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Understanding customers is critical for service researchers and practitioners. Today, customers are increasingly active online, and valuable information about their opinions, experiences and behaviors can be retrieved from a variety of online platforms. Online customer information creates new opportunities to design personalized and high-quality service. This paper aims to review how netnography as a method can help service researchers and practitioners to better use such data.

A systematic review and analysis were conducted on 321 netnography studies published in marketing journals between 1997 and 2017.

The systematic review reveals that netnography has been applied in a variety of ways across different marketing fields and topics. Based on the analysis of existing netnography literature, empirical, theoretical and methodological recommendations for future netnographic service research are presented.

This paper shows how netnography can offer service researchers unprecedented opportunities to access naturalistic online data about customers and, hence, why it is an important method for future service research.

Netnographic research can help service firms with, for example, service innovation, advertising and environmental scanning. This paper provides guidelines for service managers who want to use netnography as a market research tool.

Netnography has seen limited use in service research despite many promising applications in this field. This paper is the first to encourage and support service researchers in their use of the method and aims to stimulate interesting future netnographic service research.

While quantitative survey design represents a default research method in the field of hospitality and tourism, qualitative approaches remain largely sidelined. This is particularly true for netnography, a novel method of scientific enquiry that targets the online interactions of various actors. The present chapter seeks to introduce the netnographic approach, outline its implementation in hospitality and tourism, as well as demarcate it from other methods, such as survey, text mining and content analysis. By giving an overview of recent studies employing netnography, the chapter demonstrates applied examples of ethnographic research online, presents a cross-cultural study on disappointing travel experiences and suggests further research avenues, such as cross-cultural investigation. It concludes by discussing strengths and weaknesses of the netnographic approach. The value of this chapter lies in its reflection of state-of-the-art research in hospitality and tourism based on netnography and the proposition of further directions of research.

This paper aims to provide a better understanding of negative consumer–brand relationships in social-media-based anti-brand communities from a consumer culture theory (CCT) perspective. In particular, it investigates the purpose and the meaning of the consumer participation in online anti-brand communities, also through the analysis of the ways in which they express negative feelings toward the hated brands.

This study applies a “symbolic netnographic” method to six anti-brand communities related to four global brands, namely, Apple, Nestlé, Uber and McDonald’s. Moreover, several interviews were conducted with anti-brand community administrators.

The findings show that the main reason for consumers to join anti-brand communities is a desire to participate in the construction of new meanings and values of modern consumption, translating their ideological incompatibility with certain brands into negative engagement and activism aimed at destroying the hated brand’s image and reputation. Furthermore, the findings reveal that brand anthropomorphism is a frequent means of communication also used in the context of negative consumer–brand relationships, to strengthen the battle against the hated brand in a more frontal and direct manner.

Although this research provides some initial insights into negative consumer–brand relationships in the social media anti brand communities, the paper also has some limitations. The netnographic approach should be analyzed within more and different anti-brand communities. In this investigation, the authors perceived how difficult it is to obtain feedback from communities and to secure the collaboration of their administrators. There is also a need for research on other potential factors that can play a key role in negative consumer–brand relationships in social-media anti-brand communities, such as cultural capital or the impact of cultural perceptions. Moreover, future research should focus on different types of products and brand services, such as hedonic vs. utilitarian brands, as these might generate different types of consumer behavioral responses. Finally, a further direction for future research would be to consider the set of “brand recovery strategies” that can be implemented by companies to deal with negative consumer–brand relationships, including the identification of situations in which “not acting” could be preferable.

Understanding the antecedents and types of negative consumer–brand relationships enables companies to identify “brand recovery strategies” for managing negativity in the appropriate manner. Moreover, negative feelings toward brand could even be an opportunity for improving branding management.

This research improves on previous few studies dealing with online anti-brand communities from a CCT perspective. Firstly, it provides a holistic perspective of negative consumer–brand relationships in general and specifically of brand hate, thus advancing our understanding of the sociocultural dynamics of negative consumer–brand relationships; secondly, it provides new insights into the brand anthropomorphism phenomenon emerging in the negative feelings context. Overall, this research contributes to knowledge for both academics and managers as to why, how and for what purpose consumers experience negative engagement toward certain brands in the specific context of social-media-based anti-brand communities.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of creative re-appropriation of goods, symbols, and other manifestations of the dominant material culture in the Emo subculture identity construction process.

The authors conducted an ethnographic study on a purposive sample of social networks, blogs, discussion forums and online platforms for images sharing. Verbatim and visual texts as photos, drawings and moodboards were qualitatively content analysed in order to understand the network of meanings underlying the ambiguous amalgam of signs composing the Emo style.

Consistent with the literature, the qualitative content analysis of texts, images, videos, drawings and other forms of fan art typical of this micro culture revealed four key areas of semantic value: the aestheticization of inner pain, the sense of alienation and isolation from socio-cultural mainstream, the search for authenticity, and the need for emotional connection.

The research followed a quite new research method, the netnographic approach, originally developed to analyse brand communities.

Emo creative practices of re-appropriation of goods, symbols and icons of the dominant culture reveal a subtle message of protest against the consumer society and the commodification of everyday life.

The paper presents the deconstruction of Emo Lifestyle and Aesthetics analysing the system of meanings underneath the rituals Emos share through the Web.

Social media has significantly impacted the value creation processes within the consumer–brand relationship. This study aims to examine value formation processes within a cosmetics social media brand community and to establish the types of value formation associated with different categories of interactions within a social media brand community.

The research adopted a netnographic approach and followed the operational protocols of netnography. Conversations in one large cosmetics social media brand community were observed and downloaded for analysis over a two-month period. Examples of value-creation and formation processes were identified using netnographic interpretative procedures to develop higher-order themes.

The findings supported the creation of a “Consumer and brand value creation and co-creation framework” highlighting disparate value types within the following interactions: consumer-to-consumer; brand-to-consumer; and consumer-to-brand. The identified value types were specific to the actors (i.e. consumers and brands) involved in value formation processes. The analysis also revealed consumers’ ability to independently generate value through direct interaction with a social media brand community and the brands’ role in supporting consumers in value formation through value facilitation.

The pivotal role of disparate actors’ interactions in value formation processes is highlighted, alongside the autonomous ability to form value with the aid of resources stored and shared within the social media brand community. The network of interactions and value-creation processes contribute to a holistic understanding of the interactions in a social media brand community. Furthermore, the research explores and highlights the emerging role of social media brand communities as “value vestiges”.

The authors provide an example of a group of online shoppers exploiting a pricing mistake and exploring the drivers of predatory shopping that may harm online retailers. This paper aims to examine the role of social vigilantism, proactivity and self-presentation in driving individual predatory shopping behaviors and delivers a broader understanding of how these behaviors develop in online communities.

The authors use a mixed-methods sequential research model. In Study 1, the authors explore predatory shopping by using a netnographic textual approach to analyze an online forum engaging in predatory shopping. In Study 2, the authors empirically analyze the uncovered conceptual findings using the PROCESS macro.

Customers who engage in predatory shopping online exhibit social vigilantism when communicating their views to others and proactively seeking out pricing mistakes and opportunities. Customers engaging in predatory shopping adapt their presentation online to increase their chances of success; this effect is strengthened by the online disinhibition effect.

Predatory shoppers can actively seek out pricing mistakes online, encourage participation and exploit mistakes by adapting their self-presentation. Therefore, online retailers should be proactive and consistent when communicating with customers and collaborating to deter predatory shopping. In addition, online retailers should focus on building advocates in communities to prevent harm from predatory shoppers online.

Online predatory shopping is explored qualitatively and quantitatively to understand the propensities that can drive predatory behavior and provide warning signs for online retailers. In addition, the effects of predatory shopping drivers are analyzed in the presence of the online disinhibition effect.

The purpose of this paper is to compare public health discourses on the importance of motherhood with organizational attitudes towards childbearing. It shows how pregnancy and the nurturing of infant children are valorized within public health discourses, which treat pregnancy and new maternity as a miraculous “project”, encouraging mothers to position maternity as central to their lives. By contrast, the paper shows how employers treat pregnancy and new motherhood as inconvenient and messy: as monstrous, at work.

The paper draws upon a database of qualitative netnographic (or internet-based) research. It analyses netnographic interactions between pregnant and newly maternal women. These virtual data are afforded the same validity as face-to-face research.

The paper demonstrates how maternal responsibilities for nurturing pregnancy and infant children, and the bio-medical properties of the maternal body, are central to public health discourses. By contrast, the maternal body is treated within organizations as alien, or monstrous.

The paper compares and contrasts public health valorizations of motherhood, with organizational tendencies to treat pregnancy/newly maternal bodies as monstrous. It highlights dichotomies faced by employed mothers. A continuing chasm between the social organization of maternity, and the attitudes of employers towards children and maternal bodies, is identified.

This study examines a phygital approach to rural cultural heritage tourism, adopted by a rural community in Sapphaya, Chai Nat Province, Thailand, in response to the Covid-19 crisis. Specifically, it investigates a community’s initiatives to amalgamate its physical and digital marketing communications in order to engage with consumers as a strategy for destination recovery and resilience.

This is a qualitative exploratory study involving three stages of action, applying two research approaches: (1) participatory action research (PAR) with Sapphaya’s tourism stakeholders, and (2) social media research utilising netnographic analysis of Sapphaya’s tourism social enterprise social media pages.

The findings indicate that a phygital rural cultural heritage strategy can facilitate the interconnectivity between a destination’s physical and digital dimensions of its cultural heritage tourism product, thereby enhancing its intrinsic value, meaning and experiential perceptions. Specifically, it recommends that a successful community-based phygitalisation strategy requires grassroot engagement across all stages of planning, development, implementation and management of the rural cultural heritage tourism product.

The paper focusses on the cultural heritage tourism strategy adopted by a rural community across the physical-digital-phygital spectrum to augment its sustainable tourism development during a time of crisis. A framework for phygital rural cultural heritage as a strategy for destination resilience and recovery is also proposed.

This study adopts a local engagement approach to develop a cooperative community heritage management strategy, based upon local rural capacity building towards digitalisation and empowering innovative partnerships amongst its stakeholders.

This paper aims to strengthen the process of design thinking by aligning it with netnography, specifically auto-netnography, which this paper asserts is particularly suited to the task of studying and enriching the actions of “designerly types” who seek to fashion monetisable businesses.

This paper conducts an auto-netnography with a structure divined from established design thinking theory – that of empathising, defining, ideating, prototyping and testing – to afford an understanding of how a popular health food influencer designs a successful vegan restaurant.

This paper illustrates the empathetic relationship between a long-term audience member and an entrepreneur/designer/marketer. The intimate cultural analysis reveals the nature of their symbiotic entwinement. In a way that few other methods could, the method shows how this sense of reciprocity, deepens over time.

Conducting an auto-netnography is a prolonged and difficult task. Nonetheless, by revealing the rituals, expectations, roles and routines of content creators, designers and followers, this paper illustrates exciting possibilities for the enactment and development of design thinking in the marketing field.

Designerly types such as marketers and content creators should closely study, listen to and interact with consumers by using a similarly staged process that draws equally from design thinking and auto-netnography.

Prior to this study, existing research has not previously linked design thinking with either netnographic or auto-netnographic research.