Tell me where you are going and I’ll tell you who you are: cultural identities in Brazilian community of Johnny Walker brand

ABSTRACT

In a scenario where consumption determines identities, the brand reveals an important social sign, through which people can express themselves. On the other hand, with technological improvements, virtual environments have contributed to meeting different people around common interests, such as it occurs in virtual brand communities. We assume the concept of identity as a position characterized by a set of meanings that inserts individuals into a cultural system in which the brands perform a central role in social interactions that occur in this system. With this in mind, this study aimed, through Brazilian virtual community of Johnny Walker brand, to analyze how the brand signs are used in consumers’ interactions, in order to establish the identities of their participants. For that, we conducted a netnography communication under an interpretive perspective. Interactions published in the community were collected as research corpus and scrutinized through functional speech analysis. Results revealed 16 identities, which we organized into three broader identity groups, that we called Bohemians, Uncools and Charismatics. Findings contribute to marketing knowledge and management in providing a different perspective from the traditional one, about how people relate with each other and with brands.

Keywords:
identity; brand community; Johnnie Walker; netnography communication