Brands are raw materials

 

The prelude
I believe it's fair to say that companies and marketers are more interested in the way their brands are impacting consumers, than the other way around. This is not surprising in any way, considering that this has been the dominating focal point for brand literature. The question is, to what extant do consumers impact a brand, if at all? Why should companies care?

Battle for the mind
In traditional marketing the company designs a brand identity, much akin to a personality, which is transmitted to consumers. This often involves advertising, but also stresses the point of consistency in all aspects. A successful result of this endeavor is a brand image in the mind of consumers, which closely mirrors the personality of the brand. In this school of thought consumers are passive drones, which can be programmed through a battle for the mind.

Consuming brands
Consumer culture theory raises the question: Is it really that simple? Consumers appear to be more active, resistant and participatory in their consumption. They are not driven by rational decisions, but by deeper meaning. They no longer consume to live, but to exist. This shifts the aim of consumption from basic needs to identity. Consumption becomes an existential quest, leading to the production of meaning, and ultimately identity. On the small scale a purchase may be considered a minor step, but the grander picture may be a crossing, upon a path, upon a journey, finally leading to the construction of a pyramid!

Where work earlier played a major role in the shaping of identity, consumption has taken the lead. Consumers now flock to the market to shop identities. This allows them to reinforce or develop them, as well as assume temporary identities which can be cast aside. Temporary identities offer consumers a possibility to explore new meanings in their lives.

Consumption of brands is a dance of polarities. At one time the customers play along, and the next they move in opposite directions. Consumers and their relationship to companies are unstable to say the least. They are equally participatory, and rebellious.

Brands are raw materials
Consumption is never simple, as it involves more than merely purchasing. Consumers do not accept prepackaged brand images, as designed by the company. They grapple with them, alter them, add to them, and finally blend them into their lives. They cannot consume a brand, without becoming the brand and the brand becoming them. Brands are raw materials which consumers use to construct their identities. These raw materials are being mixed up with dreams, stories, history, values, meaning, and ideals. In this aspect consumers are producers, as the meaning of a brand is continuously being authored in multiple social contexts.

Conclusion
Companies that pride themselves in the management of their brand have to take on a broader perspective of the consumer. By studying how consumers are using their brands as cultural resources to construct identities, they can learn how to better support them. The larger role a brand plays in the construction of identity, the more valuable it becomes.

---

References
Cova, Kozinets, Shankar (2007), Consumer Tribes, Elsevier
Carú, Cova (2007). Consuming Experience, Routledge

Comments

[Kevin Masi]

Helping the marketing community shift its mindset from the organization's persepctive of brand, to the customer's/consumers' experience of the brand is a monutmental task. Congrats on this vivid post, which brings out the nuance of the tribe-centric brand view. I particualrly appreciate the description of the fickle relationship have with brands, in your section on 'dance of polarities.'

Having written similarly on the shifting emphasis towards customer/consumer tribes, I have often been focused on tribes as having strong, conscious relationships to the brands they use. However, there is a vertical axis to the brand relationship, with "high involvement" at one end, and "low involvement" at the other. Commodity products are usually low involvement categories. I'd like to see a discussion of how this axis plays into the 'dance of polarities', perhaps a dance of transactional ambivalence. My belief is that not every category commands tribal levels of relationship.

[Jesper Åström]

Excellent blog post. Living the brand has become ever so apparent since we started tagging material online. From a technical view point I think that a brand should aim to set itself in a semantic cluster of tags that it wants to relate itself to.

Thus engaging in discussions related to the values a company wants in its brand cluster will increase in importance.

[Elia Morling]

Kevin, I agree that high involvement brands have a higher potential to become the 'totem' of a tribe. I think low involvement brands have at least two alternatives. The first is to assume a smaller role, such as becoming a ritual object, sponsoring a cult place, supporting roles, spreading a myth, or easing the barriers into rituals for newcomers. The other alternative is to expand the brand to support a greater cause which people can become passionate about. This can involve environment, poverty, or other conflicts in society. Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty is an example of this. A reading tip is the chapter on italians and their historical 'dance of polarities' with pasta in the book Consuming Experiences by Cova. I will think more about your point on 'dance of transactional ambivalence'.

Jesper, interesting thoughts about tags. I haven't thought about that at all. One spontaneous problem that I can see is that the values and meanings of a brand shift over time. If a brand starts tagging itself to a semantic cluster, how do they 'untag' themselves?

[Richard]

I just finished reading . I liked it. I’m glad I saw this post on ; and that I am adding it as my favourite. This blog on has helped me in getting additional information about & also helped me see big picture context, which is valuable.

[nike dunks]

I'm pretty new to blogging and actually value your written content. The guide has actually peaked my curiosity. I'm heading to bookmark your website and preserve checking your articles out

[Cheap Tisa Snapback]

The major feature that makes these new era snapback hats favorite of the masses is the style and design they are available in.