A brand tribe is a concept in

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

that refers to ephemeral groups that enable connections among consumers sharing passions or interests. A brand tribe is part of a tribal marketing strategy fostering engagement among consumers, as opposed to emphasizing the functionality of products and services.

Origin

The concept of brand tribes or consumer brands originates in the sociological theory on

neotribalism Neotribalism, also known as modern tribalism or new tribalism, is a sociological concept which postulates that human beings have evolved to live in tribal society, as opposed to mass society, and thus will naturally form social networks constitu ...

proposed by

Michel Maffesoli Michel Maffesoli (born 14 November 1944) is a French sociologist. He is a former pupil of Gilbert Durand and Julien Freund, and an emeritus professor at Paris Descartes University. His work touches upon the issue of community links and the p ...

. The neo-tribalism theory posits that people evolved to live in a tribe-like society and thus form social networks that resemble those of a tribe.

Description

The concept of brand tribes or consumer tribes in marketing refers to the development of

consumer-to-consumer Customer to customer (C2C or consumer to consumer) markets provide a way to allow customers to interact with each other. Traditional markets require business to customer relationships, in which a customer goes to the business in order to purchas ...

engagement through the emergence of neo-tribal values such as rituality and group locality. A brand tribe differs from a

brand community A brand community is a concept in marketing and consumer research which postulates that human beings form communities on the basis of attachment to a brand or marque. A brand community refers to structured social relationships in which participant ...

in which tribes lack long-term commitment to the group, and do not locate their socialization around a single brand. The notion of consumer tribe refers to a multiplicity of commercial and non-commercial social groupings, characterized as impermanent, fluid, and ephemeral.

Limitations

Much in this area is still under-theorised. Academics have explored and discussed the degree of connectedness between consumers and brands and the implications for

post-modern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

organisations and consumption.Kozinets, Robert V. & Jay M. Handelman (2004) “Adversaries of Consumption: Consumer Movements, Activism, Ideology,” ''Journal of Consumer Research'', 31 (3), 691-704.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brand Tribalism Brand management Branding terminology Product management