Harwood, T.Garry, T.2010-06-082010-06-082009Harwood, T., Garry, T. (2009) Infilitrating an e-tribe: marketing within the Machinima [computerised games] community. Journal of Customer Behaviour, 8(1), pp. 67-83.1475-3928http://hdl.handle.net/10092/3967Relationship marketing principals of co-creating value and interactivity through a process of co-production are fundamental (e.g., Ballantyne, Egan, et al) and yet there has been little investigation into how this translates to an online socially networked context. This paper examines one such online tribal community to investigate its characteristics and examine its relationship marketing potential. Drawing on the social psychology literature and in particular, the self and social identification and tribal marketing literature, this paper explores the concept of tribalism and tribal marketing within one such net based community. Machinima is the making of 3D animated films using computerised games engines in real time. Findings suggest the Machinima community exhibits many of the features of a tribal based community but in an online environment which is informed by the media and the message. Commercial organisations appear sensitive to the values of the community and their marketing activities may be described as both ‘covert and collusive’. Where this is successful, tribal members collaborate and become critical informants to the community. The implications of these findings suggest organisations will need to consider more subtle and sophisticated relationship marketing activities within some e-contexts than have been used in more traditional offline contexts if they are to be successful.enAuthor Posting © Westburn Publishers Ltd, 2009. This is the preprint (pre peer-review) version of an article which has been published in its definitive form in the Journal of Customer Behaviour, and has been posted by permission of Westburn Publishers Ltd for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Journal of Customer Behaviour, 8(1), pp. 67-83, http://dx.doi.org/10.1362/147539209X414399relationship marketingvirtual communitytribal marketingco-creationJournal ArticleFields of Research::350000 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services::350200 Business and ManagementFields of Research::280000 Information, Computing and Communication Sciences::280100 Information Systemshttps://doi.org/10.1362/147539209X414399