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This study aims to examine ethical practices in the banking sector by testing the relationships between customer perceptions of ethicality and brand attributes like affect, image and equity.

Drawing on the social exchange theory, the authors advance the consumer’s perspective in explaining brand equity in the banking sector. Following the survey technique, the authors used the Hayes’ Macro Process in analysing the data collected from 148 bank customers in New Zealand.

The findings suggest that customers’ perception of ethicality, brand image and affect are significantly associated with brand equity. Also, brand image and affect significantly mediate the relationship between customer’s perception of ethicality and brand equity.

The main limitation of this study is the use of survey and cross-sectional methods. Future research may adopt mixed-method techniques to provide insightful information on how these variables influence brand equity.

The study demonstrates the mechanisms that facilitate brand equity and contributes to theory by analysing the factors of brand equity in the banking sector, which has been less investigated.

The triple bottom line of sustainability performance is well known; however, little research links it to consumer brand perceptions and intentions. This is important because consumers believe that brands should develop sustainability strategies and conduct business in ways that support those strategies. Using the theoretical lenses of signaling theory and spillover effects, this study aims to examine the impact of negative messages about brands’ triple bottom line sustainability activities on consumer perceived brand ethicality, perceived product quality and purchase interest.

This research includes two lab experiments with the US participants.

When brands have sustainability failures, consumers feel the firm is less ethical, its products are lower in quality and purchase interest suffers – regardless how the failure relates to the triple bottom line (environmental, social or economic). These effects are moderated by brand familiarity and the message source. Brand familiarity seems to protect a firm’s ethicality image as does when the information comes from a corporate source, contrary to the prevalent literature.

Unlike most sustainability research, this study provides comparison effects across all three dimensions of the triple bottom line. In doing so, this study highlights nuances in how consumers connect brands’ sustainability-related activities with perceptions about ethics and brand expectations. This research also contextualizes the findings through brand familiarity and message source and contributes to the growing body of literature on sustainability branding.

This study aims to examine the impact of brand ethical behavior, specifically perceived brand ethicality, on corporate brand legitimacy in the context of halal cosmetics, by considering perceived brand integrity as a mediating factor.

The study used a quantitative cross-sectional research design to gather data from 341 fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) in Tanzania. The data was analyzed by using AMOS 21, using structural equation modeling techniques.

The findings indicated that perceived brand ethicality has a significant influence on corporate brand legitimacy through the mediation of perceived brand integrity.

The study emphasizes the significance of incorporating and clarifying Islamic laws as integral components of marketing strategies aimed at attracting conscientious customers of halal products. It recommends defining Islamic laws as societal values and norms and integrating them into various brand practices to showcase professionalism, ultimately fostering social acceptance and approval. The study presents valuable practical implications for managers and marketers of FMCG, assisting them in formulating policies and strategies that reflect societal values and norms.

This study represents a novel endeavor that explores the interplay between perceived brand ethicality, corporate brand legitimacy and perceived brand integrity in the context of halal products. It extends theoretical understanding by shedding light on the significance of Islamic laws as a foundation for establishing a competitive advantage. By offering and designing ethical practices, businesses can enhance their legitimacy among halal consumers, particularly in the domain of halal cosmetics.

Online advertising becomes an essential tool to reach the target audience. One of the most widely used strategies is re-targeting. Firstly, this study explores the impact of ethics, privacy and ads' perceived benefits (ad effectiveness and ad relevance) on consumers' attitudes toward online advertising. Secondly, the study investigates the mediating effect of attitudes toward re-targeting online advertising on consumers' purchase intentions. Finally, the study investigates the moderating effect of the perceived ethicality of re-targeting online advertising on consumers' purchase intentions.

Participants (n = 307) were recruited through an online survey platform (MTurk) in the USA. The sample consisted of 65% male and 35% female respondents. The majority are aged 25–34 years, followed by 35–44 years (20%), 45–54 years (14%), 18–24 years (8%) and 55 years and older (6%).

The results show that ad effectiveness and ad relevance influenced consumers' attitudes toward re-targeting. This study shows that consumers are willing to trade their privacy for better search quality. Moreover, perceptions toward the ethicality of re-targeting ads moderated the relationship between consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions.

This study will make several contributions. First, the study will extend the consequential theory in the context of online advertising. Second, the study will assist companies in using re-targeting strategies. The results will reveal which factor is the most important factor impacting consumers' attitudes toward re-targeting strategies.

This is one of the first few papers investigating consumers' perceptions of the ethicality of re-targeting online advertising.

Ethical consumerism is gaining importance as consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about brands' moral intentions and social and legal practices. Hence, in a quest to advance the current application of ethics in branding, this study substantiates literature by investigating consumer-perceived brand ethicality's (CPBE) role in affecting psychological, affective and behavioral responses of consumers (i.e. psychological brand ownership (PBO), brand commitment and willingness to pay a price premium (WPPP). Further, the authors test self-congruence as the boundary condition for CPBE.

Online survey method resulted in 408 responses, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

CPBE emerged as a predictor for PBO, brand commitment and WPPP. However, counterintuitively, self-congruence failed to reflect any moderating effect on the relationships between CPBE and PBO and CPBE and brand commitment.

Brands are encouraged to indulge in and reflect ethical practices to generate favorable consumer responses, i.e. PBO, brand commitment and WPPP.

Based on the ethical and psychological ownership theories, the investigation adds to the scholarship on CPBE and its outcomes. Arguably, it remains the first study to document the linkage between CPBE and PBO.

The authors investigated the factors influencing consumer evaluations of advertisements for ethical luxury products that incorporate animal rights and protection concerns. The authors empirically examined how ethical messages influence advertisement persuasiveness through ethical consumer guilt and positively impact consumer evaluations of ethical luxury products. Furthermore, the authors explored the moderating role of consumers’ independent versus interdependent self-construals.

The authors conducted four experimental studies on the interplay among ethicality, luxury brand positioning and self-construal. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that moral emotions were responsible for the effect of ethical luxury advertisements that address animal welfare on brand attitude.

Advertisement messages signaling a luxury brand’s ethical efforts increase empathy through ethical consumer guilt, thereby generating favorable attitudes toward luxury products. However, this effect is limited to consumers with independent self-construal in South Korea and the United States of America.

The authors offer novel insights into the roles of ethical consumer guilt and empathy in the positive effects of ethical messages from luxury brands. Furthermore, the authors identified brand type and self-construal as boundary conditions for the effects observed across different consumer groups and markets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of subjective ambivalence on ethical consumption behaviors and the role of ethical claims in reducing feelings of ambivalence toward buying ethical products.

The authors conducted two studies. In study 1, the authors carried out an online survey with a sample of 230 French consumers. The authors applied structural equation modeling with Amos to test the relationships among skepticism, ambivalence and ethical consumption behaviors. Study 2 is an experimental design in which the authors manipulated ethical claims (low – few ethical arguments vs. high – many ethical arguments) in advertising (176 French panelists). The authors tested the relationships among consumer ethical sensitivity, perceived brand ethicality, skepticism, ambivalence and intention to purchase an ethical product, depending on ethical claims in advertising.

Study 1 shows that skepticism toward advertising of ethical products amplifies feelings of ambivalence and that ambivalence reduces consumers’ willingness to adopt ethical consumption behaviors. Study 2 shows that strong claims in advertising of ethical products reduce skepticism toward advertising of ethical products and feelings of ambivalence toward buying an ethical product through perceived brand ethicality, with consumers’ ethical sensitivity positively moderating these relationships.

The two studies explore only one form of ambivalence (i.e. subjective), and the experimental study focuses on a single category of products.

The findings highlight the difficulties in promoting ethical products. Consumers need to know if a product is “really” ethical, as they may feel ambivalent toward that product. This paper shows that strong ethical claims in advertising ethical products significantly help to overcome this barrier.

Based on attribution theory and persuasion models, this research reveals how ethical claims in advertising affect feelings of ambivalence, which negatively influence consumers’ willingness to adopt ethical consumption. In addition, it follows a holistic approach to ethical consumption behaviors to explore consumers’ ambivalence.

Predatory trading is a stock market trading technique in which certain market participants exploit information about other market participants' need to trade. Predatory trading often harms others. Hence, this paper examines the determinants and effects of financial practitioners' and lay people's judgments of predatory trading. Specifically, it investigates how the public availability and reliability of the exploited information affect their ethics and legality judgments and how the latter influence their behavioral intentions and regulation support.

The authors conducted two scenario judgment studies. In the first study, participants were financial practitioners, and in the second – lay people.

Practitioners often judge predatory trading to be ethical. Practitioners and lay people incorporate in their ethics and legality judgments the public availability of the exploited information but tend to discount the legal reliability criterion. Lay people justify their ethics judgments using harm, legal or profit maximization principles. Practitioners' intentions to engage in predatory trading and lay people's intentions to let predatory fund managers invest their money depend on their judgments, which influence their regulation support.

This paper is the first to explore people's judgments of predatory trading. It highlights that despite the harm that predatory trading involves, practitioners often judge it to be ethical. Although law tends to lag behind financial innovation, people base their judgments and hence also behavioral intentions on their interpretation of the regulation. Hence, it reveals a dark aspect of the relationship between ethics and legality judgments.

This study aims to propose a conceptual framework for transition of brand trust to brand love in an uncertain market situation, from the perspective of cognitive-emotion theory (CET).

Since brand anthropomorphism is successfully established in branding research, this study takes cognitive characteristics of brand trust and emotional characteristic of brand love from extant literature to develop a conceptual framework for transformation of brand trust (cognition) into brand love (emotion). This study situates the relationship in the context of market uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses in the development of the conceptual framework by taking cognitive components of brand trust and brand behavioural characteristics as moderator, in uncertain market situation.

Findings suggest that transition of brand trust (cognition) to brand love (emotion) is possible in uncertain situation, and brand behavioural characteristics moderate this relationship. Brand behavioural characteristics are brand innovativeness, brand ethicality, brand empathy, brand expertise and brand agility, which have the potential to further strengthen the relationship in the given situation.

This research proposes a conceptual model and propositions that add a rich understanding to the relationship of brand trust and brand love, which requires empirical testing in any brand category context. Through a richer understanding of conditions and the underlying psychological mechanism, researchers and marketers, brand managers, policymakers and so forth can gain insights that aid strategic decision-making. Trusted brands can leverage on the situation by highlighting unique behavioural characteristics to establish a strong and sustainable long-term relationship.

The current research is an attempt to provide deeper insights from the perspective of CET, into the relationship of brand trust (cognition) and brand love (emotion) by introducing conditions under which a trusted brand becomes a lovable brand in uncertain market situation, thereby adding new knowledge to branding, customer-brand relationship sustainability, in uncertainty literature. The new perspective, that is CET, puts forward a novice view on the advantage of brand love over brand trust that could help in formulating strategic decisions in managing brands in crisis situation.