Guest editorial
| Pages | 573-574 |
| Published date | 19 August 2019 |
| Date | 19 August 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-05-2019-2359 |
| Author | Silvia Grappi,Lia Zarantonello,Simona Romani |
| Subject Matter | Marketing,Product management,Brand management/equity |
Guest editorial
Consumer negativity towards brands
If marketing and consumer resear chers have traditionally
been attracted to better understanding the positive consumer
responses in the marketplace, inclu ding brands, in recent
years we have witnessed a growing in terest in the negative
responses of consumers towards product s, services and
brands. Recent brand crises ranging from tac tical ones to
others questioning the very nature of the bus iness –Gillette’s
#MeToo advert, Ryanair’stweetmakingfunofBritish
Airways, Ford’s pollution scandals, Facebook-Cambridge
Analytica scandal –have further ite rated how important it is
for companies to understand consumer responses and try to
deal with them in the best possible way. So far the topics that
have been investigated by schol ars include negative consumer
emotions, such as brand hate (Hegn er et al., 2017;
Zarantonello et al.,2016,2018), consumer anti-consumpt ion
and anti-actions (Kähr et al.,2016;Kucuk, 2008;Romani
et al.,2015) and, more generally, negativ e consumer–brand
relationships (Fournier and Alva rez, 2013;Park et al., 2013).
Despite the significant advances in our understanding of
consumer negativity towards brands, the area is still
underdeveloped. With this in mind, we launched a call for
papers and, notsurprisingly, we have receivedan overwhelming
response with more than50 submissions by scholars all around
the world. Among these, thanks to the help of reviewers, we
have selected eight papers that deal with the topic of consumer
brand negativityfrom different pointsof view.
More specifically, by using a multi-method qualitative
approach composed of in-depth interviews and an ethnograp hy
of a pro-environmental activist group, Cambefort and Roux
examine perceived risks in the context of resistance behaviour.
The typologyof risks they identify consists of performance(lack
of suitable alternatives for the brand), social issues (stigma and
exclusion), legal reasons (legal proceedings) and physical
considerations(violation of physical integrity),which are linked
to different anti-brand behaviours. These are conceptualized
along a brand resistance intensity continuum that goes from
avoidance to extreme acts and includes offline word-of-mouth,
onlineword-of-mouth, boycott andactivism in-between.
Focussing on sub-Saharan African co untries, Odoom,
Kosiba, Djamgbah and Narh conc eptualize brand avoidance
as moral avoidance, identity avoidance, de ficit-value
avoidance, experiential avoid ance and advertising-related
avoidance and develop a measuremen t scale to capture it.
They also show how brand avoidance is pos itively related to
non-patronage intention.
In another scale development paper, Guèvremont theorizes
brand hypocrisy from a consumer perspective and develops a
scale to measure it. The multi-study process results in the
conceptualization of brand hypocrisy as consisting of four
dimensions –image hypocrisy (brand failing to put words into
action), missionhypocrisy (brand exerting a negativeimpact on
society or consumer well-being), message hypocrisy (brand
conveying unrealistic/unattainableimages) and social hypocrisy
(brand supporting social responsibility initiatives for strategic
purposes only) –as well as in the development of a scale to
capture the construct. Importantly, brandhypocrisy is shown to
be a significant predictor of negative consumer behaviours such
as negativeword-of-mouth and brand distance.
Osuna, Veloutsouand Morgan-Thomas develop the concept
of brand polarizationand discuss the benefits associatedwith it.
Their exploratory findings, resulting from semi-structured
interviews with consumers, highlight the advantages of brand
polarization for companies. In particular, they identify specific
opportunities for the brand management team, for the brand
itselfand for the consumers involvedwith the polarizing brand.
Fetscherin and Sanpedro examine brand forgiveness in the
context of brandtransgressions of different types (performance,
image, value) and degreeof severity (high vs low). Results from
their experimental study show that consumers witnessing a
performance-based brand transgression are more likely to
forgive the brand than in the case of image- or value-based
brand transgressions, and that the more severe the brand
transgression,the less likely the forgiveness.
Baghi and Gabrielli focus on values-related versus performance-
related crises, and using an experimental design, they investigate
consumer affective and behavioural responses, namely, negative
word-of-mouth and purchase intention. In doing so, they take into
account the mediating role of negative emotions and the
moderating role of cultural belongingness (collectivistic versus
individualistic). Their findings suggest that consumers belonging
to a collectivistic culture tend to react in a more severe manner
when faced with a values-related brand crisis event than with a
performance-related crisis. The arousal of negative emotion
towards the brand represents the mediating variable in behavioural
responses.
Kordostrami and Kordostrami in vestigate, through a
qualitative and quantitative multi- method approach, the
effect of consumers’individual dif ferences (regulatory focus
and attachment styles) on their reactions to brand f ailure. The
results show that consumers with a pr omotion focus display
less negative (revenge and bran d avoidance) and more
positive (trust and loyalty) be haviour than those with a
prevention focus. In addition, re sults reveal the presence of an
interaction between consumers ’attachment style and
regulatory focus: the effect of regulat ory focus holds only for
secure consumers; for fearful consumers , regulatory focus
does not change their behaviour.
Finally, through case studies in the retail fashion industry,
Cooper, Stavros and Dobele examine how companies can deal
with negative sentiment on social media. Findings reveal five
key domains of influence around which the firms base their
approach to addressing social media backlash. These are
categorized as either relational domains, built on human
exchange, or transformational domains, grounded in corporate
cultureand operational practices.
Altogether, these articles she d some light on how
consumers perceive and react to brand negat ivity, as well as
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
28/5 (2019) 573–574
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-05-2019-2359]
573
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