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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of ideal self-congruence in instigating two types of negative consumer behaviours – compulsive buying and external trash-talking – and the mediating role of brand attachment on these relationships.

Two studies were designed using a structural equation modelling methodology. Study 1a was based on a mail survey of 280 respondents, whereas Study 1b was based on an electronic survey of 152 respondents. Study 1b was conducted to test the external validity of the research model.

In Study 1a, ideal self-congruence affects emotional brand attachment and in turn emotional brand attachment affects compulsive buying behaviour and external trash-talking. The mediation analysis indicates that emotional brand attachment mediates the relationships. Study 1b offers support to the results of Study 1a.

From a practical point of view, this study is useful for policymakers seeking to regulate and prevent excessive consumerism. For marketers, they should understand that brand attachment leads to compulsive buying and external trash-talking, which may provide immediate benefit for the brand or the firm. However, marketers should understand that these two negative behaviours may harm the firm image and consumers’ well-being in the long run.

Apart from practical implications, firms should consider alleviating compulsive buying, as it is harmful to society. Similarly, excessive external trash-talking may lead to physical aggression. Consumers expect firms to be socially responsible. Thus, firms should start conducting activities that promote responsible shopping and reduce external trash-talking.

The study highlights a dark side of ideal self-congruence and brand attachment. The results suggest that ideal self-congruence with the help of emotional brand attachment predicts compulsive buying behaviour and external trash-talking. This may not only damage brand image but also the consumers’ well-being.

This study aims to build on the notion of brand evangelism developed by Becerra and Badrinarayanan (2013) by examining how brand relationship variables regarding one brand (i.e. brand loyalty, brand community identification and self-brand connection) influence oppositional referrals to a rival brand (i.e. desire to harm and trash-talking) in the high definition (HD) videogame console industry.

A survey of online communities devoted to video gaming was conducted using a sample of 809 respondents, all owners of either a PlayStation or an Xbox.

The results show that the desire to harm the rival brand is strongly and positively associated to participation in trash-talking. Brand loyalty is connected to both dimensions of oppositional brand referrals. Consumers’ connection with the brand affects trash-talking only indirectly through the desire to harm. No association is found between identification with the brand community and oppositional brand referrals.

This study is the first to demonstrate the mechanism linking brand relationship variables regarding a focal brand with consumers’ disparagement of a rival brand, showing that a desire to harm plays a central role. Just as the desire for retaliation drives negative word-of-mouth in the context of an unsatisfactory experience with a brand (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006), the desire to harm drives trash-talking against a rival brand by brand evangelists. This study improves our understanding of the relationships consumers build with their preferred brands and how this relationship may influence their rejection of competing brands with which they do not have direct experience.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between brand attachment and consumers’ positive and negative behaviours. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating effects of attachment styles on these relationships.

The study is based on a survey of 432 respondents, and the data are analysed using the structural equation modelling approach.

This study empirically supports that brand attachment and attachment styles (i.e. anxiety attachment and avoidance attachment) are distinct. Brand attachment influences consumers’ not only positive behaviour (i.e. brand loyalty) but also negative behaviours, such as trash-talking, schadenfreude and anti-brand actions. The findings of the study suggest that only avoidance attachment style moderates the relationships between brand attachment and these consumer behaviours. The link between brand attachment and brand loyalty is attenuated for high-attachment-avoidance consumers. In contrast, the links between brand attachment and trash-talking, schadenfreude and anti-brand actions are strengthened.

This study assists marketing managers in understanding that a strong brand attachment may result in negative behaviours that can harm a company’s brand image. Thus, building a strong relationship with consumers will not always be beneficial. Companies should be aware of the consequences of building relationships with consumers who have a high level of attachment anxiety and/or avoidance.

This paper highlights that brand attachment not only influences brand loyalty behaviour but also three negative behaviours: trash-talking, schadenfreude and anti-brand actions. Moreover, the links between brand attachment and negative behaviours are strengthened when consumers have a high level of attachment avoidance.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between brand love and brand addiction and their effects on consumers' negative behaviors with respect to excessive spending, trash-talking and the feeling of anxiety.

A sample of 352 young fashion brand consumers responded to a structured questionnaire. The resulting data were analyzed with structural equation modeling in MPlus.

While brand love and brand addiction are related concepts, their effects on negative consumer behaviors differ. In the presence of brand addiction as a mediator of brand love, brand addiction has a significant effect on the three negative behaviors, and the authors observe a suppression effect of brand love on the outcome variables, with total effects (direct and indirect) being insignificant.

The main limitation of this study was its single-country cross-sectional convenience sample.

While brand addiction could aid brands by leading consumers to spend excessively on them and trash-talk rival brands, it may also lead to increased consumer anxiety.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically assess the relationship between brand love and brand addiction and their effects on three distinctive negative consumer behaviors. This shows that brand love is an important antecedent of brand addiction.

Oppositional brand loyalty (OBL) has become widespread and has thus received growing scholarly attention in recent years. Although opposition behaviors have distinct manifestations, their differential antecedents remain underexplored. Drawing from the identity-based motivation model, this article aims to examine the impact of brand identification and brand disidentification on the two distinct dimensions of OBL (i.e. brand avoidance and trash talk) according to their different intensity and activation levels (passive or active). In addition, article aims to examine the moderating role of perceived inter-group rivalry.

The authors collected survey data and obtained 392 valid questionnaires from smartphone users. Structural equation modeling was used for hypothesis testing.

The results show that brand identification has a significant positive effect on avoidance of rival brands, but not on trash talk; brand disidentification has a significant positive effect on both avoidance and trash talk of rival brands; and perceived inter-group rivalry positively moderates the relationship between brand disidentification and trash talk, but does not alter the relationship between brand disidentification and brand avoidance.

This study extends the literature on OBL by investigating differential antecedents of two distinct dimensions of brand opposition. It provides more complete understanding of the formation of OBL by examining the role of users’ relationship with a focal brand, its competing brand and inter-group relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of a dual medium/content context – the one offered by the online Twitter communication (medium-context) of reporting on elite sports (content-context) – on traditional conceptualizations of genderlect.

A quantitative content analysis, coding for a variety of traditional gendered language markers – was conducted on the tweets of male and female reporters who covered the men’s and women’s NCAA final four basketball tournaments.

Consistent with tenets of social role theory, the duel medium/content context of Twitter and sports produces several language patterns that frustrate attempts to categorize language markers according to traditional conceptualizations of genderlect and thus provides support for a redefinition of genderlect.

This paper’s findings suggest that people adapt their communication patterns to match the context in which they communicate. Whether adaptation takes place with conscious effort or as a natural byproduct of moving from one context to another remains to be discovered. Advice to female sports journalists on being vigilant against unwittingly undermining their credibility and perceived expertise is offered. This inquiry allows researchers to study sociology through sport.

This paper demonstrates that online environments can allow for traditional gender roles and expectations to be challenged and broken down, but some genderlect features appear tenacious and could undermine attempts to break down gender barriers.

If sport mirrors society, then the same communication adaptations that appear in the online environmental context of reporters’ tweets about sport should appear in other societal contexts.

Few studies have investigated differences in reporting by gender, and fewer have investigated differences in sports reporting by gender. Fewer, if any, have investigated differences in sports reporting by gender through Twitter.

The rampant toxic gaming environment in most major esports games has become a challenge in maintaining gamers’ loyalty to the game. Guided by the theory of stress and coping, this study aims to investigate how and under what condition esports gamers’ perceived risk of toxicity may affect game brand loyalty through the moderated mediation effects of game brand identification, self-efficacy, and perceived support from game brand.

The moderated mediation model was tested using the conditional process analysis (N = 311). The moderating effects of game brand identification on the mediated processes were tested in the model.

The authors found that self-efficacy and perceived support from game brand were critical mediators between the perceived risk of toxicity and game brand loyalty. However, these mediating effects varied depending on the level of game brand identification.

This study took the step forward by theorizing and empirically examining the relationship between perceived risk of toxicity and consumption outcome by considering both internal and social coping resources and game brand identification, among Generation Z and Millennial gamers in the esports context.

Purpose – This article examines the relationship between strategic sports metaphors, such as “slam dunk” and “trash talk,” and white middle-class heterosexual masculine embodiment in competitive work environments. Competitive organizations, like sports arenas are contested spaces, and in these environments employees, like athletes, work to “position” themselves to maximize their chances of winning valuable projects and clients from other employees and competing companies.

Value of chapter – Unlike previous research which finds that men's use of sports at work is primarily a feature of male networks and socializing, the argument presented here is that sports tropes are used and enacted by men to structure the production process, including intra- and inter-organizational business meetings, client projects, and committee work. Sports references are also used to construct hegemonic masculinity at work, which results in women, gays and black men being constructed as inferior.

Research implications – The issues raised in this chapter will be useful for empirical studies that examine the relationship between the importance of sports at work, and whether groups such as women, gay men and lesbians, the disabled, older, and overweight business professionals identify with sports and whether this destabilizes assumptions of embodied heterosexual able-bodied male superiority.

Approach – The data used in this analysis draw upon the my background as a Division I collegiate basketball player and 10 years of experience and observations as a marketing professional and business executive in the financial services industry in the United States.

Oppositional loyalty toward rival brands is prevalent. Although its antecedents have increasingly received scholarly attention, the literature is rather disparate. Based on identity theory, this study aims to propose that oppositional loyalty is a brand identity-driven outcome and provides a unified framework for understanding the formation and activation of brand identity in influencing oppositional loyalty.

Structural equation modeling was used to test the theoretical framework based on an online survey of 329 brand community members. Multigroup analysis was used to test the moderating effect of inter-consumer brand rivalry and brand community engagement.

The results show that self-brand similarity, brand prestige and brand uniqueness lead to consumers’ brand identity (i.e. consumer-brand identification), which, in turn, facilitates oppositional loyalty. Furthermore, the results indicate that inter-consumer brand rivalry and brand community engagement are identity-salient situations that strengthen the relationship between consumer-brand identification and oppositional loyalty.

Identity has great power in shaping consumer behaviors. Fostering consumer-brand identification is critical for firms to prevent consumers from switching to competing brands. Inter-consumer brand rivalry and brand community engagement can help firms consolidate their customer base by evoking consumers’ brand identity.

This investigation makes theoretical contributions by providing a unified theoretical framework to model the development of oppositional loyalty based on identity theory.