Organizing Customers: Learning from Big Brother

• Many firms see a potential value in the communities of interested customers that havegrown around products in various industries. These ‘customer communities’ or ‘communitiesof interest’ give enthusiasts the opportunity to socialise around a common focus. Theyseem to create more loyal customers and a potential flow of creative ideas that the firms canmake use of. However, although the benefits of customer communities are clear, the processof organising them is not. In this paper, we are interested in how firms can organisecustomers in communities that are productively used for customer interaction. The analysisis built on an in-depth study of how the producers of the reality TV series Big Brother useda combination of online and offline channels to organise customers. Theories of attentionare used to explain the organising process. The core argument is that the customer’s use ofdifferent channels (e.g. TV, web, newspapers, chat) directs and redirects his/her attentionand thereby influences behaviour in a way that can be beneficial for the broadcasting firm.The paper contributes to theory by advancing knowledge on how communities becomeorganised through combinations of online and offline sources that guide attention andbehaviour. For managers, the paper aims to develop actionable knowledge on how channelscan be structured to organise customer communities so as to increase and prolongcustomer attention and interaction, and hence enable extraction of value.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

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