Quacking your customer's code

United customer groups influence individual's purchasing decisions

We are a tribal species. In primitive times our hunter-gatherer ancestors needed each other to survive. Today, swaddled in modern comfort we may find ourselves more isolated, less communal, but that tribal instinct still exists. It’s just been revamped. Brands are the new tribes, managers and marketers the tribal leaders and savvy marketers can harness that primitive tribal impulse to create a bond between a company and its customers.

Not only does a tribe provide a sense of social safety, it confers status and identity on its members. Translating tribal speak into business speak, Harbert Professor Jeremy Wolter found that it’s worthwhile to organize customer groups around communal experiences. By uniting customers, whether in-person or online, around a specially curated event, the collective identity of the “tribe” can be leveraged to influence purchasing behaviors.

“Social encounters can give us a social high,” said Wolter, the Privett Endowed Professor in the Department of Marketing. “When businesses create a group for people, the group can become a collective personality. That strengthens the customer relationship.” Wolter cautions it can weaken that relationship if dynamics go in the wrong direction.

Read the full story, “Quacking your customer’s code,” published in the Fall 2025 issue of Harbert Magazine.

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Wolter’s insights come from research he conducted with Auburn colleague Pei Xu and fellow researchers Brad Carlson (St. Louis University), D. Todd Donavan (Colorado State University), James Maxham (University of Virginia). Their work was published in the Journal of Marketing earlier this year.