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Although marketer-generated brand anthropomorphism impacts on positive company returns is studied broadly, consumer-generated brand anthropomorphisms that focus on demonizing and hitlerizing brands is not extensively studied. This study aims to examine these consumer interpretations of the evil, its symbols and personifications of brands as evil, with a new concept: “reverse brand anthropomorphism.”

This paper provides a literature review of brand anthropomorphism and the application of the concept of evil. This paper also uses a qualitative analysis with consumer interviews to explore the proposed reverse brand anthropomorphism concept.

This study’s findings reveal that consumers see corporations as consciously evil, loosely as an embodiment of Adolf Hitler. Consumer interviews points out that corporate brand power aimed at controlling consumer value systems is associated with “evil,” an evil that secretly aims at possessing consumers and controlling their consumption practices. The findings of this study indicate that consumers also develop their own alternative moral market value systems, ones parallel to religious morality. Although “evil” imagery is often found distractive and disrespectful by consumers, the younger generation accept it as a new and alternative form of market speech.

This is the first study to introduces and conceptualize a “reverse brand anthropomorphism” concept with examples of consumer brand hitlerization semiotics. Further, this study is also the first study to discuss evil in a consumption context.

This paper aims to investigate whether brand anthropomorphism has a direct impact on brand hate and what are the prevailing factors that play a significant role in this relationship.

This study provides insights on brand anthropomorphism phenomenon and negative consumer–brand relationships in the context of social media-based anti-brand communities. Using a quantitative analysis of the data gathered from an online survey, this study analyzes brand anthropomorphism in the three main online anti-brand communities toward Apple.

Findings indicated that brand anthropomorphism in itself does not impact on brand hate directly. Nevertheless, when it is used by consumers to express their negative feelings toward the hatred brand, the consumers’ attribution of responsibility and intentionality to Apple brand’s behavior positively affects brand hate, and ideological incompatibility is a good moderator for brand hate.

The results of this study are based on a limited number of survey respondents because anti-brand community members are very difficult to access, and thus, it was not easy to have their collaboration for this research.

This study highlights the power of social media as a tool for establishing negative consumer–brand relationships. Therefore, brand managers must recognize that consumer activists may be a serious threat to the company and deal with the consumers’ tendency to use anthropomorphism to express their hate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the link between brand anthropomorphism and brand hate, analyzed through a quantitative analysis.

A conceptual confusion has evolved in brand hate (BH) research mainly due to multiple conceptualizations, models and constructs in the field. As such, there is an urgent need to bring these insights together for a holistic understanding of research in BH, fostering its growth. This paper aims to fill this theoretical gap by bringing together the field of BH and delineating opportunities for further research.

A systematic literature review was conducted for a period of about two decades, from 1998 to August 2021. The authors included the English articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals with full texts relevant to this study, leading to a usable sample of 55 articles.

The authors’ findings reveal that the literature has inadequately distinguished BH as emotion and relationship, while the theoretical domain used to explore BH remains largely dominated by the psychology literature. Furthermore, BH research has primarily focused on services, with little distinction made between hatred across product and service context, with most studies set in developed countries. The authors further identify the need to investigate boundary conditions influencing BH and develop a more robust measure of BH to capture its dynamic facet.

By presenting a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the research in BH and highlighting the future research avenues, this study is believed to spur scholarly research and serve as a valuable tool for the researchers in advancing the research in BH.

Analysis of determinants and antecedents of BH provide managers an opportunity to nip the evil in the bud by preventing such situations that may lead to BH. Furthermore, insights into different BH consequences and boundary conditions allow brand managers to devise appropriate strategies to mitigate adverse reactions and foster positive consumer–brand relationships.

This study provides a thorough analysis of the current state of BH research in one place and draws a road map for scholars to further the research in this area.

Consumers' responses to service failures are influenced not just by company-related issues but also by one's ability to react to stressful situations. The aim of this research is to explore the emotional intelligence of brand haters and transform them into forgivers.

This study used two qualitative methods, namely in-depth semi-structured interviews with a total of 17 participants who have different emotional intelligence levels (high, medium and low) and projective techniques with 6 participants.

This study's results showed that consumers with high and medium emotional intelligence feel less hate toward a brand and are more likely to forgive it, whereas consumers with low emotional intelligence feel more hate toward a brand and are unwilling to forgive it.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is among the first to shed light on the importance of managing hate by consumers. Findings will help managers understand the importance of consumer personality in a management strategy and explain why some consumers forgive brands while others participate in anti-brand activities.

This study aims to extend the body of knowledge on brand hate and further examine its significant antecedents and consequences to investigate how brand hate affects consumers’ behavioural responses.

This study used a questionnaire to collect data from 403 consumers of Pakistan’s mobile telecommunication industry. Smart partial least square was then used to analyse the data.

This study provides insights into the conception of brand hate in the context of Pakistani consumers. This study’s findings indicate that “neuroticism”, as a consumer-related antecedent, “perceived price unfairness”, “poor product/service quality” and “post-purchase service failures” as company-controlled determinants have significant impacts on brand hate. This, in turn, leads to brand avoidance and brand retaliation. Managerial implications and avenues for future research are also discussed. This study provides insights into the conception of brand hate in the context of Pakistani consumers.

The original findings of this work can thus provide meaningful guidance for companies to mitigate the spread of brand hate among consumers.

The role of retailers in influencing consumer attitude during a brand scandal is quite complex, as retailers are in direct contact with both marketers and consumers. The purpose of the exploratory research is to propose a theoretical model to capture the influences retailers exercise on consumers during brand scandals.

A qualitative approach has been adopted in the study. The study employs the grounded theory approach on the data collected by conducting in-depth interviews with 25 retailers.

Four contextual conditions and six behavioral antecedents of the retailer's role in the context of the brand scandal were identified. Then, the study finds that companies tend to follow two broad approaches during a brand scandal to address retailers' queries and apprehensions. On these bases, the study proposes a six-pronged typology to better understand retailers' role in shaping consumers' brand perception.

Existing literature has not paid adequate attention to this aspect of retailers' role in influencing consumer choices during brand scandal. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no prior research which investigates the role and influence of retailers in shaping consumer attitude during brand scandals. It is important to underline that the current research advocates retailers' significant role during a performance-based brand scandal. Specifically, the authors explored a health-related defective scandal of a well-known food brand. In addition, the study focuses on traditional grocery retailers, which already have special relationships with their consumers. Based on retailer perspectives, the authors' contribution is also updating the discussion of branding theory in case of scandals. The identified variables and constructs may be used for empirical investigation on the role of retailers in shaping consumer attitudes toward the scandalized brand.

This study aims to investigate a neglected phenomenon, conceptualized as “brand-bullying.” The study aims at defining the brand bullying phenomena with adolescents who are actively experiencing brand bullying. Potential impacts of brand bullying experience on adult consumption behaviors are also investigated.

This paper provides a literature review of brand bullying and uses two qualitative analyses with adolescent and adult consumers through face-to-face interviews.

Study-1 found five different styles of brand bullying behavior with adolescents. Study-2’s findings revealed four distinct styles of brand bullying coping behaviors in adulthood. Study-2 also found that brand-bullying’s negative effects could continue after the bullying process is long over and has the potential to cause consumer brand hate (in the form of brand avoidance and disgust) and can cause conspicuous consumption patterns in adulthood in the future. The study further reports that neither the economically unfortunate nor the wealthy are immune to brand bullying.

This is the first study to investigate the brand bullying concept and its expression among adolescents, as well as its impact on adult consumption behaviors. The study is among the first to report the negative impact of brand bullying on adult consumer behaviors and consumption patterns in adulthood from a consumer psychology perspective.

This study aims to investigate the interplay between brand and consumer personalities in shaping brand hate and its consequences. More specifically, it investigates the relationship between fallacious character of the brand, brand betrayal feelings and brand hate, and identifies two response routes leading to consumer avoidance and revenge. Furthermore, the study explores the moderating impact of narcissism on the relationships between brand hate and its outcomes.

Data are collected from an online survey of a French representative consumer panel where participants were asked to cite a particular brand they hate, and then assess the different constructs tested in the model. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The study sheds light on the possible mediators and moderators of brand hate. Particularly, brand betrayal is hypothesized as a mediator between fallacious character of the brand and brand hate. Moreover, the study assesses the impact of narcissism on the relationship between brand hate and desire for avoidance and revenge. Findings show that active brand hate leads to a desire for revenge, whereas passive brand hate positively influences desire for avoidance. Finally, the current research suggests that consumer narcissism fuels desire for revenge on the brand.

To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to integrate brand personality (the fallacious character of the brand) and consumer personality (narcissism). The study describes the mechanism through which brand transgressions activate two response routes to brand hate associated with the desires for revenge and avoidance.

Consumer brand relationship literature has recently seen a surge of studies on brand hate, its antecedents and outcomes. Hate alone will not drive consumers to engage in negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and indicates the interplay of other social relationship factors that can strengthen the effect of brand hate on negative eWOM. The purpose of this study is to integrate the emerging concept of brand hate and perceived social media power with the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to expand the understanding of negative eWOM.

Data is collected through a survey conducted among university students based in the National Capital Region of Delhi in India. The research model is empirically tested using structural equation modeling in AMOSv23.

The three TPB dimensions, including brand attitude, subjective norms and individual’s propensity to anthropomorphize, are found to influence brand to hate significantly. The other perceived control factors included in the model, perceived homophily and social media self-efficacy, were found to affect perceived social media power, which, in turn, is crucial in predicting consumers’ engagement in negative eWOM behavior, both directly and through interaction with brand hate.

The study contributes to brand hate literature and offers a novel perspective by advocating the role of consumers’ propensity to anthropomorphize in augmenting feelings of brand hate.

This paper has a twofold objective: (1) to examine how trust and distrust mediate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and irresponsibility (CSI) perceptions and word of mouth recommendations; and (2) to show that moral norms moderate this mediating relationship.

Two experimental studies test the proposed model. Study 1 performs a single-factor experiment with three levels of corporate social responsibility (positive, neutral, negative) to test the mediation hypothesis (N = 180, 66% females, mean age = 22.3). Study 2 validates the mediation findings and examines the role of moral norms as moderators (N = 240, 50% females, mean age = 39.5).

Study 1 reveals that trust in the company partially mediates the effects of CSR on word of mouth (WOM) recommendations. Study 2 shows that consumers who adhere to higher moral standards follow distinct paths to negative WOM. Specifically, these consumers tend to spread negative comments when they expect the firm to behave irresponsibly. When unsure about future corporate behaviour, they are less likely to spread negative WOM.

This is the first study, to the authors' knowledge, to demonstrate how moral norms shape the effects of distrust in the corporate culprit on word of mouth recommendations. Accordingly, this research proves that conceptualising trust and distrust as separate constructs is useful in explaining consumer reactions to corporate social irresponsibility.