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This study aims to explore how a postmodern tribe enacts and re-interprets ideologies as a part of consumers’ collective experience, to enhance our understanding of consumer communities in conjunction with ideological capacities.

The community of “presenteers” is conceptualized as a self-organized tribe with heterogeneous components that generate capacities to act. Netnographic observation was conducted on 18 presenteer accounts and lasted around six months. Real-time data were collected by taking screenshots of the posts and stories that these users created and publicly shared. Data were analysed by adopting assemblage theory, combining inductive and deductive approaches. Firstly, a qualitative visual-textual content analysis of the tribe’s defining components was conducted. Then, the process continued with the thematic analysis of the ideological underpinnings of the tribe’s enactments.

Findings shed light on the ways in which consumer communities interpret the entanglement of religious, political, and cultural ideologies in shaping their experiences. In the case of the presenteers tribe, findings reflect a novel ideological interplay between neo-Ottomanism, post-feminism and consumerism.

The study offers a deep dive into a unique tribe that is being organized around the consumer-created practice of “presenteering” and investigates consumer communalization in alignment with the ideological turn in culture-oriented interpretative research on consumers, consumption, and markets. This exploration helps to bridge the research on the communalization of consumers with the recent discussions of ideology in the postmodern market.

The study offers a deep dive into a unique tribe that is being organized around the consumer-created practice of “presenteering” and investigates consumer communalization in alignment with the ideological turn in culture-oriented interpretative research on consumers, consumption, and markets. This exploration helps to bridge the research on the communalization of consumers with the recent discussions of ideology in the postmodern market.

Studies of marketplace cultures emphasize the benefits of communal consumption and explain the ways that brand managers can leverage subcultures and brand communities. The ephemeral and often non‐commercial nature of consumer tribes means that they are more difficult to manage. This paper, aims to suggest that a necessary pre‐requisite for understanding how to engage with consumer tribes is to identify how consumers become members of tribes.

Data are drawn from a five‐year ethnographic study of the archetypical club culture tribe that utilized a variety of data collection methods including participant observation and in‐depth interviewing.

The paper identifies “learning to be tribal” as a communal practice that occurs through three interconnected processes of engagement, imagination and alignment.

This paper makes three contributions: it clearly distinguishes between the three main forms of communal consumption found in the marketing literature; it identifies how consumer tribes are formed; and it questions received wisdom and shows how tribal theory can guide managers to offer products and services as learning resources that facilitate tribal practices.

Confessions are said to be important for members’ tribal experiences and they are usually ascribed religious meanings in existing research on consumer tribes. This suggests that confessions have a regulative role for tribal life. By employing the Foucauldian notion of pastoral power, the present study explores confession practices and examines how control is manifested.

The study is based on a netnographic study and analysis of tribal members’ confessions across three online consumer tribes devoted to opera (Loggionisti, who are opera aficionados of the La Scala theatre in Milan, Italy), sports (football and hockey fans of Djurgården, Sweden), and cars (Alfa Romeo owners).

We demonstrate how confessions align consumers with the common tribe ethos and how this constitutes members into various subject positions, which are fundamental social processes for reinforcing the tribe. More specifically, it demonstrates four types of subject positions: the ‘pastor’, ‘regular sheep’, ‘good sheep’ and ‘black sheep’, and how these subject positions regulate the actions of tribe members.

The present study theorizes how control is manifested and facilitated in consumer tribes. The study also explicates the confession and its role as a religious regulating practice fundamental for the life of a consumer tribe.

Community managers can recognize the different subject positions that emerge within a community and help facilitate the interactions among community members.

Previous studies are silent about how confessions reproduce control in consumer tribes. The present study highlights confession practices and the constitution of subject positions, which regulate as well as reinforce consumer tribes.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the emergent consumer tribe literature to facilitate a more complete understanding of the antecedents and roles implicit within consumer tribal membership. Principally a conceptual paper, this study focuses upon how a more complete understanding of consumer roles can be leveraged to create sustainable loyalty.

This study comprised an examination of the tribe's social behaviour, membership roles and influence on individual consumption. The research was approached interpretively with a case study design investigating a tribe of vinyl record collectors in a New Zealand context.

Key findings include the confirmation of Kozinets' antecedents of tribal membership and the four roles of tribal members previously conceptualised by Cova and Cova. The tribe was found to have a core set of values that moderated any individual differences. A hierarchy, managed through the distribution of “cultural capital”, was found to exist amongst the group. In an extension of Cova's modelling a fifth role of “Chief” was identified, whereby the Chief was found to act as an opinion leader and organiser amongst the group.

Owing to constraints of both time and research funding, only one tribe was examined in this case study, hence the results are very specific to the group studied. Future research should apply the managerial implications from this study to other case contexts to test and expand understanding of consumer tribe dynamics and the creation of consumer loyalty.

This paper creates a link between extant consumer behaviour, loyalty and consumer culture theory. The presented results have implications for the marketing manager through advancement towards creation of a model of tools a firm can use to connect with and build sustainable loyalty with consumer tribes.

This study aims to examine the relationship between social influence and consumers’ self-expression through brands. It considers susceptibility to interpersonal influence and social network influence on self-expressive brands and brand tribalism. The study examines whether self-expressive brands and brand tribalism influence brand loyalty and word of mouth (WOM).

A cross-sectional online survey was carried out with members of Generation Y in Ireland. Data from 675 complete responses were analysed using SPSS 20 and AMOS 20. A structural model tested nine hypothesised relationships.

Findings indicate that both online social network influence and susceptibility to interpersonal influence are antecedents of tribalism and self-expressive brands. Consumers of self-expressive brands are loyal and offer positive WOM. By contrast, those who seek tribal membership have less brand loyalty and offer less WOM than other consumers. Findings suggest that consumers may be loyal to tribes, rather than to brands. This informs our understanding of the role of tribes for consumers and brand outcomes.

This study is limited to Generation Y consumers within Ireland.

This is the first study to explore the effect of consumers’ perceptions about online social network influence on brand tribalism. In addition, their views about the influence of the social network on self-expressive brand consumption, and brand outcomes, are identified. This paper highlights consumers’ susceptibility to interpersonal influence on their brand choices and brand tribalism. In addition, it is shown that brand loyalty and WOM are not always a consequence of tribal membership. By contrast, self-expressive brand consumption enhances brand WOM and brand loyalty.

A number of postmodern consumer scholars have their attention on the consumption behaviour of neo-tribes. Changing gender roles and households’ consumption practices have also shaped new sets of cultural manifestations for the clothing consumption milieu. The purpose of this paper is to explore the clothing consumption culture of a neo-tribe, gay professionals within the subculture of gay consumers.

An extended conceptual framework built upon Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) theory of “reasoned action” served as the conceptual guideline for this study. Specifically, the attitude-behaviour framework is proposed and employed to better understand the clothing consumption behaviour of a neo-tribe consisting of gay professionals. Personal in-depth interviews were conducted in a metropolitan city as well as two small towns in Canada.

Stereotypical as well as non-stereotypical understandings are offered. The findings from this study portrayed the gay professions of this neo-tribe as rational and practical. Personal psychological factors, social factors and marketplace factors relevant to a neo-tribe of gay professionals are documented and deeper insights are presented.

Findings challenge the existing understanding of fashion manifestation for this consumers group. However, this study may be of limited scope. Future studies should further examine the clothing consumption cultural manifestations of other neo-tribes within the gay community.

The interviewees consistently demonstrated their positive attitudes towards quality, stylish and conservative clothing. For marketers it is crucial to perceive the gay community as a non-homogeneous market segment. There is a need to understand different consumption practices within this community and to tailor marketing mix elements accordingly.

This study has extended the understanding of the neo-tribes of gay consumers. In addition, this study offers the clothing consumption reality of a neo-tribe encompassing gay professionals. This study illuminates their rational and practical clothing consumption cultural manifestations and clothing consumption behaviour. These insights further enrich the general understandings that exist in the area of consumer research.

This paper aims to investigate the dynamics of ephemerality within consumer tribes by conceptualizing how tribes constitute, disperse and reconstitute. Building upon assemblage thinking, a philosophical approach that redistributes agency from the subject to a web of interconnected human–material actants, this paper shows that tribes manifest via hybrid assemblages of people, things and ideas.

Insights are drawn from a three-year assemblage-oriented ethnographic study of a salsa-dancing tribe, specifically their ephemeral gatherings across multiple sites without hierarchical organization. Methods include observations as a consumer–participant, producer–participant and in-depth interviewing.

Introduces a framework documenting how tribes disperse temporarily and reconstitute via a dual process of ascription and distribution. Tribes reconstitute when consumers reproduce an assemblage that effectively overcomes a meshwork of practical challenges. Consumers ascribe to the standards of the tribe while, alternatively, tribes distribute the assemblage beyond the immediate group.

Conceptualizes the socio-technical dynamics that tribes mobilize to disassemble and reassemble through ephemeral gatherings. Proposes a framework on hybrid interdependencies, including not only participants but also techniques, devices and sites.

While previous research shows that tribes can collapse, the authors propose that marketers can intervene to foster long-term resilience. As tribes disperse, consumer and marketing efforts operate at different temporal sequences to enable tribal reconstitutions.

Contributes to the literature on consumer tribes by theorizing ephemerality per ascription and distribution mechanisms.

Purpose: This study explores how the interplay between a passionate consumer and his embeddedness in the lively network of a consumer tribe represents a fertile environment for the emergence of an entrepreneurial venture that is able to combine micro- and macro-level concerns bridging tribe and marketplace needs.

Design/methodology/approach: The research, set within the context of an exemplar consumer’s entrepreneurial project, was conducted following a netnographic methodological approach.

Findings: By fluidly moving from within to outside the tribe in the wider marketplace, the entrepreneur crafts his own new space in the market through a cultural mediation work that effectively combines the affective, immaterial labor characterizing the social glue of the tribe collective ethos with entrepreneurial spirit and sharp marketing and consumer insight abilities. The entrepreneur acts as a resource integrator of traditional firm-driven and emerging consumer-driven marketplace without opposing existing market structures, but rather valorizing them through his intermediation work.

Research limitations: This is a single-case study that, although exemplar, needs to be expanded and consolidated with further empirical evidence.

Originality/value: The study contributes to extant literature on consumer-driven market emergence and new market system dynamics by uncovering the role of consumer entrepreneur as a reconfigurator of the existing market resources.

This study aims to empirically demonstrate the direct impact of brand tribalism on brand loyalty, revealing how the intrinsic elements of brand tribalism operate within an arena of high self-expressive brands.

A quantitative survey was carried out. A structured questionnaire was applied to active members of motorcycle clubs. It was obtained 336 responses and structural modeling was applied to test a hypothetical model.

This research shows that community and lineage were significantly related to brand loyalty, with a sense of community demonstrating the most decisive influence. Therefore, the study reveals that loyalty can be built through brand tribalism across strategies that foment collective social identity and friendship sentiments among brand consumers.

To increase brand loyalty, managers should associate their brands with the sense of community of tribe members and create associations within the brand and its consumers through brand communication and experiences, reinforcing brand owners’ lineage’s singularity.

This is the unique study demonstrating how to forge brand loyalty through brand tribalism’s multidimensional perspective, presenting findings on how its intrinsic factors can boost loyalty within self-expressive product brands.