Marketers, as well as owners, have incentives to exercise
moral responsibility to brand and community. For example,
the ethic of nondestructive driving was a matter of intense
indoctrination at Jamborees. The event sponsors heavily
promote the “tread lightly” program as a cornerstone value
of Jeep and Jeep ownership, and the message is passed along
by owners. To the owners and marketers alike, “treading
lightly” serves the dual purposes of protecting the environment
and preserving access to off-highway trails.
The community-building activities of event participants,
including marketers, appeared to be remarkably efficient.
Even owners who came to events dwelling on how different
they felt from others often left after two or three days believing
they belonged to a broader community that understands
and supports them in realizing their consumption goals. In
this discussion of event-intensified brand communities, we
have dwelt primarily on human-to-human interactions. In
these geotemporally concentrated situations, the relation ships between owners and their vehicles and between customers
and the brand also benefit from enriched context.
Through ritual consumption, participants routinely reported
newfound intimacy with and understanding of their vehicles.
Likewise, their many positive experiences under the
auspices of the Jeep brand conveyed its potency as a symbol
of their values and lifestyle preferences. To better understand
how these transformations occur, we turn again to the
dynamic dimensions of brand community.