%0 Journal Article %J Journal of Marketing %D 2002 %T Building Brand Community %A McAlexander,Jim %A Schouten ,John %A Koenig,Hal %K Marketing %X Drawing from ethnographic and quantitative work with owners of Jeep and Harley-Davidson vehicles, the authors examine the phenomenon of brand community as a potential basis for sustainable competitive advantage. The authors develop an expanded conceptualization of brand community and test its usefulness in both theory and practice. A brand community from a customer-experiential perspective is a fabric of relationships in which the customer is centrally situated. Crucial components of the brand community are customers' relationships with the brand, with the firm, with the product in use, and with fellow customers. The relationships that form a brand community develop in contexts that are dynamic and subject to marketing influence. Variables such as geographic concentration, richness of social context, duration of contact, and memberships in multiple or overlapping communities all mediate the experience of community. In this article, the authors examine the influence of brandfests—that is, programs strategically designed to enhance customer experience with the brand—on the many component relationships of a brand community. The results demonstrate that marketers can strengthen brand communities by facilitating shared customer experiences. Finally, this work yields a new and richer conceptualization of customer loyalty as integration in a brand community. According to the analysis, a customer's loyalty to a brand consists of the cumulative and holistic effect of all the relationships the customer experiences as a member of a brand community. %B Journal of Marketing %V 66 %P 38-54 %8 2002 %G eng %N 1 %2 a %4 647575552 %$ 647575552 %0 Journal Article %J Journal of Consumer Research %D 1995 %T Subcultures of Consumption: An Ethnography of the New Bikers %A Schouten ,John %A McAlexander,Jim %K Marketing %X This article introduces the subculture of consumption as an analytic category through which to better understand consumers and the manner in which they organize their lives and identities. Recognizing that consumption activities, product categories, or even brands may serve as the basis for interaction and social cohesion, the concept of the subculture of consumption solves many problems inherent in the use of ascribed social categories as devices for understanding consumer behavior. This article is based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork with Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners. A key feature of the fieldwork was a process of progressive contextualization of the researchers from outsiders to insiders situated within the subculture. Analysis of the social structure, dominant values, and revealing symbolic behaviors of this distinct, consumption-oriented subculture have led to the advancement of a theoretical framework that situates subcultures of consumption in the context of modem consumer culture and discusses, among other implications, a symbiosis between such subcultures and marketing institutions. Transferability of the principal findings of this research to other subcultures of consumption is established through comparisons with ethnographies of other self-selecting, consumption-oriented subcultures. %B Journal of Consumer Research %V 22 %P 43-61 %8 1995 %G eng %N 1 %2 a %4 648538112 %$ 648538112 %0 Journal Article %J Research in Consumer Behavior %D 1993 %T Consumer Behavior and Divorce %A McAlexander,Jim %A Schouten ,John %A Roberts ,Scott D. %K Marketing %B Research in Consumer Behavior %V 6 %P 153-184 %8 1993 %G eng %2 a %4 648544256 %$ 648544256 %0 Journal Article %J Journal of Professional Services Marketing %D 1991 %T Positioning Professional Services: Segmenting the Financial Services Market %A McAlexander,Jim %A Schouten ,John %A Scammon ,Debra %K Marketing %X Market segmentation and positioning allow marketers to differentiate themselves from competitors in a manner that is valued by customers and results in competitive advantage. Through an analysis of the financial services market this study develops a segmentation and positioning strategy based on the proposition that consumers employ many kinds of professional service providers to compensate for their own inability or unwillingness to perform certain tasks. Groups of similarly classified informants were examined to create profiles of four distinct market segments with unique needs, expectations, and evaluative criteria. %B Journal of Professional Services Marketing %V 7 %P 149-166 %8 1991 %G eng %N 2 %2 a %4 648548352 %$ 648548352