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COMMENTARY Marketing to
postmodern
Marketing to postmodern consumers
consumers: introducing the
299
internet chameleon
Geoff Simmons
School of Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Strategy, University of Ulster,
Jordanstown, UK

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to provide an overview of postmodern
marketing in the consumer context, integrating the relevant literature around two contrary arguments.
Second, it seeks to reveal the potential of the internet as a marketing tool that can address the
complexities inherent in postmodern consumer markets.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a general review.
Findings – This paper reveals that complexity reigns supreme in the postmodern marketing
consumer context, with postmodern consumers seeking both individualistic and communal brand
experiences. Within this complexity, the paper identifies the internet as an enabling tool, which allows
direct, real-time individualised interaction with postmodern consumers. Further, the internet’s ability
to provide these consumers with the opportunity to express this individuality within homogeneous
groups is also presented.
Practical implications – This paper reveals how the internet can allow an individualised
one-to-one connection with postmodern consumers to a level unparalleled offline. Correspondingly, the
paper also reveals how the internet is precipitating significant new opportunities for marketers to
engage in and create enticing experiences for postmodern consumers, who crave the ability to
appropriate consumption and brands as a means of individualised self-expression within
homogeneous groups.
Originality/value – This paper provides a contemporary and original overview of the opportunities
proffered to marketers by the internet, in dealing with the inherent complexities erupting from within
consumer markets in the postmodern era.
Keywords Postmodernism, Marketing, Consumer behaviour, Internet, Social networks
Paper type General review

Introduction
While many in marketing academia are suspicious of the postmodern argument
(Patterson, 1998), for many marketers on the ground the postmodern era has
introduced a sonorous new language, which is proving particularly difficult to
interpret. No longer unified by a common culture or institutional core (e.g. economy,
religion, the state, kinship), postmodern society resembles an incredibly complex
labyrinth of “cross-cutting discourses” (Dawes and Brown, 2000). The new marketing European Journal of Marketing
Vol. 42 No. 3/4, 2008
language, founded upon the four C’s of change, complexity, chaos, and contradiction pp. 299-310
(Addis and Podesta, 2005), requires both marketing academicians and practising q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0566
marketers to interpret and react to it proactively in order to ensure the discipline’s DOI 10.1108/03090560810852940
EJM relevance in the postmodern epoch (see Brown, 1993b; Flrat and Shultz, 1997; Brown,
42,3/4 2002; Burton, 2002; Goulding, 2003; Addis and Podesta, 2005).
For both marketing academicians and practitioners, there is an implicit need to
recognise and embrace the magnitude of societal change that is occurring within the
postmodern cultural biosphere. This paper discusses the extant literature on
postmodern marketing from the consumer perspective, building upon two essential
300 strands of contention identified by Goulding (2003). Complexity is seen to reign
supreme, with postmodern consumers seeking both individualistic and communal
brand experiences (Cova and Pace, 2006). However, within this complexity the paper
reveals, within a contemporary context, why marketers from academia and practice
cannot afford to ignore the internet chameleon sunbathing nonchalantly on the
recusant rock of postmodernity.

Consumed by consumption: who exactly am I today?

Goulding (2003) has condensed the various strands of thought in relation to the
representation of the postmodern consumer, to reveal two essential positions. The
discussion below integrates the relevant literature within these two positions
The first position views the essential nature of postmodernity as a liberatory force
(Flrat and Venkatesh, 1995), with fragmentation central to the experience (Brown, 1995;
Flrat and Shultz, 1997; Flrat and Venkatesh, 1995; Arias and Acebron, 2001). Goulding
(2003) posits that this fragmentation “consists of a series of interrelated ideas; the
fragmentation of markets into smaller and smaller segments, and therefore the
proliferation of a greater number of products to serve the increasing number of
segments”. Importantly, fragmentation has indoctrinated the media, that Zeus of
contemporary society that permeates the thinking, leisure and philosophy of the
masses. Developing this argument, Flrat and Shultz (1997) note that much of the media,
television, music and film increasingly resemble each other, presenting “collages of
fleeting moments that excite the senses, yet rarely connect to a central theme or focus”.
This fragmentation presented to postmodern consumers fits in with their loss of a
commitment to any single lifestyle or belief system and results in “bricolage markets,
that is consumers who do not present a united, centered self and, therefore, set of
preferences, but instead a jigsaw collage of multiple representations of selves and
preferences even when approaching the same product category” (Flrat and Shultz,
1997). In postmodern culture, the self is essentially decentred, preferring the ability to
switch images and utilise consumption as a means of constructing powerful images
liberating them from monotony and conformity (Brown, 1995, 1997). Additionally, a
significant characteristic of the postmodern individual is that he/she avoids
commitment (Dawes and Brown, 2000); in commercial terms, where the modern
consumer may have been expected to be loyal to a company or a product, the
postmodern consumer exercises freedom to move where choice or whim indicate
(Gitlin, 1989; Brown, 1995, 2002). Within this maelstrom pluralistic matrix,
consumption has become a means for individuals to creatively appropriate and
construct self-images that allow them to become more desirable and/or likeable in
various social contexts (Kacen, 2000; Dawes and Brown, 2000; Goulding, 2003). Indeed
postmodern consumer society has become obsessed with appearance, where style is a
ready and heady substitute for identity, and presentation is viewed as having much
more kosher kudos than essence (see Patterson, 1998; Kacen, 2000). The postmodern
manifesto dictates that “the meanings of objects are no longer fixed and linked to their Marketing to
functions, but are free-floating as each individual may ascribe the meanings s/he postmodern
desires to the objects” (Elliott, 1993). For consumers to fulfil their desires, marketers
need to empower these consumers to become marketers of their own self-images – in consumers
effect a consumption/production reversal (Flrat and Venkatesh, 1993; Flrat and Shultz,
1997). Within these fragmented moments and experiences, consumers’ scepticism is
heightened that a single order is present or indeed necessary – the consumer will take 301
the existence of the disorder and chaos as the norm, realising that different orders, even
if only temporary and momentary, are to be constructed through signifying actions
and negotiations with others and with the objects in fluid markets (see Brown, 1993a).
Conversely, the second position representing the postmodern consumer views this
postmodern society as dystopian and alienating (Goulding, 2003). It has been argued,
within this position, that there is a rather superficial and shallow reality to the
postmodern consumer (Eco, 1987; Jameson, 1990), within a world mediated by
simulation and hyperreal experiences (Baudrillard, 1993). Developing this theme, Flrat
and Shultz (1997) argue that postmodern culture has created a partly disinterested
nostalgia, with consumers not wholly wishing to be transported into a nostalgic
nirvana, but voyeuristically wishing to experience it for the moment “that it excites
and titillates the senses”. And, from a totally flip-side perspective, Patterson (1998)
emphasizes the concept of prestalgia, which expresses postmodern consumers’ desires
not only to ruminate ruefully backwards, but also fondly forwards to the future.
Indeed, Flrat and Shultz (1997), state that the representation of an imagined past or
future, in the present, focuses postmodern consumption on the “right here, right now”.
“The touristic consumer” (Flrat and Shultz, 1997) partakes of the many sights, sounds,
themes and tastes of Brown’s (1999) yesterdays and tomorrows, right here, right now
in the perpetual present (Gitlin, 1989), immersing themselves in the experiences of each,
until they tire and move onto the next thrill and spill. In essence, there is a lack of depth
to this postmodern consumer, and a focus on a superficial and surface “reality” (Eco,
1987; Jameson, 1990). This potentially malevolent malaise is rooted within a
postmodern society characterised by identity confusion (Kellner, 1995) and the
fragmentation of “self” (Gabriel and Lang, 1995; Jameson, 1990; Strauss, 1997).
Building upon these contentions, there is a growing counter-argument within the
literature which posits that postmodernity is a period which will encourage a move
away from individualism towards a search for more social bonds due to alienation –
introducing the concept of neo-tribes, networks of people gathering homogeneously
together for social interaction, often around consumption and brands (Maffesoli, 1996;
Cova, 1997; Kozinets, 2001, 2002; Thompson and Troester, 2002; Dholakia et al., 2004;
Johnson and Ambrose, 2006; Cova and Pace, 2006; Cova et al., 2007).
This literature exposition reveals the tension in postmodern consumer markets
between a desire for individualistic brand/consumption experiences and a need for new
forms of sociality and empowerment often around brands/consumption. The next
sections of the paper explore the role of the internet as a marketing tool that can create
reconciliation within this context.

Virtually individual
Various authors have revealed clearly just how well blended the internet is with
postmodern consumers’ cravings for crapulent carvings of succulent consumption/
EJM brand experiences, which feed their need for introspective individualism. Many
42,3/4 organisations are already realising that they may be encountering segments of one in
postmodern consumer markets. Expanding this into an “e” arena, Harridge-March
(2004) suggests that it may be logical to assume that the individualised and tailored
messages/offers that are made possible by the internet would mean the ultimate in
one-to-one marketing, as originally espoused by Peppers and Rogers (1993).
302 Additionally, Burton (2002) contends that many postmodern consumers are
increasingly tiring of the relationship management culture pervading offline brand
interactions, which are imbued with fake spontaneity, orchestrated emotions and
crocodile smiles. Many postmodern consumers are voting with their mouse, preferring
personalised virtual brand interactions with their individualised selves in the online
world.
An excellent and increasingly relevant example is mobile commerce. Mobile
commerce (m-commerce) allows marketers to connect directly with individual
consumers, (through mobile phone, personal digital assistant (PDA) or laptop
computer), in real time, without spatial or wiring constraint (Frolick and Chen, 2004).
Indeed the key to effective m-marketing is the exploitation of the time-critical,
location-based and personal nature of the mobile channel (Shubert and Hampe, 2006).
However, for m-marketing to thrive, Mort and Drennan (2002) emphasise the need to
integrate it with the development of effective databases which consist of opt-in
consumers. Then marketers can begin to transform m-marketing content and utilise
location technologies, such as GPS, that take a consumer’s location in to account,
providing them with access to localised and personalised information and services.
Another exciting and cutting-edge internet tool within this context is web analytics.
Web analytics is an evaluative technique, originating from and driven by the business
world in its need to better understand the usage of its websites. Phippen (2004) reveals
that basic web analytics utilise easily obtained statistics, or metrics, in order to be able
to assess website usage. However, while useful, basic metrics have been dismissed in
some literature as unreliable and unrepresentative (see Kilpatrick, 2002; Buresh, 2003;
Schmitt et al., 1999; Whitecross, 2002). As a result of this dissatisfaction with basic web
analytics, the concept of advanced web analytics, or e-metrics (Sterne and Cutler, 2000)
has developed. The Aberdeen Group (2000) defines advanced web analytics as:
Monitoring and reporting of Website usage so that enterprises can better understand the
complex interactions between Website visitor actions and Website offers, as well as leverage
insight to optimise the site for increased customer loyalty and sales.
According to Phippen (2004), the important point for marketers to note is that
advanced web analytics is not just concerned with website statistics, but “the
relationship and interaction between a Website and its customers”. It does not just
collect website information, advanced web analytics also utilises it in conjunction with
other data, such as demographics, customer profiles and subscription information.
Advanced web analytics can track individual consumers, in real time, as they navigate
a website, allowing marketers to personalise the online experience to suit them
individually, in real time (Derrick, 2006). This enticing internet tool offers marketers
the ability to enter that postmodern marketing golden age, where consumers joyously
skip through verdant fields of product, service and brand experiences, which are
touchy-feely tailored just for them, and often by them.
 However, going further, Cova (1996) states that the postmodern consumer also Marketing to
“calls for an experience-based marketing that emphasizes connectivity and creativity”. postmodern
Recent research has presented this experience-based marketing in all its connective
and creative glory (Cova and Pace, 2006; Cova et al., 2007). Further, Kacen (2000) and consumers
Dawes and Brown (2000) reveal that given the fragmentation in postmodern consumer
markets, marketing techniques need to allow these consumers to construct for
themselves different styles, forms and types of the same product, to utilise in their 303
representations of different self-images in different situations. In effect, as discussed
earlier, production and consumption need to become inseparable.
Balasubramanian et al. (2001) take up this gauntlet, stating that the internet allows
the customisation of products and services for and by individual consumers.
Essentially, the internet allows empowered online postmodern consumers to interact in
a meaningful way with companies (see Auger, 2005; Ibeh et al., 2005; Marcolin et al.,
2005), developing a rapport which creates a relationship that allows these consumers to
have a say in the online creation of product and service experiences, which are tailored
to their individualised needs (see Jiang, 2002; Grenci and Watts, 2007, for expositions
on online consumer customisation). Take for example, the rise of RSS. RSS (Really
Simple Syndication) is a free internet service that allows consumers to choose what
they want to read, listen to and watch and have it sent to them electronically, right here
and right now (Precision Marketing, 2006). RSS differs from e-mail newsletters in that
the consumer has the power to be almost infinitely selective. For example, surfers can
log on to the BBC website to elect to receive Doctor Who news and then surf over to
The Times website to receive news from select categories that interest them. And
consumers will be safe and secure in the knowledge that they will not receive any
additional or irrelevant information (Precision Marketing, 2006). In effect, they can visit
websites of interest, customising the content they want to receive. This is much more
targeted and personalised than e-mail marketing, is free of spam, gets around spam
filters and allows consumers to create the content groupings they want to receive from
websites.
And there is much more. Collaborative customisation (Gilmore and Pine, 1997)
refers to companies and consumers colluding in order to design and produce products
and services which are tailored to the consumer’s needs. The internet takes this to a
new level (Jiang, 2002; Grenci and Watts, 2007). Take, for example, the “new” Mini, that
trendy totem pole of postmodern retro desire. The Mini website affords consumers the
opportunity to customise their Mini to their specific specifications before it trundles
down the personalised production line. If you believe the blurb, no one Mini in 10,000
will ever be the same. In fact, the customisation options are extensive enough to
express even the craziest and zaniest identities. And of course, a famous consumer of
the “my Mini made-to-measure milieu”, is that madame maı̂tre of postmodern culture
– Madonna.

Individually or communally?
Postmodern consumers adore being individual, they adore continually reinventing
themselves through their consumption. However, while they love to develop highly
individualised identities, through continually fresh and exciting consumption
experiences, it appears that they do not want to do it in isolation or in communities
with highly dispersed interest sets. Recent research by Dholakia et al. (2004) and Cova
EJM and Pace (2006) reveals that postmodern consumers show new forms of sociality and
42,3/4 empowerment, based not upon interaction between peers, but more on personal
self-exhibition in front of other consumers through the marks and rituals linked to
brands. Within this context, the individualised real time interactions and
customisation facilitated by the internet, on their own, do not lend themselves to
totally satisfying individualised but communally compulsive postmodern consumers.
304
Aspiring tribal trendsetters
There are recurring contentions within the literature that postmodern society has
moved away from a more extreme form of individualism, towards a soulful search for
more social bonds due to alienation – the phenomenon of neo-tribalism (Maffesoli,
1996; Cova, 1997; Kozinets, 2001, 2002; Thompson and Troester, 2002; Dholakia et al.,
2004; Johnson and Ambrose, 2006; Cova and Pace, 2006; Cova et al., 2007). So,
individualism has been cast into the lake of fire. Or has it? Much of what was discussed
in relation to the internet’s ability to connect with individual consumers is valid.
However, by personalising interactions each consumer will remain unaware of what
messages (if any) other consumers are receiving. Consequently, each consumer is
oblivious to the image others have of them, for using particular brands (Macrae, 1996).
Patterson (1998) develops this stating that personalised interactions are essentially
private in nature. The point here is that they pour cold water on the forest-fire desire of
postmodern consumers to use consumption, as a means of creating and sharing their
individualised attitudes, expectations and sense of identity (see Thompson and
Troester, 2002; Dholakia et al., 2004; Johnson and Ambrose, 2006; Cova and Pace, 2006;
Cova et al., 2007, for relevant examples). Sharing is the key. Within this context, Slater
(1997) concisely states:
. . . with the decline of traditional social information systems such as religion, politics and the
family, advertising fills the gap with its privileged “discourse through and about objects” [. . .]
The meanings advertising provides allow people to signal their attitudes, expectations and
sense of identity through “patterns or preferences for consumer goods”, organised into
lifestyles, taste cultures and market segments.
However, as research has revealed, postmodern consumers desire an experience-based
marketing that emphasises interactivity, connectivity and creativity (Cova, 1996; Cova
and Pace, 2006; Cova et al., 2007). Advertising follows a scripted flow, within a
one-to-many communication model in which a single promotion is sent by one source,
and seen by many recipients without the opportunity for immediate feedback (Rowley,
2004). Within this context the internet has again presented itself as the protuberant
postmodern marketing champion, facilitating non-linear communication, a free flow
and exchange of information, and the opportunity for two-way flows between
companies and customers on a one-to-one or many-to-many basis (Phippen, 2004;
Rowley, 2004; Pitta and Fowler, 2005).
These qualities allow marketers to leverage the internet in order to create and
publicise shared meanings to entice the postmodern consumer. And within this,
postmodern consumers are finding a public forum in which they can express, define
and differentiate themselves to those that matter, through their consumption (Hagel
and Armstrong, 1997; Banks and Daus, 2002; Gruen et al., 2005).
Virtually glued together Marketing to
The internet has emerged as the virtual glue, which many people in postmodern postmodern
societies are using to bond together in an increasingly fragmented world. A plethora of
online tribal communities have developed, based upon four essential elements consumers
identified by Johnson and Ambrose (2006): people, purposes, protocols and technology.
The tribal members have shared purposes and beliefs, interacting socially by adhering
to tacit and explicit protocols, rituals, and roles using internet technologies that 305
support interaction (Preece, 2001). Johnson and Ambrose (2006) view the key
characteristics of such technology as its ability to:
.
facilitate synchronous and asynchronous interaction;
.
enhance information richness through multimedia;
.
provide a range of information for various processing needs; and
.
be ubiquitous, as well as impervious to spatiotemporal limitations.

The rise of social networking websites and user-generated content (USG) has forced
marketers to wake up to the opportunities that are being created for their brands in the
postmodern world. These virtual networks can be organised around various niches of
interest or content and are becoming very much a part of every day conversations in
postmodern society. MySpace (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation), one of
the net’s most visited social networking sites, builds its 150 million community around
independent music and party scenes (Harwood, 2007). People spend hours on MySpace
talking to friends and making new friends. And for a growing band of brands,
MySpace lets them create their own profile in attempts to develop communities of
brand friends. However, in the user-controlled environment online, the brand
proposition has to be highly compelling in order to get people to interact (Harwood,
2007). Taking a different virtual social networking tack emphasising USG, Digg is an
online phenomenon billing itself as a user-driven social content community. Notess
(2007) provides an interesting commentary on this online phenomenon. Registered
members (known as diggers) scour the internet for content on specific topics, which
they believe will tantalise and tease the taste buds of interested online leaf-peepers. The
highest-rated stories move to the hallowed Digg front page and garnish hundreds of
thousands of viewing eyes – the subsequent fame and prestige present diggers and
potential diggers with a potent intoxicating brew. Registered users vote to promote or
demote items. To promote a story users “digg” it. To demote a story, users “bury” it.
The more “diggs” the better. For marketers, positive stories about their brand have
viral marketing potential, which is potent (see Datta et al., 2005), and of course negative
stories can lead to the digging of a six-foot corporate hole!
The rise of the internet has developed the idea that brands can utilise their websites
to create consumer communities – enter social network marketing (SNM; McWilliam,
2000; Banks and Daus, 2002; Gruen et al., 2005). For marketers, building brand
communities online is about providing a virtual platform, centred around the brand,
where like-minded (but individualistic!) postmodern consumers can discuss their
opinions on anything and everything (see Cova et al., 2007). Since the platform is built
around the brand personality, the community riding on it has a direct, yet
non-intrusive, connection with the brand (Cova and Pace, 2006). Shukla (2006) provides
an interesting commentary on the brand community of Sunsilk, the shampoo brand
EJM from Lever. According to the company, it has members who chat, argue and fight over
42,3/4 myriad issues like the quality of their shampoos, their make-up, problems with
boyfriends and sports to politics, among others. The website hosting the brand
community has various interactive features like a makeover zone, where girls can try
out new hairstyles or make-up, a chill-out zone, and a blog zone (with about 6,000
regular bloggers), among others.
306 Blogging is perhaps the most talked about online phenomenon currently within the
SNM arena. Essentially, blogs provide both private individuals and companies, an
effective means of collecting and organising as well as transmitting fresh insights and
opinions on any subject (Dearstyn, 2005). However, blogging has also led to a situation
were brands are no longer in control of their marketing communications. This has lead
to the temptation for many companies to enter the blogosphere in order to regain some
control of their brand equity (Hanson, 2006). Bloggers, from a plethora of backgrounds,
can virally spread negative brand perceptions online as quickly as brand managers can
say “brand equity”. However, smart marketers are becoming increasingly savvy in
respect of blogs and their power as a SNM tool within homogenised tribes of
postmodern consumers. For example, Brooks (2006) reveals how AOL utilised a blog to
deliver their “Discuss” campaign, which was intended to spur consumers to reappraise
the broadband provider. The blog probed within different consumer groupings to
stimulate interest in topics that would not normally be discussed by mainstream
marketing campaigns. The interactions that can derive from such SNM activities, can
potently harness the viral power of virtual postmodern consumer tribes in creating
positive brand equity (see Cova and Pace, 2006; Cova et al., 2007).

Conclusion
This paper has presented the internet as an enabling tool, which allows direct, real-time
individualised interaction with postmodern consumers. Further, the internet’s ability
to provide these consumers with the opportunity to express this individuality within
homogeneous groups is also presented as a gilded sword, with which to fence with the
terrifying postmodern-society inspired trio of narcissism, isolation and loneliness. For
marketers, in both academia and in practice, the power of the internet as a marketing
tool within the postmodern consumer context needs to be continually evaluated and
exploited. In particular, the rise of neo-tribes presents opportunities for researchers to
explore the role of the internet and the implications for marketing practice. This is an
area that appears to be particularly sparse in relation to relevant research (Johnson and
Ambrose, 2006; Cova and Pace, 2006). For practitioners, the challenge is how to harness
the internet to engage postmodern consumers individually and communally. Creativity
and imagination (Brown and Patterson, 2000) will be needed in order to produce
internet marketing tools that can achieve both, in the creation of value.

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About the author

Geoff Simmons is a Lecturer in E-Marketing within the School of Marketing, Entrepreneurship
and Strategy at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown. Geoff lectures on a range of
undergraduate and postgraduate marketing programmes. His main research interests are in the
area of SME internet marketing adoption, internet branding and the internet’s relationship with
postmodern marketing. Geoff Simmons can be contacted at: gj.simmons@ulster.ac.uk

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