An atlas of synthetic tribes · est. 2013
Every market has tribes. Now you can talk to them.
Each plate in the atlas is a synthetic tribe: a source-backed profile of a real consumer tribe that you can interview, test ideas against and seat in a focus group.
A national brewer buys your favourite local brewery. How do you react?
- KE The knowledgeable enthusiast:Wait and see
- EX The explorer:Moving on
- LP The local patriot and brewery supporter:Against
- IV The inclusion voice:Watching
- BR The brewer:Against
A store wants to print rating app scores on the shelf label. Good idea?
- KE The knowledgeable enthusiast:Against
- EX The explorer:Split
- LP The local patriot and brewery supporter:Against
- IV The inclusion voice:Outside this
- BR The brewer:Against
A newcomer asks which beer to start with. What do you say?
- KE The knowledgeable enthusiast:Learn the classics
- EX The explorer:Try many
- LP The local patriot and brewery supporter:Go local
- IV The inclusion voice:No entry test
- BR The brewer:Come and see
- 112
- source-backed observations
- 70
- sources
- 5
- perspectives in one tribe
- 2013
- framework first published
The atlas
More plates · in the field
The next tribes are being mapped.
A plate is published when every observation is sourced and checked against its original.
Suggest a plate
Field note · Swedish craft beer culture
What earns trust in Swedish craft beer culture
Local ties, shared knowledge and public ratings shape Swedish craft beer culture, while questions of credibility, access and working conditions complicate the picture.
Read the field notePut your idea in front of a tribe.
Send a campaign, an offer or a page. You get a free three-page report: how the tribe receives it, where its perspectives split and what to change first.
Get the free reportMethod
The Tribal Map
Six dimensions around one hub: Values & Meaning, surrounded by Artefacts, Spaces, Influencers, Stories, Language and Experiences. First published on this site in 2013. A synthetic tribe adds Tensions, because a tribe is never one voice.
- 01Sourced observationsEach claim carries its source, population, year and method.
- 02One core, many perspectivesThe tribe answers as voices that can disagree.
- 03Independent reviewA reviewer from another model family checks the work.
- 04Blind validationPredictions are compared with what really happened.
Questions
Frequently asked
What is a synthetic tribe?
A source-backed model of a real consumer tribe: people held together by shared meaning, not by age, income or postcode. It is built from documented observations, each tied to its source, population and year, and it answers as several perspectives that can disagree. Read more
Is a tribe the same as a community?
No. A community is one of the places where a tribe gathers: a forum, a club, a hashtag, a festival. A tribe usually spans many communities. On the Tribal Map they belong under Spaces. Read more
How is a tribe different from a persona or a segment?
A persona gives you one averaged answer. A tribe has a shared core and several perspectives, so you see where it splits. A segment sorts people by who they are. A tribe sorts them by what they share. Read more
Is it built on personal data?
No. The observations come from published research, public reporting and what organisations say about themselves. No personal names are used, and the synthetic voices are never posts by real people.
How do you check that a tribe is right?
Every observation is tied to an archived original. The texts are reviewed by a different model family than the one that wrote them. A tribe is also tested blind against real outcomes it has not seen, and the result is shown on its plate once that test is done.
Can I talk to a tribe?
Yes, in Svava. There you can interview a tribe, run it as a focus group and test your own material against it. The plates on this site show what each tribe is built on.
What happened to the Tribaling blog?
The articles from 2013 and 2014 are preserved at their original addresses in the archive.
From the 2013 archive
Where the map began
The original posts stay where they have always been, at the same addresses.
Browse the archive