May 20, 2008 by Robert Kozinets.

I was recently very pleased to write a few reflective comments on “Segmenting Online Communities,” the Master’s Thesis work of Hjalti Hjaltason and Marie Vernersson at Lund University in Sweden. They have undertaken in a very clear and concise manner, a study that seeks to empirically test the model of online community segments that I first proposed in an article in the European Management Journal in 1999.

That article, and the model in it, have achieved considerable popularity as a way to understand some of the different segments of online community member. The article has been cited 190 times (according to Google scholar), and the model’s quadrants and categories of the mingler, tourist, devotee, and insider are commonly featured in books, including many consumer behavior and e-commerce textbooks around the world.

Yet as Hjalti and Marie write in their introduction to this research, the article’s influential assertions and model have rarely been subject to empirical scrutiny. And that’s where this team of scholars come in.

Using a large sample (they aimed for an N=1000) of online poker players active on the Facebook, they administered a questionnaire that asked them a battery of questions about themselves and their online behaviors. For their theory-testing purposes, chief among these questions were queries that asked about their identification with the consumption practices of poker, and with their affiliation with the online community of poker players.

Their findings were quite interesting, and a bit surprising. In my 1999 article, I had speculated that, following the Pareto rule that seemed to dictate producer-like behavior in the offline world, we might expect only about 20% of online consumers to be assuming the more active, producerly roles of the devotee and the insider. However, Hjaltason and Vernersson instead found that Devotees (at a whopping 36%) and Insiders (at 25%) together account for 61% of their entire sample. Tourists (at 33%) and Minglers (at a paltry 6%) account together for a minority of online consumers, at only 39 percent.

The results themselves are interesting, and most interesting, I believe, because they open up this area to further investigation and questioning. Now, in the same interest of science, I had to ask myself why these results were so different from my own speculations. And I came up with several reasons that might assist further refinement and investigations of these topics.

First, I think that we must be very cautious about choosing field sites that are supposed to be representative of the entire phenomenon of online communities. When I originally wrote my 1999 article, almost all of my research had been based in newsgroups or bulletin boards, which were the main form of online community for over two decades, pretty much since the inception of the Internet. In those speculations of mine, I was including the many lurkers who pass by bulleting boards without ever posting on them. I think that recent research, by key people in this area like Anne Schlosser, indicate that for every person who posts, there are somewhere in the range of 50-100 (at least) who only read the posting and move along. These numbers have been repeated recently as the “Rule of 100,” “One Percent Rule,” or the pyramid, featured in a number of books about online consumer behavior like O’Connell and Huba’s Citizen Marketers.

So there are actually two anomalies to this field site. First, it is a fairly new social form, a social networking site. That makes it significantly different, in my eyes, from the newsgroups that I originally based my theory building upon. So perhaps the original theory holds for bulletins boards, but not for SNS groups. This is then boundary testing research rather than confirmatory or disconfirming research. And the confirmatory or disconfirming research is truly yet to happen.

The next anomaly has to do with the way that community is defined. It seems to be leaving out the lurkers that I explicitly sought to include when I brought in the Pareto rule (on p. 262, I state that “Boards also have wide exposure and influence, because they are perused frequently by tourists who merely lurk and do not post messages.”). So what is the universe of the online community? Is it all of those who visit? Or only those who post? Could it also be those who rate? On an SNS, could it be those who link? This sort of definitional work is important in a field as nascent as online community studies.

Another aspect of the site that makes it quite odd is that there are almost no female members, and it was composed mainly of Icelandic males (about whom I actually know very little). This seems to me to make it quite different from many of the sites I studied, such as fan sites, which had much larger female concentrations. As well, the nature of the site seemed particular. On this site, people actually were given the opportunity to go and play the game they were interested in—and thus to directly consume. Therefore, we’d expect a lot more “activity” to show up, and a logical suppression of “merely social” consuming attitudes of minglers and tourists. And this is just what we observe.

Methodologically, I take issue with the idea that self-reports reveal actual behaviors, especially those as subtle, intertwined, and complex as the various types of identifications and communications of online community members. I think that it would be interesting to see what would happen if we observed actual behaviors. All that is being measured here is the self-reports of behaviors. So if we concur that devotees and insiders are the highest status members of online communities, then people who are subject to social desirability and self-enhancement biases would be much more prone to classify themselves as devotees and insiders than as minglers or tourists. Thus, the results would overstate these two categories.

In conclusion, I’d like to say that I actually don’t know if my Pareto rule speculation will hold up to closer scrutiny. I sort of doubt it. I definitely believe that we are seeing new rules, such as the aforementioned One Percent Rule of 1% emerging to help explain some of the new phenomena were are seeing through emergent online community behaviors.

I’d also like to point other scholars to some of the other elements of the theory I proposed in that article. In particular, I speculate and link these four categories to different relational modes linked to motivational elements: the recreational, the relational, the informational, and the transformational. I also link these motivational aspects to a progression of online community involvement that transpires over time. The theory is actually quite a bit more complex than is accounted for here. It accounts both for a cross-sectional view of community membership, a motivational component, as well as a longitudinal element in which members progress through various stages, from uninvolved to more centrally involved. Well-designed, thorough studies that look deeply into these propositions would be most welcome and, I think, would be well received in the literature.

In conclusion, it has been enjoyable to read what these students have done with this model. We need more solid studies like this one to get the conversation moving about what is actually going on among all of these interesting, consumption-based online communities. We need more scholarship like this work on “Segmenting Online Communities,” by Hjalti Hjaltason and Marie Vernersson to help us to understand and really “crack the code” of online community membership and behavior.

Posted in Netnography, Technology, Word of Mouth Marketing, Communities and Tribes | 1 Comment »

April 30, 2008 by Robert Kozinets.

I just found out about another book review of our book, Consumer Tribes. This one was written by Alan Bradshaw of the University of Exeter. I thought this was a wonderful review, and wanted to share it with you. The review is great not only because it’s very positive and complimentary about the book (which is always nice) because it’s clear that Alan read this book very carefully. And although the book is designed to be browsed very effectively, as all of its chapters stand well on their own, he read all of it. He synthesized. He really “gets” it. And that makes his review very valuable because I think his review conveys some of the big central points of the book extremely well.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the review is a perfect substitute for actually reading it yourself….

Here’s the reference: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2008, 27(2). And here’s the review (thank you, Alan!).

Bernard Cova, Robert Kozinets and Avi Shankar have edited the excellent collection Consumer Tribes detailing the arrival of tribalism as a core conceptual contemporary framework in consumer research. Containing a neat geographic spread of contributors, and even a chapter by the founding father of tribal social theory himself, Michel Maffesoli, this text must surely be regarded as essential reading that pushes beyond conventional framing devices such as subculture, brand communities and cultures of consumption towards the exciting and sometimes strange worlds of consumer tribes.

Rejecting traditional polarities of control versus freedom wherein consumers are either manipulated marionettes or fierce freedom-fighters, Cova, Kozinets and Shankar argue for a hybrid model in which consumer tribes are tacit compromises where consumers collectively determine to what extent they are to be manipulated by and to what extent they, in turn, choose to manipulate brand meanings. Market resistance and engagement become reframed as a dance between brands and consumer tribes with neither truly in control, and as a balancing act where escape becomes a game to play rather than an essential cause. Consumer tribes are presented as harbingers of an age that updates the marketing challenge of knowing-your-customer to one where consumer tribes know-the-corporation and emerge as guardians of brand authenticity; if brands are symbolic resources for the construction of personal identities, consumer tribes will want to be more than mere customers and become actual stakeholders and even partners in the co-creation of brand equity. As the editors surmise, what is at stake with Consumer Tribes is essentially a new way of thinking about the relationship between producers and consumers, and this is deeply significant for any advertising scholar or practitioner.

A strong and rewarding aspect of the book is its collection of contributors. While mostly consisting of the great and good of the consumer research community, the book contains chapters by a manager of a pharmaceutical company (Fabrizio Cocciola), a market researcher (Pamela Nancarrow) and, wonderfully, a student who was a shining light of the class of 2004 at Stirling University (Stephen Treanor). Fans of the written word will be pleased to read Stephen Brown’s latest offering, but surely the editor’s masterstroke is the inclusion of a chapter on tribal aesthetics by Maffesoli himself. And if Maffesoli’s contribution leads readers to become plagued by self-doubt in their ability to comprehend, then they may be grateful to Canniford and Shankar, whose follow-up chapter reminds us that being a primitive savage can actually be a virtue and a form of capital in itself.

Indeed the pot-smoking surfers to whom Canniford (who, we read, is about to pupate) and Shankar refer perhaps set the tone for the empirical studies into the extraordinary tribes that follow as consumer research continues its focus on the marginal and the downright weird. Tribal activities explored here include the pleasure of writing bootleg Harry Potter homoerotic adventures (as described by Stephen Brown), the fun of leather-fetish nightclub revelling in Copenhagen (Roy Langer), the thrill of video-taping Sir Cliff Richard as he sunbathes (Henry and Caldwell) and, of course, the excitement of breakfasting across the table from a life-size cardboard cut-out of the crown-clad
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband as they sit frozen, regally waving back (Otnes and LacLaran).

To be sure tribal consumers are decidedly extraordinary, as are the complex social relationships that emerge between tribe members who wrestle with questions of legitimacy and authenticity. The problems faced by tribes can include contentious relationships with the relevant corporation; for example, the problem of copyright restrictions can put tribes into dispute with corporations (as described by Brown’s discussion of Harry Potter tribes) though Kozinets notes the compromise that forms the basis of the mutually rewarding relationship between Paramount and online Star Trek bootleggers. At other times tribes can be entrepreneurial (as described by Goulding and Saren’s review of the burgeoning industry that surrounds gothic gatherings), though commercialisation comes at a price. As one gothic respondent nicely puts it: “How can our scene continue to develop and thrive when everywhere you look the same themes resound without the cutting edge or distinctive flare that made it exceptional?”

Apart from empirical studies, Consumer Tribes revisits a seminal study as Schouten and McAlexander, together with Martin, interestingly note how their 1995 “subculture of consumption” paper was limited by their previously held masculine-centric world-view.

A distinctive and rewarding aspect of Consumer Tribes is the degree of authorial excitement that permeates the book, not least in the passionately written opening chapter by the editors. This is often caused by the insider status and participant observation of the scholars in the tribes –for example, we learn that Hope Jensen Schau is an avid Tom Petty fan, Diane Martin is a biker, that Brownlie, Hewer and Treanor went to cruise events over a six-month period (though Goulding and Saren are keen to point out that they are not in fact goths themselves!). The subject enthusiasm leads to impassioned writing but may come at the price of critical concerns being eclipsed at times; notably Marxian concerns of fetishisation and commodification become worked into the coping strategies of tribal members rather than a critique of the tribes themselves.

In other cases consumer tribes are presented as re-enabling in a post-consumption/production nexus (Szmigin, Carrigan and Bekin; also Kozinets). The editors make a strong case in their leading chapter by arguing convincingly that structuralist and Marxian concerns belong to the limiting polarisation that their book seeks to transcend. Yet it is worth noting that Consumer Tribes appears at the same time as the sociologist Charles Leadbeater°s We-Think, which also explores communal consumption activity, though gives greater emphasis to the often tightly controlling fabrics of the social movements.

Consumer Tribes pulls together a considerable amount of empirical studies and conceptual development that reveal the robustness of tribalism as a conceptual framework. For advertising, the consequences of brand equity and meaning emerging from wider tribal activity that exists independent of, and even in conflict with, marketing management help us to re-imagine the practice and study of advertising in an age that transcends traditional business-customer relationships. Therefore, while not a book about advertising, its implications for advertising, and indeed right across the social sciences, mean that this excellent book is to be heartily recommended.

Alan Bradshaw

University of Exeter

Posted in Marketing Research, Word of Mouth Marketing, Communities and Tribes | No Comments »

April 12, 2008 by Robert Kozinets.

If you haven’t read Thursday’s blog entry about Costco, you’ll probably need to check it out to make sense of this one.

On Friday, the day after I posted my little nag about Costco, my mobile rings during a meeting. I pick it up. Guess who? Yep. It’s “Mable” from Costco. Trudy’s supervisor. And she’s like, you wanted me to call, so I’m calling.

She seemed to be really curious about what I wanted. I had my screws. So what else did I want? I told her, I think I got what I wanted. Inspiration for a tale. Material for the blog. I made a reasonable story out of a bad service experience. And it tells a story about the way businesses don’t know how to deal with empowered customers today.

She tells me that “Michelle was very shaken up” by what she read on the blog. Well, I didn’t do it to try to upset Michelle. I really don’t mean this to be personal (So I’ve gone through and taken out her actual name and called her “Trudy”). And if “Trudy” is taking this personally, I’d like to apologize to her and hope that she understands that this is about the decisions that her bosses at Costco are making, the systems they are putting in places, rather than what she specifically did. I know that, of course.

This is about Costco, and customer service more generally, and the way companies do things, and the way they really don’t understand that when they talk to one consumer they are talking to thousands or more of them now, and that this was what this was about.

“Trudy did everything above board,” she said. “Everything she did was by the book.”

“Well,” I said, “have you looked critically at the book lately? Does that include leaving customers in limbo for an extra week while your employees go on vacation?”

What a great illustration of the power of the web and of blogging.

Most companies, it is widely claimed by interesting business authors like Lois Kelly and Joe Jaffe that businesses really don’t know how to engage in a conversation with their consumer groups, particularly these groups online. In Citizen Marketers, by O’Connell and Huba, they give plenty of examples of companies that are completely flat-footed and staring-like-does-in-the-oncoming-headlights in the face of consumers’ posting complaints or similar customer service issues online in places like forums and on YouTube videos. It’s awfully hard for them to handle the fact that the wall is down.

How can companies plan in a world where there is transparency and where consumer communities gather and think about how to hold companies accountable for what they do? That’s a major and important question for business today.

That blog entry about the Circus Elephants at Costco is getting about 1400-1500 unique visitors a day since I posted it, far outweighing all of the positive personal word-of-mouth I’ve given to Costco over the last decade as a devoted customer. Which in a way is too bad, because this wasn’t the hugest complaint. Certainly not on the order of the people who were forced to post about and then sue Terminix because they missed a huge termite problem in their home appraisal.

And I’m hearing from all kinds of people in emails and now posts about their own Costco and other service experiences, and how this one resonates. Thanks to everyone who has written and posted. I think it’s very important that we keep in perspective the importance of having a voice as consumers. If we demand more from companies, and try to do it as humanely as we can while showing the people who are working on the front lines respect, and trying to maintain their dignity even when we are angry and faced with a broken system, then I think we can improve business and through it our entire social experience.

It means persistence. It means reaching out. It means humanizing the entire business experience. That’s what two-way communication is. That’s what happens when walls come down.

Posted in Word of Mouth Marketing, Communities and Tribes, Marketing News & Insights, Branding | 3 Comments »