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INTRODUCTION
Consumers sometimes oppose global brands and express concerns about corporate practices related to environmental and social responsibility. Recent examples include the protests against Abercrombie and Fitch for insensitive remarks about 'plus sizes' by the CEO (The Huffington Post, 2013) or against Burberry for the usage of hazardous chemicals in their products (www.greenpeace.org).
Anti-brand activism, both online and offline, tends to target strong global brands (Kucuk, 2008; Krishnamurthy and Kucuk, 2009), seriously impacting their value and reputation (King, 2008). Although this phenomenon has been gaining in diffusion and strength, academic research, while qualitatively insightful, continues to be scarce (for example, Holt, 2002; Kozinets and Handelman, 2004; Hollenbeck and Zinkhan, 2010). Herein, assuming a micro-level individual perspective based on theories from social psychology, we propose and test a conceptual framework describing reasons for, and processes underlying, consumer anti-brand activism. In particular, we show how consumer feelings of hate, elicited by corporate wrongdoings and intensified by felt empathy by consumers, instigate anti-brand actions.
We attempt to make two contributions. First, we report quantitative evidence of the relationships between consumer perceptions of brand misconduct and anti-brand actions, and we show the mediating role of feelings of hate in such relationships. Second, we report the moderating role of empathy in consumers which is instrumental in the activation of negative feelings of hate. Overall, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of one common incidence of anti-brand phenomenon, by proposing and testing new psychological processes that drive negative consumer responses toward brands. Our framework and findings are the result of a rigorous theory-based research, and this allows to provide managerial recommendations and suggestions solidly based on theory and on accurate empirical analyses.
The article proceeds as follows. In the next two sections we describe in more detail anti-brand activism and explain the functional role of feelings of hate and empathy in understanding the motivational drivers of these activities. Then we develop our hypotheses and test them with two quantitative studies. The presentation ends with discussion of empirical results and their implications.
ANTI-BRAND ACTIVISM
On the basis of existing research, anti-brand activism, including boycotting, culture jamming, on-line activism and several other forms of active resistance, develops around individuals' disapproval of brands, which, in these specific cases, have the potential to symbolize negative...