc, 1996; Rheing-old, 1993; Turkle, 1995). The term virtual communi-ties usefully refers to online groups of people whoeither share norms of behavior or certain definingpractices, who actively enforce certain moral stan-

European Management Journal Vol 17 No 3 June 1999 253

dards, who intentionally attempt to found a com-munity, or who simply coexist in close proximity toone another (Komito, 1998). While sharing computer-oriented cyberculture and consumption-oriented cul-tures of consumption, a number of these groupingsdemonstrate more than the mere transmission ofinformation, but ‘the sacred ceremony that drawspersons together in fellowship and commonality’(Carey, 1989, p. 18). Given this, the term communityappears appropriate if used in its most fundamentalsense as a group of people who share social interac-tion, social ties, and a common ‘space’ (albeit a com-puter-mediated or virtual ‘cyberspace’ in this case).

E-tribes or virtual communities: whatever onechooses to call them, at least one thing seems assured.With 51 per cent of Internet users using the Webdaily, and exponential global growth rates for newusers, prodigious growth in the quantity, interests,and influence of virtual communities is guaranteed.Unlikely to replace physical encounters, or infor-mation from traditional media, online interactionsare becoming an important supplement to social andconsumption behavior. Consumers are adding onlineinformation gathering and social activities into anextended repertoire that also includes their face-to-face interactions. Online interactions and alignmentsincreasingly affect their behavior as citizens, as com-munity members and as consumers. The prospect ofadvancing marketing thought and practice may comefrom an enhanced understanding of these groupsof consumers.

A detailed account of the strategic implications of vir-tual communities will be provided herein, informedby four years of empirical and conceptual researchon the online interactions of groups of consumers.New developments in consumer behavior researchand marketing will be conceptualized, focusing onthe revolutionary changes wrought by online interac-tions. First, terms will be defined, and several differ-ent aspects of these groups will be theorized. Next,these concepts will inform a comparative analysisbetween the ways in which traditional ‘relationshipmarketing’ theory has been implemented online, andthe difference suggested by a newer frameworkbased on the existence and utility of ‘retribalized’ vir-tual communities of consumption. Strategic optionswill be explored and discussed. The final sectionoverviews the practical implications of these changesfor a revised online marketing strategy and suggestsappropriate cyberspace locations through which topursue it.

Theoretical Basis

Virtual Communities of Consumption

Online, at this very moment, millions of consumersare forming into groups that ‘communicate social


information and create and codify group-specificmeanings, socially negotiate group-specific identities,form relationships which span from the playfullyantagonistic to the deeply romantic and which movebetween the network and face-to-face interaction,and create norms which serve to organize interactionand to maintain desirable social climates’ (Clerc,1996, pp. 45–46). Many of these groupings areimplicitly and explicitly structured around consump-tion and marketing interests (see, e.g. Kozinets, 1997,1998; Kozinets and Handelman, 1998). ‘Virtual com-munities of consumption’ are a specific subgroup ofvirtual communities that explicitly center upon con-sumption-related interests. They can be defined as‘affiliative groups whose online interactions arebased upon shared enthusiasm for, and knowledgeof, a specific consumption activity or related groupof activities.’ For example, the members of an e-mailmailing list sent out to collectors of Barbie dollswould constitute a virtual community of consump-tion, as would the regular posters to a bulletin boarddevoted to connoisseurship of fine wine.

Meta-analyses of computer-mediated communicationindicates that Internet users progress from initiallyasocial information gathering to increasingly affili-ative social activities (Walther, 1995). At first, anInternet user will merely ‘browse’ informationsources, ‘lurking’ (unobtrusively reading, but notwriting) to learn about a consumption interest. Forexample, a new Internet user buying an automobilemight simply visit the official site of the car manufac-turer. However, as the online consumer become moresophisticated in her Internet use, she will begin tovisit sites that have ‘third party’ information, andeventually may make online contact with consumersof that automobile. Reading about others’ experi-ences with the automobile, she may question individ-uals, or the entire group of virtual community mem-bers, and eventually become a frequent or occasionalparticipant in group discussions.

As depicted in Figure 1, the pattern of relationshipdevelopment in virtual communities of consumptionis one in which consumption knowledge isdeveloped in concert with social relations (Walther,1992, 1995). Consumption knowledge is learned

Figure 1 Developmental Progression of Individual Member Participation in Online Communities of Consumption


alongside knowledge of the online group’s culturalnorms, specialized language and concepts, and theidentities of experts and other group members(Kozinets, 1998). Cultural cohesion ripens throughshared stories and empathy. A group structure ofpower and status relationships is shared. What beganprimarily as a search for information transforms intoa source of community and understanding.

The formation of lasting identification as a memberof a virtual community of consumption depends lar-gely on two non-independent factors. First is therelationship that the person has with the consump-tion activity. The more central the consumptionactivity is to a person’s psychological self-concept, i.e.the more important the symbols of this particularform of consumption are to the person’s self-image,then the more likely the person will be to pursue andvalue membership in a community (virtual or face-to-face) that is centered on this type of consumption.The second factor is the intensity of the socialrelationships the person possesses with other mem-bers of the virtual community. The two factors willoften be interrelated. For example, imagine a youngmale who is extremely devoted to collecting soccermemorabilia and who lives in a rural community. Ifhe has Internet access, and has few people in his face-to-face community who share his passion for soccermemorabilia, then he is much more likely to seek outand build social bonds with the members of a virtualcommunity that shares his consumption passion.

The two factors — relations with the consumptionactivity, and relations with the virtual community —are separate enough that they can guide our under-standing of four distinct member ‘types,’ as shownin Figure 2. Rather than simply agglomerating allmembers of virtual communities into a single cate-gory, this approach allows much more subtlety intargeting and approach. The first of the four typesare the tourists who lack strong social ties to thegroup, and maintain only a superficial or passinginterest in the consumption activity. Next are theminglers who maintain strong social ties, but who areonly perfunctorily interested in the central consump-tion activity. Devotees are opposite to this: they main-tain a strong interest in and enthusiasm for the con-


Figure 2 Types of Virtual Community of ConsumptionMember

sumption activity, but have few social attachments tothe group. Finally, insiders are those who have strongsocial ties and strong personal ties to the consump-tion activity.

From a marketing strategy perspective, it is the devo-tees and the insiders who tend to represent the mostimportant targets for marketing. The reason for thisis in the classic ‘Pareto’ rule of 80–20 which is operat-ive in almost all consumer marketing. In many pro-duct and service categories, approximately eighty percent of most products and services are consumed byapproximately twenty percent of their customer base.For example, in the US beer market, 16 per cent ofthe beer drinkers guzzle down 88 per cent of the beer.The segment of these so-called heavy users, or loyalusers, are the core of any industry and any business,and are usually the heart of any successful marketingeffort. Preliminary research reveals that thisimportant core segment is represented online in vir-tual communities by insiders and devotees. Whendevoted, loyal users obtain Internet access, they tendto join or form virtual communities of consumption.In addition, the virtual community itself may propa-gate the development of loyalty and heavy usage byculturally and socially reinforcing consumption. Inthis way, tourists and minglers can be socialized and‘upgraded’ to insiders and devotees.

In general, a virtual community member will pro-gress from being a visitor to an insider as she gainsonline experience and discovers groups whose con-sumption activities assuage her needs. To a marketer,the amount of time she spends in group communi-cation is critical. With search engines, this is fortu-nately easily assessed. What the marketer will findas a general trend is that the primary mode of interac-tion used in the group by this member moves froma factual information type of exchange to one thateffortlessly mixes factual information and social, orrelational, information. With an understanding of thedifferent social interaction modes used in virtualcommunities of consumption, marketers can engage


in a strategy of interaction-based segmentation. Differ-entiating the types of interactions prevalent in agiven virtual community of consumption will allowmarketers to better formulate strategies that recog-nize the differential opportunities and needs of devo-tees, insiders, minglers and tourists (see Figure 3).Understanding four primary interaction modes —informational, relational, recreational, and transform-ational — will allow an interaction-based segmen-tation that can help to pinpoint the virtual communi-ties with the highest potential for positiveconsumer response.

Because they are generally uninterested in buildingonline social ties, devotees and tourists tend to usepredominantly the factual informational mode ofinteraction. In this interaction mode, it is clear thatthey use online communication as a means for theaccomplishment of other ends, for example,informing themselves about the availability of a cer-tain new product, or facilitating the trading of a col-lectible. The social orientation of such communi-cations are clearly individualistic. Communicationsfocus on short-term personal gain, either by sacrific-ing or — much more commonly — by ignoring theneeds of other community members, such as simplyusing members’ resources and not returning any-thing of benefit to those individuals or to the group.

Minglers and insiders tend to be far more social andrelational in their group communication. To them,the social contact of online communication is in itselfa valuable reinforcement. This social orientationfocuses on longer-term personal gain either throughcooperation with other community of consumptionmembers or through the delineation and enforcementof communal standards. An example of this mode ofinteraction would be members who maintain an e-mail newsletter or contribute frequently to it, ormembers who write a detailed FAQ (‘FrequentlyAsked Questions’ document), or obligingly answerthe questions of new users (‘newbies’).

Figure 3 Online Community of Consumption Interac-tion Modes

Devotees may not be loyal

to a particular community,

although they may be loyal to

a particular form of

consumption


These underlying categories expose the orientationsand objectives of members that motivate their onlinecommunication. They also reveal two otherimportant modes of interaction. First is a recreationalmode in which online communication is the objec-tive, but this communication is pursued for primarilyselfish or short-term satisfaction. Because they valuesocial intercourse, and because their social relationstend to stay on a more super-ficial level, minglers and tour-ists tend to predominantly usethis interaction mode. A goodexample of the recreationalmode is the often-vacuoussmall talk consumers pursue inmany online chat rooms. Thissmall talk generally progressesfrom greetings, to askingabout someone’s geographicallocation, to asking for theirphysical description — and often includes a consider-able amount of flirtation. The second mode of interac-tion is the transformational mode in which con-sumers communicate in order to attain some otherobjective that is focused on longer-term social gain.An example of this would be the groups of consumeractivists that are appearing ever more frequently inonline groups (Kozinets, 1997; Kozinets and Handel-man, 1998; Zelwietro, 1998). Transformation is mostoften actively pursued by insiders, whose organiza-tional skills will empower their concern about con-sumption activities. Transformational activities willalso be followed by devotees whose consumptioninterests will inspire them to want to seek positivechange. More details on the activist and resistant tac-tics that these consumers devise and circulate in vir-tual communities will be provided in a later section.In the following section, we use these insights under-lying the spectrum of online social and asocialbehaviors, the four types of virtual community ofconsumption members, and the four types of virtualinteraction modes to outline a framework of ‘retribal-ized’ marketing that enhances our understanding ofonline communal relationships.

Relationship Marketing and E-Tribal Marketing

The growing influence and range of social activitiesof virtual communities of consumption add nuanceto marketer’s existing understandings of consumerbehavior and marketing, suggesting additional con-siderations for strategizing and decision-making. Inparticular, it suggests that marketers follow segmen-tation strategies that differentiate different types of‘e-tribes’ and their members by playing close atten-tion to the types of computer-mediated interactionsthey engage in. Using this form of communal seg-mentation allows managers to manage their relation-ships with entire virtual communities in a way thatwill help to avoid the heavy-handed, inappropriate,and unwelcome marketing approaches currently


prevalent using computer-mediated communications(see also Armstrong and Hagel, 1996).

Relationship marketing is an extremely influentialmodel guiding marketing practice. In its broadestsense, relationship marketing uses the metaphor ofan organization–customer ‘relationship,’ and pre-scribes that the organization must foster and nurture

a mutually beneficial continu-ing relationship with customers(e.g. Capulskyt and Wolfe,1991; Shani and Chalasani,1992). Loyalty-based segmen-tation extends the relationshipmarketing framework by focus-ing on the type of relationshipan organization has with itscustomers. Loyalty-based seg-mentation suggests that therelationship can be assessed in

terms of customer loyalty and managed as a resourcefor the betterment of the organization.

It would be folly to argue with the wisdom of therelationship marketing perspective in general, or theutility of loyalty-based segmentation. However, anexploration of e-tribal behavior as it actually occursmight serve to enhance the understandings of whatwe might term ‘virtual relationship marketing’ — therelationship marketing model as it has beenimplemented online. Virtual relationship marketinghas been imported with several restraining andunrealistic assumptions that ignore the social realityof virtual communities of consumption. In particular,the consumer behavior of virtual communities addssubtlety to the assumptions of solitary and silent con-sumers that undergird online relationship marketing.In addition, the precepts of loyalty-based segmen-tation can be enhanced by some of the insights of e-tribal marketing.

In considering the different types of virtual com-munities of consumption and their different mem-bers it becomes apparent, for instance, that devoteesmay not be loyal to a particular community, althoughthey may be loyal to a particular form of consump-tion. Loyalty might therefore be assessed not merelyin economic terms of retention or switching, but incultural and experiential terms of depth of experienceand emotional devotion. Consider next an insiderwho has a large amount of influence on the membersof a particular virtual community. If this personswitches from devotion to one product to another,because their consumption activities and justifi-cations are public they tend to have important conse-quences on the actions of many others. In my ownfieldwork, I have observed several times the phenom-enon of a community leader changing their tastes,and then actively seeking to ‘convert’ others. This col-lective switching behavior often culminated in div-ided loyalties and group defections. Thus, althoughan insider’s own personal, individual worth to the


corporation could be assessed by loyalty-based seg-mentation to be minimal, their value as an ‘influ-encer’ in a virtual community is actually quite high.It is only by recognizing such a person as an insider,one whose interactions are high in both informationaland social exchanges, that marketers can strategicallydeal with such eventualities.

The revised framework of relationship marketing inenvirons of retribalized ‘cyberspace’ virtual com-munities of consumption is termed ‘Virtual Commu-nal Marketing,’ or VCM. The marketing strategies ofVCM are informed by theorizing and naturalisticobservation of online consumers in social interaction,as well as by the principles of network economies.VCM is based upon three general assumptions thatextend and add complexity to prior assumptionsunderlying the basic principles of relationship mar-keting. First, online consumers are not merely pass-ive recipients of consumption information, but activecreators. Second, customer relationships with mar-keting companies manifest not simply as binodalrelationships but as multinodal networks. Finally, thevalue of online data gathering about consumers liesnot merely in its unidimensional aspects, such assales and demographics, but in its multidimensionalpotentialities. The following sections provide detailson these fundamental shifts that add complexity tovirtual relationship marketing. The new VCM stra-tegies suggested by this shift will be elaboratedfurther in the concluding section.

Consumers: Active Online Participants

Online, relationship marketing has been oper-ationalized as an extension of information technologyand micromarketing pursuits. This has concentratedonline marketing on the many advantages of datab-ase marketing. While useful in many contexts, thisperspective might prove unnecessarily limiting insocial environs characterized by the spawning andproliferation of virtual communities of consumption.Database marketing focuses upon the constructionand continuous updating of a store of relevant infor-mation about current and potential customers. Thisinformation presupposes that consumers tastes arefairly simple and stable matters that can be encodedand processed by information technology. It isexpected that the ‘mass customized’ computer-gener-ated marketing programs devised by database mar-keting will be relatively well-received by individuals.Database marketing assumes that the information theorganization collects about consumers is moreimportant not only than the information that con-sumers collect about themselves, but the informationthat they collect about it. In other words, databasemarketing assumes a ‘passive’ relationship, perhapstoo much based on the ‘audience’ model of televisionand direct advertising. Organizations do manyseductive things to consumers, and consumers have


a fairly truncated response set: they either buy, con-tinue to buy, or stop buying.

The actual portrait of consumption drawn by VCMis quite different. In virtual communities of consump-tion, consumers are active, deeply involved in articul-ating and re-articulating their consumption activities.Insiders and devotees are especially involved in set-ting standards, negotiating them with other mem-bers, redrawing group boundaries in terms of con-sumption, and constantly assessing the corporationswhose products are important to them. Groups arenot arranged as simple segments that correspond tomarketers quantitatively-derived schemes, but asgroups whose members share certain media forms,social communication modes and consumptiontastes. These groups often differentiate and break offinto new groups that may or may not retain linkswith their old consumption comrades. When neces-sary, virtual community members also engage intransformational interactions aimed directly at themarketer. These interactions are not merely passive,but highly active, full of nuance and multidimension-ality. These findings suggest that effective marketingto virtual communities of consumption shouldaccount for two of their most important character-istics: (1) the tendency of seemingly uniform groupsto split into factions, and (2) the politicizing of virtualcommunities of consumers.

‘Factions.’ As Internet usage proliferates, and the con-stitution of virtual communities of consumptionbecomes more representative of the mainstream, vir-tual communities are increasingly going to be theplace to access devotees and insiders — devoted,loyal, heavy users of a given product or service.While access to them may become simpler, the onlinemarketer’s job overall is in the process of becomingsubstantially more complex. One of the chief chal-lenges, and opportunities, facing marketers in thisenvironment will be fragmentation. The online worldpresents a variety of forums and means for socialexpression, each of which present challenges andopportunities that will reach to the heart of the con-sumer–marketer relationship.

Marketers of the loyalty-based segmentation modelseek to differentiate consumers by their loyalty. Con-sumers, however, differentiate on a variety ofaspects, many of which seemingly have nothing to dowith production or marketing actions. Loyalty-basedsegmentation is based upon switching behavior andits flipside, retention. Yet, as Knox (1998, p. 732)insightfully points out, ‘loyalty is retention with atti-tude.’ Customer involvement in the consumptionactivity is truly at the basis of consumer loyalty. Thusa detailed and dynamic understanding of the bases ofcustomer loyalty is vital to all relationship marketing.The strategy of fragmentation-based segmentation canhelp to achieve this complex aim.

Fragmentation-based segmentation is based upon the

The existence of united

groups of online consumers

implies that power is shifting

away from marketers and

flowing to consumers


observation that, however united virtual communitymembers may seem about a specific form of con-sumption, within the group there are importantdivisions. Ostensibly singular groups, upon closerexamination, turn out to be multitudes of niches,micro-segments, and micro-micro-segments, all ofwhich have aspects in common, and important —sometimes crucial — points of differentiation.Although organized at one level of interest, com-munity members endlessly re-organize themselvesinto increasingly identity-specific ‘factions.’ By fol-lowing the different ‘tasteworlds’ of virtual com-munity factions, marketers are led to new productenhancements and ideas. Fragmentation-based seg-mentation also leads to the realization of new cus-tomer segments. Most importantly of all, it leads tomuch richer understanding of the way in which aparticular product or service is actually given mean-ing and appreciated in social acts such as consump-tion. Understanding this complexity and diversity isa gargantuan task, but one that promises to rewardthe astute marketer with a much clearer basis forcomprehending the varied and shared bases of loyalty.

For example, stratified groups of coffee fans on thealt.coffee newsgroup will debate en masse the meritsof various strains of coffee beans, of methods of prep-aration, of coffee machines, andof brands such as Starbucks.Each species of bean, each pro-cessing mode, each machineand each brand will have itsenthusiasts, and there will ofcourse be considerable overlap.How can contemporary mar-keters handle such diversity?Clearly, judicious segmentationis called for. The similaritiesbetween the various ‘factions’should be explored and analyzed to determine howheterogeneous or homogeneous they might be. Therich information present in virtual communities ofconsumption will enable resourceful strategists tosegment while simultaneously appealing to theunited group at a complex and polysemic symboliclevel. This polysemic level — a level of rich, multiplemeanings — can help marketers consolidate brandidentity with consumer identity.

Researchers of consumption meanings over the lastdecade have offered persuasive evidence that brandloyalty is based on social needs: the desire to believeand to belong. The information readily available invirtual communities allows marketers to focus on thecomplex and vitally important cultural relationshipbetween personal identity, social identity, and brandidentity. An analysis of this information will offerthem important forums through which to pursue acollective positioning that both bonds communitiestogether, and helps them to differentiate themselvesfrom one another. Combined, these strategies cansupplement the database marketing view of passive


online consumers with a VCM perspective that viewsthem as active, rapidly-changing, and multidimen-sional. The results enrich database marketing withhuman cultural understandings, helping online mar-keters stay strategically focused.

‘Activism.’ Diversity notwithstanding, the singularexperienced reality of online social interaction is as aplace where groups of consumers with similar inter-ests actively seek and exchange information aboutprices, quality, manufacturers, retailers, companyethics, company history, product history, and otherconsumption-related characteristics. Whether mar-keters interpret the new virtually communal con-sumer’s behavior as cynical or clever, they will haveto adapt to it. Empowered by information exchangeand emboldened by relational interactions, con-sumers will use their online activities to activelyjudge consumption offerings, and increasingly resistwhat they see as misdirected mass mailings, or theironline variant, ‘spam’ (see, e.g. Kozinets and Handel-man, 1998). Companies must pay increasing attentionto their existing reputations, and to the messagestheir database and other marketing efforts are send-ing to virtual communities of consumers. The resultsare likely to be extremely informative of the type ofrelationship consumers believe the organization is

attempting to forge with them.

The existence of united groupsof online consumers impliesthat power is shifting awayfrom marketers and flowing toconsumers. For while con-sumers are increasingly sayingyes to the Internet, to electroniccommerce and to online mar-keting efforts of many kinds,they are also using the medium

to say ‘no’ to forms of marketing they find invasiveor unethical. Virtual communities are becomingimportant arenas for organizing consumer resistance(Kozinets and Handelman, 1998). A multitude ofcommunities of consumption have been used for‘transformational’ interaction aimed at increasing thebetterment of the group of consumers as a com-munity, very often by undermining the efforts ofthose who would profit at their expense.

Online acts of consumer dissent and organizing arejust beginning, but are increasing as Internet usersbecome attuned to the inherent political possibilitiesof the medium (Zelwietro, 1998). As virtual com-munities of consumption build ties between devoted,loyal consumers of products, scrutiny of and wari-ness towards the marketers of those products height-ens. The more online community of consumptionmembers communicate with one another through theInternet, the more bold they feel about challengingmarketers and marketing claims. The more activethey become as consumers, the more activist theiractivity.


One of the most infamous examples thus far is theso-called ‘Foxing’ Incident. Historically, fans of NewsCorp’s Fox Broadcasting television shows, such asThe Simpsons, had gone to considerable time andeffort to create and post their own non-profit WorldWide Web homepages dedicated to these shows. In1996, the network began a corporate ‘crackdown’ ofthese ‘unofficial’ sites by sending out legal cease-and-desist letters demanding that fans remove trade-marked pictures and sound clips from their sites (seealso McCracken, 1997). Fairly quickly, fans began torally online. Once informational and recreationalinteractions were replaced by increasingly transform-ational activity. These consumers wanted the powerto use the symbols that were significant to them.They organized letter writing campaigns. They boy-cotted licensed merchandise. Apparently, Fox and itslicensees felt the effects, because they seem to haveceased their legal actions. The result, though, is a tar-nished relationship, and the promise of more con-sumer activism and resistance to come. The market-ing efforts of companies such as Fox are ostensiblybased on the precepts of relationship marketing.However, in practice, the active and vital world ofvirtual communities confounds organizations, lead-ing them to punish and outrage some of the mostloyal customers of all. The reason for this managerialmyopia seems rooted in the fundamental assumptionthat virtual community members are passive recipi-ents of consumption information. Instead, organizinginto virtual communities empowers consumers, andelicits may of their most active and activist tend-encies.

The Messengers Are the Medium

Online, relationship marketing has been guided bythe ‘one-to-one’ marketing concept. This has oftenbeen attempted using ‘innovative’ media such as theInternet. One-to-one marketing presumes that a cus-tomer can be efficaciously isolated into a singlegrouping, ‘understood’ by marketers through effi-cacious segmentation, and then marketed an offeringthat has been customized to his or her individualneeds. While one-to-one marketing is an excitingtheoretical concept, in social reality the consumerswho are a part of virtual communities of consump-tion are neither as isolated nor as static in their tastesas the concept presumes them to be.

The idea of ‘one to one’ assumes a simple two node,or binodal, path of communication between one mar-keting organization and one consumer. This was lar-gely true in television or motion picture advertisingin which a single message was broadcast to a largenumber of apparently relatively passive and uncon-nected individuals. Yet the advantages of networkedcomputers and computer-mediated communicationsderive directly from their ability to provide not onlytwo-way communications, but connections betweenconsumers. Binodal models of one-to-one marketing


are currently in the process of being succeeded bymodels that also incorporate the one-to-many andmany-to-many communications of multimodal net-works (Hoffman and Novak, 1996). Through onlineword-of-mouth, consumers often exchange andtransact with companies only after mediating‘official’ marketer-derived information with ‘unof-ficial’ social information. Even in face-to-face com-munications, the mediating influence of these unof-ficial ‘influencers’ is widely recognized. Virtualcommunities of consumption provide forums wher-eby the influence of influencers may potentially beexponentially increased.

In communications occurring by way of a simplebinodal path, the main challenge to marketing isovercoming the ‘noise’ in the environment so thatcustomers’ genuine needs can be discerned. Interac-tions occurring within the virtual community, how-ever, are an influential, cultural source of this ‘noise.’Astute marketers find not only that online consumersare influenced by virtual communities, but that theyare in fact a part of their communities. Marketing toan entire community becomes a realistic onlineoption. VMC therefore becomes a process that com-bines the customization of single node marketingapproaches with the appreciation for communal con-sumption concerns that multiple nodes evoke.

Communal Consumption. With location and accessi-bility ‘virtually’ obliterated, loyal consumers areincreasingly creating their tastes together, as a com-munity. This is a revolutionary change. Online, loyalconsumers evaluate quality together. They negotiateconsumption standards. Moderating product mean-ings, they brand and re-brand together. Individualsplace great weight on the judgments of their fellowcommunity of consumption members, particularlythe expert judgment of insiders and devotees. Theresponse of the collective acts as a force that mediatesand complicates the relationships between marketingorganization and individual consumer. Collectiveresponses temper individual reception of marketingcommunications, even one-on-one direct marketing.Online, marketers do not speak to individuals, but toa group. This calls for advanced, yet subtle, strategiesthat gently co-opt communities by sharing importantinformation — and perhaps associated ‘insider’ privi-leges — with their most influential and importantmembers.

For example, on The Official X-files Home Page(http://www.thex-files.com), fans of the popular Foxtelevision series not only debate the merits of eachepisode, they also critique and promote the mostrecent licensed merchandise related to the show. Onless official newsgroup boards, such as alt.tv.x-file,they offer one another pricing and quality hints, and‘rip off alerts.’ They pool suggestions for the bestretail locations to find low prices on particular pro-ducts. They buy, sell and trade. They create reviewsof products, giving informed, justified ‘thumbs up’

Attention marketing

suggests that marketers go

where the interest flows


or ‘thumbs down’ evaluations of current software,games, comic books, trading cards, musical albumsand magazines (see Kozinets, 1997). Upon thousandsof official and unofficial virtual communities, certainX-file fans act as very public arbiters of communitytaste. By staying in good stand-ing with these fans, marketerscan have wide-ranging effectsthat inform and mediate con-sumer demand and consump-tion meanings across largenumbers of others.

Interactions based on information, shift knowledgeand power from marketers to consumers. Organiza-tions of consumers can make successful demands onmarketers that individuals cannot. Online marketerswill need to realize that, where virtual communitiesof consumption are involved, they are communicat-ing not only with many ‘ones,’ but also with many‘manys.’ ‘The customer’ increasingly will need to beenvisioned and modeled not only as an individual,but as a complex and interrelated global network.This global network is comprised of series of com-municating consumers who draw on each others’knowledge and experience to evaluate the qualityand worthiness of product offerings and the honestyand integrity of companies and their marketing com-munications. Increasingly, the offer that is made tosome will be made to all, and this necessitates anopenness, inclusiveness and forthrightness that one-to-one marketing, by its very nature, might find easyto overlook.

The battle cry within consumer behavior for the lastdecade has been that marketing must move beyondits individualistic orientation to more cultural andcollective types of understandings (see, e.g. Sherry,1991). Virtual communities of consumption providemultiple opportunities for marketers to move beyonda simple binodal isolation of consumers. In order totruly understand customer needs, consumption mustbe seen from a social context that encompasses multi-nodal relations. Greater understanding of the waysconsumers actually apply products and services totheir lives will in this way be gleaned. An importantresult will be that the expert insiders and devoteesof virtual communities will become the importantinfluencers who, as with the loyals and habituals ofloyalty-based segmentation, will be courted by per-spicacious contemporary marketers.

Loyalty, Retention and Attention

Finally, much relationship marketing online has beenbased on the assumption of the utility of lifetimevalue assessment of individual customers, often gath-ered through analysis of sales data by customer. Thisprocess encompasses newer techniques such as loy-alty-based segmentation. One of the underlyingassumptions of the operationalization of this prin-ciple online is that highly truncated consumer infor-


mation such as actual sales is pre-eminent. However,while of great use to segmentation schemes, actualsales data by itself generally offers quite little that isvaluable to guide marketers in remedial or proactivedecision-making. Information on loyalty or switching

tells little marketers very littleabout the reasons why loyaltyor switching behavior occurs.

It is likely that sales infor-mation is valued as pre-emi-nent because it leads to cost–benefit analyses of customer

retention that are easily analyzed using informationprocessing software. However, the quantitative datacurrently collected through online information gath-ering — i.e. sales, perhaps demographics — tendsto be quite unidimensional. Virtual communities,in contrast, provide at little or no cost a wealthof much more multidimensional information. Forinstance, marketers using newsgroup archives andsearch engines (for example, Dejanews athttp://www.dejanews.com) can sketch a detailedcultural ‘profile’ of any individual consumer who hasposted information to a newsgroup. The resultingportrait of communal interests can contribute notonly to an understanding of interconnectionsbetween seemingly disparate forms of consumption,but also to a much more thorough understandingof the amounts and reasons for customer(dis)satisfaction than can simple sales data. Valuingand attending to data that retains the multidimen-sionality of its essential ‘qualities’ (i.e. ‘qualitative’data) will guide marketers to where valuable con-sumers are focusing their attention.

Author Michael Goldhaber has said that ‘As theattention economy becomes dominant, advertisingwill exist only to attract and direct attention, becausemoney will be obsolete.’ Virtual community guruHoward Rheingold has advised net-heads to ‘Payattention to where people are paying attention.’Attention marketing is based on the essential notionthat the scarcest commodity of the information ageis not time nor information, but human attention.Attention marketing suggests that marketers gowhere the interest flows. Online, with instantaneousgratification and a paucity of other cues, this is oftengoing to lead to strong brands, be they householdbrands with strong brand identities, such asMarlboro, or Levis, or Coca Cola. It is also going tolead to the vibrant and contemporary symbolism thatbrands new entertainment, fashion, celebrities,sports, music and other leisure products and services.Consumer marketing must be linked to symbols thatprovide meaning and gather attention and in virtualcommunities of consumption the many insiders anddevotees provide a wealth of information about whatit is that makes consumption especially special forthem.

The most intensely loyal communities online are theones whose members exhibit a passion for some cer-


tain consumption object. Whether it is a collectible, afood, a celebrity, or a television show, the membersof these virtual communities of consumption haveimplicated their own identities deeply and lastinglywith the consumption object and its symbolism. Inan activity that began almost with the birth of theInternet, fans of the science fiction television showStar Trek have set up over 80,000 web-sites andgroups devoted to the television show they feel sostrongly about. Communing in a shared passion isthe essence of truly communal community, be it vir-tual or face-to-face. The more marketers can providevirtual community of consumption members withthe meaning, connection, inspiration, aspiration, andeven mystery and sense of purpose that is related totheir shared consumption identities, the more thoseconsumers will become and remain loyal.

Pay-for-Attention Marketing may offer a transitionalstrategy that bridges one-to-one and communalonline marketing. Although it still approaches cus-tomers with a one-to-one type of proposition, Pay-for-Attention Marketing acknowledges the activenature of online consumption. In this form of market-ing, the unsanctioned interruption of TV or radiobroadcasts, or an imposing billboard, gives way to amodel in which marketers offer incentives such asgames, contests and prizes in exchange for a person’spermission to tell them more about a product or ser-vice. For example, eyewear maker Bausch andLomb’s online ‘The Eyes Have It’ sweepstakesinvolved a ‘trivia game’ in which participants couldwin a cruise trip or other prizes. During the course ofcommunicating in the ‘game,’ consumers graduallylearned more about B&L’s products, while revealinginformation about themselves. The idea behind thegame was to enable marketers and consumers tobuild a long-term relationship based on increasingattention to one another’s information needs.

Failing to acknowledge the new and innovative mod-els of attention-seeking, or the vast storehouse of freeconsumer research information present in obser-vation of informational interaction, virtual relation-ship marketing that relies exclusively upon the con-strained elements of ‘quantitative’ data misses all ofthe rich emotional and textural ‘qualities’ that makeconsumption a meaningful cultural experience. Byadding this information back in, so that qualitativeand quantitative online information work in concert,it becomes possible to more thoroughly understandhow consumers view the company and its products,and where the products fit into consumers’ entirelived experience. There can probably be no moreinsightful and solid a foundation for relationshipmarketing than this.

In summary, there are three fundamental assump-tions that distinguish the newer ‘virtual communalmarketing’ practices from the traditional practices of‘virtual relationship marketing.’ Virtual communalmarketing centers on consumers as (1) more proac-


tive and (2) more communally influenced, and (3) theinformation that they provide online as more multifa-ceted than more passive, one-to-one, and constraineddatabase marketing practices. In the following sec-tion, we will explore additional strategic implicationsof these differences.

Implications and Specifications

The race is on for contemporary marketers to under-stand and build connections with virtual communi-ties of consumption before more net-savvy competi-tors can discover how to bond with them. Internetinformation access and interactivity are behind a fun-damental shift occurring right now in the way peoplethink about their purchasing and consumption activi-ties. Just as Japanese car manufacturers shifted thecar market towards reliability and fuel-efficiency inthe 1980s, and American car manufacturers shifted itback towards safety in the 1990s, so too are massivemarket instabilities currently underway among infor-mation technology-savvy industries and companies.

The victors in the new competitive (cyber)space willbe those with the keenest understanding of the revol-utionary implications of the medium, including thealtered consumer behaviors of members of virtualcommunities of consumption. Wise marketers willrealize that online consumers are much more active,participative, resistant, activist, loquacious, social,and communitarian than they have previously beenthought to be. The insights these marketers bring totheir marketing practice will democratize and openthe world of online business. Marketing in the Inter-net age will have to learn how to form alliances withthe powerful communities that are brewing online.

In order to form alliances with them, it is useful firstto understand the forms and residing places of thesecommunities. Earlier, I noted that Marshall McLuhanseemed to be correct in prognosticating the retribaliz-ing of society based on inclusive ‘electric’ media. Fol-lowing McLuhan’s best-known dictum, that ‘themedium is the message,’ leads us to the conclusionthat some types of virtual community of consump-tion are better suited to certain types of marketingefforts than others. Research confirms this, stronglysuggesting that certain ‘segments’ of virtual com-munities are much more suited to marketing prac-tices than others. Following, I briefly outline fourimportant types of virtual communities of consump-tion, their predominant interaction modes, and thetypes of strategies that might be useful in segmentingthem and marketing to them. These four types of vir-tual communities are dungeons, rooms, rings, andboards (see Figure 4).

Dungeons. A ‘MUD’ is an acronym that originallystood for Multi-User Dungeon. The original dun-geons offered computer-generated (textual) environ-


Figure 4 Types of Virtual Communities of Consump-tion

ments where players of ‘dungeons and dragons’types of fantasy games met. The term can also beused to encompass any computer-generated environ-ments where people socially interact through thestructured format of role- and game-playing. As vir-tual communities of consumption, Dungeons tend tobe populated by minglers and insiders, with somevisitors. Dungeons harbor consumers who arefocused on the consumption of virtual technologiesand technologies of fantasy and play. The primarymode of interaction in Dungeons is the recreationalmode, but it is a structured recreation, and one whosestrong secondary motivation involves relating. Theseentwined communities of relation and recreationcenter upon the consumption of an experience thatis produced through the interplay of software, net-worked computers, shared culture and humanimagination.

Successful computer games such as id Software’sDoom and Quake owe much of their achievement tothe collectives of gamers and role-players who sharesecrets, software, flexible identities, fantasy andcamaraderie in dungeons. New graphically intensevirtual meeting places are growing more popular,based on the accessible Palace software. Becausethose who play in dungeons are, in so doing, con-suming hardware, software, and mass media sym-bols, they offer marketers of these products animportant locus for observing the intersection ofpopular and cybercultural tastes. They also offer mar-keting and consumer researchers, and other socialscientists, an important space from which to examinethe intersection of recreational and relational onlinemodes in the creation and collective consumption offantasy experience. In pioneering a complex socialform of virtual reality, the members of these com-munities also offer the cutting edge in what maybecome the common collective future of virtual com-munities, consumption, and commerce.

Rooms, Rings and Lists. An IRC is an acronym for‘Internet Relay Chat,’ otherwise known as chat


rooms. ‘Rooms’ are computer-mediated environ-ments where people socially gather together, inter-acting in real time without the overt structureimposed by fantasy role-playing. The process is anal-ogous to a party line telephone call, ‘Rings’ areorganizations of related homepages, often termed‘web-rings.’ Linked together and structured by inter-est, Rings provide structured and information-ori-ented collections of interrelated consumption inter-ests. ‘Lists’ are groups of people who gather togetheron a single e-mail mailing list in order to share infor-mation about a particular consumption topic of mut-ual interest. Lists tend to be the most permanent andsocial of virtual communities.

Rooms are spaces populated principally by minglersand visitors. In rooms, people primarily expressrelational and, secondarily, recreational interactionmodes. Circles and Lists are considerably moreattractive to marketers, containing much higher con-centrations of devotees and insiders. Circles and Listscombine informational, relational and often trans-formational recreational modes, depending upontheir emphasis. Rooms, Circles and Lists are also‘themed’ in ways that can make them very attractiveto marketers. They can be defined by regional andnational boundaries (e.g. Asia, Brazil, Chicago), byeducational categories (e.g. Grade 3 students, math-ematics, particle physics, Camille Paglia’s works), byimportant issues (European politics, disarmament,dealing with Down’s syndrome), gender identity andsexual orientation, religious affiliation, occupationalgrouping, or by more overtly consumption-relatedthemes.

Smart marketers are already taking advantage of theopportunities afforded by such self-segmented‘theming.’ The web-page at Amazon.com temptinglyasks its customers if they have a Web site. ‘If you do,you could jump into the world of electronic com-merce today by joining the Amazon.com AssociatesProgram.’ This program is an ‘official’ Ring. OfferingRing members a commission on any books it sells toothers through ‘advertising’ on their web-sites, theon-line bookseller provides an explicit way to enterinto book-selling partnerships with the ‘nativeexpertise’ of online Ring members.

Boards. Perhaps the most directly consumption-related communities are the ‘Boards.’ Boards areonline communities organized around interest-spe-cific electronic bulletin boards. As such, their mem-bership contains a respectable concentration ofinsiders and devotees, and few minglers. ActiveBoard members read and post messages that aresorted by date and subject, and also respond to dis-cussion threads. Boards also have wide exposure andinfluence, because they are perused frequently bytourists who merely lurk and do not post messages.There are Boards devoted to musical groups andmotion pictures. Others discuss wine, beer, cigars,automobiles, comic books, Lego collecting, digital

In virtual communities,

loyalty is something that,

increasingly, cannot be

assumed, but must be

assured


cameras and almost any consumption interest thatcould be imagined. There are even Boards devotedto discussions about Taco Bell and McDonalds res-taurants. Very often, within groups not specificallydevoted to a consumption topic — such as parentinggroups or environmental groups — the topical dis-cussion revolves to a significant extent around avail-able products and services. Like Rings and Lists,Boards are centered upon consumption activities,and thus their membership has self-segmented. Largeand public, boards tend to be less intimate than Ringsand Lists, and thus may provide the most advan-tageous forum for approaching consumers withoutseeming to intrude.

Conclusion

In Dungeons, Rings, Lists, Boards and Rooms, con-sumers form e-tribes that use networked computertechnology to sharpen their consumption knowledge,to socialize, to organize, and to play. There are mul-tiple opportunities for marketers to insert, defend,alter and reinforce brand meanings in all of theseenvironments. Yet it is also important for marketersto note that virtual communities are going to presenta notoriously unstable marketing medium. Based inan ethos of open participation, trade and exchangeamong equals is the watchword on the Internet (asexemplified by, for instance, the online auction ‘com-munity,’ ebay at http://www.ebay.com). As a recent‘official’ web-page devoted to the unsuccessful movieGodzilla found, consumers will use the online forumsprovided to them both to promote, and to viciouslycriticize, products and corporations. In virtual com-munities, loyalty is somethingthat, increasingly, cannot beassumed, but must be assured.

As the instances of consumerresistance with the Fox tele-vision network suggest, issuesof information trade and copy-right are also going to be con-tentious. We live in an age ofinstantaneous replication andtransmission. Information-related products like software, movies, music, news-papers, magazine, and education used to be con-sidered ‘unfungible’ — it was difficult to replace oneitem with another. With new compression standardssuch as MP3 emerging regularly, this is no longerthe case. With virtual communities of consumptionin place, net-savvy consumers will know exactlywhere to go to obtain their illicit informational goods.

The United States has been trying to pass strong legalprovisions protecting intellectual property, throughGATT and currently the WTO. Technical means ofprotecting it, like new forms of encryption and digitalsignatures, and stiff penalties for anyone who breaks


the digital ‘lock’ on a piece of intellectual property,have been proposed. But controlling copies of easilycopied goods in a digital world is a very complexchallenge, particularly because those who take itoften change it in subtle ways to reflect their ownidentities before re-broadcasting it to the world (forexample, subtly changing the appearance or ethnicidentity of a trademarked character such as BartSimpson).

A simple marketing rule emerging in the digitaleconomy is that networks are what build value, andnetworks are often created by giving things away.That was the pattern that led to Netscape’s early suc-cess, and countless other shareware and freewarestandards. Even Microsoft followed this strategy forits Internet Explorer browser. Marketers must try toweigh the moral and social benefits with the very dif-ficult costs of this strategy. With limits and withinreason, giving things away that can be easily copiedis perhaps the wisest marketing alternative. Givingthings away allows marketers to build loyalty andtrust and allows the company to make their marginson what is difficult for others to copy.

It helps to remember that the goal is not to controlthe information, but to use it wisely in order to buildsolid, long-lasting relationships with products orbrands. Virtual communities of consumption offer anexcellent venue for the marketing research thatunderlies the understanding that builds theserelationships. Virtual Communal Marketing alsooffers a sound basis for pursuing a subscription ormembership type of relationship. By treating com-munity members as special members of an ‘insider’sclub’ with special prestige and benefits, online con-

sumers might bond into long-term relationships with market-ing organizations. These bene-fits might include, as with Pay-for-Attention marketing, thetimely sharing of meaningfuland valuable information. Thistype of membership club makessense for moderately socialmedia such as Boards, Dun-geons and perhaps Rooms. Inmore private and communal

Lists, a subscription model is also possible.

The trusting relationship that underlies the member-ship and subscription model is now becoming com-mon among the EDI-linked corpus of supply chainmanagement, but it is still virtually unheard of on aconsumer level. However, this sort of bonding makesperfect sense in virtual communities which includesignificant numbers of all-important heavy and loyalusers. Utilizing VMC for customer bonding will leadto relationships in which both parties are committedto maintaining the satisfaction of one another.

Virtual communities are difficult in some ways


because they demand that marketers commit to thesatisfaction and support of the community as well asthe individual. Those companies that do not may findthat consumers with a strong need for communityhave migrated to a competitor that can offer accessto and positive relations with an alternative or moredesirable community. Yet, by following a member-ship or subscription strategy, membership, ‘insider’s’knowledge and connections, and consequently elev-ated status in a meaningful and satisfying virtualcommunity of consumption can be a potent rewardfor loyal customers.

Overall, when dealing with virtual communities ofconsumption, it is important to use a light touch.Marketers must zealously guard brand identity, butthey also must provide community members withthe raw materials they need to construct a meaning-ful community. Remember that community-buildingis a creative activity. Treat virtual community mem-bers as your partners in promotion and distribution.By knowledgeably segmenting on the basis of virtualcommunity interaction modes, types, and types ofmembers, marketers can gain a competitive advan-tage. Loyal and mutually beneficial relationships canbe built online with consumers. With this segmen-tation information, marketers are empowered to pro-vide more appropriate and effective marketing com-munications. Provide channels for virtual communitymembers to become your heralds and champions andyou may well find them reciprocating in a ‘virtuallyoverwhelming’ way.

References

Armstrong, A. and Hagel, J. (1996) The real value of on-linecommunities. Harvard Business Review May–Jun, 134–141.

Capulskyt, J.R. and Wolfe, M.J. (1991) Relationship marketing:positioning for the future. Journal of Business Strategy Jul–Aug, 16–26.

Carey, J.W. (1989) Communication as Culture: Essays on Mediaand Society. Unwin-Hyman, Boston, MA.

Clerc, S.J. (1996) ‘DDEB, GATB, MPPB, and Ratboy: the X-files’ media fandom, online and off. In Deny all Knowl-edge: Reading the X-Files, eds D. Lavery, A. Hague and M.Cartwright, pp. 36–51. Syracuse University Press, Syra-cuse, NY.

Hoffman, D. and Novak, T. (1996) Marketing in hypermediacomputer-mediated environments: conceptual foun-dations. Journal of Marketing 60, 50–68.

Komito, L. (1998) The Net as a foraging society: flexible com-munities. Information Society 14, 97–106.

Kozinets, R.V. (1998) On netnography: initial reflections onconsumer research investigations of cyberculture. In


Advances in Consumer Research, eds J. Alba and W. Hutch-inson, Vol. 25, pp. 366–371. Association for ConsumerResearch, Provo, UT.

Kozinets, R.V. (1997) ‘I want to believe’: a netnography of theX-philes’ subculture of consumption. In Advances in Con-sumer Research, eds M. Brucks and D. J. MacInnis, Vol.24, pp. 470–475. Association for Consumer Research,Provo, UT.

Kozinets, R.V. and Handelman, J.M. (1998) Ensouling con-sumption: a netnographic exploration of boycottingbehavior. In Advances in Consumer Research, eds J. Albaand W. Hutchinson, Vol. 25, pp. 475–480. Association forConsumer Research, Provo, UT.

McCracken, G. (1997) Plenitude. Periph.: Fluide, Toronto.McLuhan, M. (1970) Culture is our Business. McGraw-Hill,

New York.Rheingold, H. (1993) The Virtual Community: Homesteading on

the Electronic Frontier. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.Shani, D. and Chalasani, S. (1992) Exploiting niches using

relationship marketing. Journal of Consumer MarketingSummer, 33–42.

Sherry, J.F. (1991) Postmodern alternatives: the interpretiveturn in consumer research. In Handbook of ConsumerResearch, eds H.H. Kassarjian and T. Robertson, pp. 548–591. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Turkle, S. (1995) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of theInternet. Simon and Schuster, New York.

Walther, J.B. (1992) Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction. Communication Research 19, 52–90.

Walther, J.B. (1995) Relational aspects of computer-mediatedcommunication: experimental observations over time.Organization Science 6, 186–203.

Zelwietro, J. (1998) The politicization of environmentalorganizations through the internet. Information Society 14,45–56.

ROBERT V. KOZI-NETS, J.L. KelloggGraduate School of Man-agement, NorthwesternUniversity, LeveroneHall, 2001 SheridanRoad, Evanston, IL60208-2008, USA.

Robert Kozinets is Assist-ant Professor of Market-ing at the J.L. Kellogg

Graduate School of Management at NorthwesternUniversity. He teaches international marketing, newproducts and services, and a course on the entertain-ment industry. He is currently engaged in researchthat maps and explores the terrains of cyberspace,entertainment and new media and their effects onthe changing nature of culture, consumption andconsumers.

e-tribalized marketing? - brandthroposophy: a marketing, social

Documents