“Communal Consumption and the Brand” from Inside Consumption
Inside Consumption is an interesting collection of academic publications by marketing and business school scholars who represent diverse viewpoints and frameworks of social psychology, cultural anthropology, and culture studies. The dense book (tackle one chapter at time) is compiled by S. Ratneshwar from the University of Missouri Business School . Mostly academic in its delivery, the chapters cover topics of consumer buying habits and marketing, including: motives, goals, and desires. I guess you could say the book tries to give meaning to what the heart and mind desires and what motivates consumers relative to brands, communities, and buying.
Of all the texts published, the one that grabbed my attention was entitled “Communal Consumption and the Brand” published in 2005 by Thomas C. O’Guinn, Professor of Advertising and Communications, at the University of Wisconsin and Albert M. Muniz, Jr, Professor of Marketing at DePaul University . I would enjoy speaking to Muniz on his research on sociological aspects of consumer behavior, branding, consumer culture, and Internet marketing. Sounds like he started documenting communal Internet consumption and social networks around brands before the growing presence and definitions of these properties existed on the Internet.
In the text, they breakdown their research into the following areas:
- Community with relation to modern economic society, brands, and consumption
- The modern society and community’s demise
- Brand communities, brand consciousness, rituals, traditions, and moral obligations
- Marketplace relevance, marginality, rumor
- Polit-brand and brand ownership
The beginning of the text actually made me laugh a bit in their discussion of the lack community research in consumer research, especially in business schools. There must always be a discussion of consumption with respect to social and institutional production, politics, and history. This is Gesellschaft and Geminschaft . Leave it to the Germans to define the sociological nomenclature. So simplistically translated, this means brands like Ivory soap created by Proctor and Gamble in 1882, developed their brand around purity due to the community that existed around the pure food and drug act of 1904.
Communities of a kind transcends geographic boundaries. Because so much occurs online, and is after all, about far flung brands and mass mediated creation, face to face interaction is unnecessary.
Many brand communities have a stated populism. In brand communities, stratification characteristics that might determine and 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 brands they own, the number they own, and their knowledge and expertise with the brand. In this way, brand communities are officially egalitarian, at least in a traditional socioeconomic sense. As a result, and as a testimony to its strength, consciousness of kind is often experienced and expressed by members with diverse backgrounds.
It is easy to gather around brands. The why of consumption here lies in recognizing that brands say much about the groups that use them. Brands demonstrate shared beliefs, beliefs consumers like to recognize.
When I owned a 1997 Toyota FJ60 Land Cruiser, there were specific rituals you were expected to perform. Even though I was not able to fix and take apart my own motor (which many can do) you are expected to wave at every other Land Cruiser you pass and also discuss your car to anyone who asks. Cruiser people are nice people.
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