Abstract
This study explores the co-design of strategic rituals by craft breweries and their customers. As many marketplaces have become increasingly overly-saturated, organizations have struggled to create meaningful connections between themselves and customers. Ritual consumption is a potentially powerful method to maintain strong customer relationships and reinforce differentiation. Drawing on the concept of co-design, described as a process of ‘joint inquiry and imagination’ whereby ‘problem and solution coevolve’, our exploratory study employs case study methodology to clarify how strategic rituals are co-designed by customers and organizations in the craft beer industry of the US Pacific Northwest. Specifically, drawing on the Sociology of Religion we employ the Church – Denomination - Sect – Mystic Typology to illustrate how ritual, symbolism, ceremony, and mythology are strategically co-designed by craft breweries in order to contrast themselves against economically dominant, mass market Churches who seek to assert their market supremacy and monopoly as the “one true faith”. Alternatively, we find that craft breweries orient themselves as either Denominations, who see their offerings as one religion among many, and therefore, and co-design rituals to reinforce differentiated brand communities through active evangelization; Sects who arise as reactionary protest movements use ritual to reconnect themselves to the original roots of a Church that has lost its legitimacy; and Mystics who seek to separate themselves by using ritual to consciously focus inward to reinforce the purity and piety of their personal beliefs.
Keywords
Co-Design, Strategic Design, Ritual Consumption, Research Through Design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.228
Citation
Parkman, I., Turnbloom, D.,and Holloway, S.(2023) Co-designing strategic ritual in craft beer: Churches, Denominations, Sects, and Mystics, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.228
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
fullpapers
Included in
Co-designing strategic ritual in craft beer: Churches, Denominations, Sects, and Mystics
This study explores the co-design of strategic rituals by craft breweries and their customers. As many marketplaces have become increasingly overly-saturated, organizations have struggled to create meaningful connections between themselves and customers. Ritual consumption is a potentially powerful method to maintain strong customer relationships and reinforce differentiation. Drawing on the concept of co-design, described as a process of ‘joint inquiry and imagination’ whereby ‘problem and solution coevolve’, our exploratory study employs case study methodology to clarify how strategic rituals are co-designed by customers and organizations in the craft beer industry of the US Pacific Northwest. Specifically, drawing on the Sociology of Religion we employ the Church – Denomination - Sect – Mystic Typology to illustrate how ritual, symbolism, ceremony, and mythology are strategically co-designed by craft breweries in order to contrast themselves against economically dominant, mass market Churches who seek to assert their market supremacy and monopoly as the “one true faith”. Alternatively, we find that craft breweries orient themselves as either Denominations, who see their offerings as one religion among many, and therefore, and co-design rituals to reinforce differentiated brand communities through active evangelization; Sects who arise as reactionary protest movements use ritual to reconnect themselves to the original roots of a Church that has lost its legitimacy; and Mystics who seek to separate themselves by using ritual to consciously focus inward to reinforce the purity and piety of their personal beliefs.