Where are we going with this… relationship?

Where are we going with this… relationship?

James H. McAlexander, Ph.D.

Dean’s Professor of Marketing

Oregon State University

Consumer-Brand Relationships: An Interesting Journey

Satisfaction, Loyalty, and ME

Am I happy? Am I committed? Who the heck am I anyway?

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Consumer-Brand Relationships: An Interesting Journey

Satisfaction, Loyalty, and ME: Wholly, Holy, or Holey?

What do we really know about satisfaction? Is it contentment, awe, surprise, relief, resignation, or ???

What do we really know about loyalty? Committed partnerships, arranged marriages, kinships, rebounds, flings, secret affairs, or enslavement?

What do we really know about ME? We are what we have, we are what we see, which role is really me?

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Shifting: Love, Moving, Marriage and Divorce

It is complicated…

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Shifting: Love, Moving, Marriage and Divorce

It is complicated…

Moving from a focus on relationships that people have with products and brands to ways in which relationships among people are created, mediated, and negotiated through interactions with the products and brands that are part of their lives.

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An Interesting Ride: What is up with that black t-shirt?

An interest in understanding better the place of subculture as an influencer of consumer behavior leads us to riding Harleys?

Process: Evolving Ethnographic Involvement

1990: Observation research at Sturgis and

Daytona, depth interviews at HDHQ

1991: Begin riding, P.O. at HOG Rally

1992-2011: Ride, ride, and ride some more

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Social Brand Identity: Subculture of Consumption

Discovery: socialization into the subculture, ethos of the subculture, and the identification of a social structure and its expression. We experience the processes and understand them from the insider’s perspective.

To Harley-Davidson: implications for strategy, design, affinity organization, licensing, events, and overall brand management.

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Sidebar 1: Our first HOG interactions

• Santa Maria HOG Rally• Stud your duds• Watermelon carving• White wine

• A pizza parlor in Salem…• 50/50 drawing• Patches and safety tips• John finds a new dentist

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A crossroads: Subculture of Consumption and Brand

Community

Reframing, broadening, and informing the social relationships associated with branded products

Markers: consciousness of kind, rituals and traditions, and moral responsibility (Muniz and O’Guinn 2001)

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And Then Off-Road We Go: Building Brand Community

Event Ethnography: Jeep Jamborees and Camp Jeep

Longitudinal Participant Observation: purchase a Jeep

Discovery: relationships of Brand Community include brand, peers, product, and company. Focus also on the power of extraordinary experience.

Survey Research: sounds too good to be true

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Sidebar 2: Realities of Jeep Ownership

• Wrangler, Interstate 5, and Sound Bar• Where do I go? How do I get back?

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Beaucoups of Exciting Research

Shau, Muniz, and Arnould

Tumbat and Belk

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Sidebar 3: …“practices lead to a stronger brand community”

• What is a “stronger brand community?”• Is “stronger better?”

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Brand Community: of interest to both academics and marketing professionals

• Fundamental issues are still underexplored:• Who owns the brand? How/when does community influence brand?• What of community creation of entry barriers?• Issues of cooperation and conflict• Who owns the community? Is community manageable?• Lifecycle of the community and lifecycle of membership• Segmentation possibilities

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Communitas Interruptus : The Limits of Loyalty

Current Research: Departure and Defection from Community

Is this simply brand switching?

Research Methods

Depth InterviewsSample of 14 informants commercially recruited that had left the brand recruited in: Detroit, Atlanta, and Los Angeles

Findings

What constitutes defection?• Inverted “Bar and Shield”• Leave motorcycling• Leave the brand

Different Defectors

Highly Integrated

Less Integrated

Highly Integrated Defectors

Traumas and TransitionsLarry: “I’d had a car accident, didn’t have insurance on the car. I had a lot of medical bills, I had a broken arm…I filed for

bankruptcy. It was a little difficult riding around.”

Highly Integrated Defectors

Traumas and TransitionsTodd: “I loved my Harley. I rode with the guys from work almost every week. It was great. When the baby came we really wanted to get into a house of our own. I sold the Harley for the down payment. I figure in a couple of years, when my wife is working again, I’ll get another bike,

definitely another Harley-Davidson…”

Jeff: “When I remarried, my wife and I took up sailing. She had always wanted to. It became this all-consuming passion. We made friends in the yacht club and began racing. Eventually we needed another boat and since the Harley was just basically gathering dust in the garage…”

Less Integrated Defectors

Misconnections: Overlapping Others Dennis:“The bike is a lot me, a lot nobody else and I got a family.

And I just felt a little bit like I was taking things away from the family. Too much me, not enough family.”

Larry: “It was either keep the bike or keep the marriage…”


Misconnections: The Product as Motivations EvolveJustin: “I really wanted to build my skills, but on the Harley I was dragging metal [a product of the bike’s lean angle when taking turns at fast speeds] all the time. So I sold it and bought the Ducati…”

Kyle: “If I had to have one bike it wouldn’t be a Harley. It just doesn’t serve the common ground for everything I need to do. It just doesn’t.”

Mike: “On the sport bike the riding position feels like low level flying. Just like Superman my head is forward, legs behind, ground is below me and going fast. It’s almost a form of meditation at times, when I have a real stressful day I go up a favorite canyon and the riding lets the stress of the day, week, month go by…”


Misconnections: Peer Misconnections


Misconnections: Brand Identity/Self

Looking to the Future

Evolution of Subculture

Market growth adds diversity and community is less homogeneous

Brand evolves as reinterpreted by community and the marketing institution