ABSTRACT
A brand community constitutes a form of postmodern tribe that connects consumers on the basis of a trademark. These ‘structured sets of social relations among admirers of a brand’ (Muñiz and O’Guinn, 2001, p. 412) inspire consumer culture theorists for theoretical exploration as much as marketing practitioners for financial exploitation. While marketing managers are collecting experiences on how to influence the initiation and ideological configuration of ‘their’ brand communities, researchers are investigating the social fabric of ‘Gemeinschaften’ (Tönnies, 1957) such as subcultures of consumption (e.g., Schouten and McAlexander, 1995), brand communities (e.g., Muñiz and O’Guinn, 2001), or postmodern tribes which consume (e.g., Cova, 2003) that evolve, for instance, around brands of vehicles, technology products, celebrities, sports or television shows. Following Schouten’s and McAlexander’s (1995) groundbreaking ethnography of the Harley-Davidson subculture, consumer culture theorists have elicited numerous influences of brand-related social groupings on individual and communal identity projects (Arnould and Price, 1993;
Belk, 1988; Elliott and Wattanasuwan, 1998; Holt, 2002; Peñaloza, 2001) including social distinctiveness (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995), socioeconomic refuge (Kozinets, 2001), brand-related spiritualism (Muñiz and Schau, 2005; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995), shared risk (Celsi, Rose, and Leigh, 1993), and family ties (Arnould and Price, 1993; Moisio, Arnould, and Price, 2004).
