JOURNAL OF PRODUCT AND BRAND MANAGEMENT
SPECIAL ISSUE on “Consumer negativity towards brands”

GUEST EDITORS

Professor Lia Zarantonello, Professor of Marketing, Business School, University of Roehampton, London, UK, Email: lia.zarantonello@Roehampton.ac.uk

Professor Simona Romani, Professor of Marketing, LUISS Guido Carli, Rome, Italy, Email: sromani@luiss.it

Associate Professor Silvia Grappi, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy, Email: silvia.grappi@unimore.it

INFORMATION

Scholars are increasingly focusing on consumer negativity towards brands, taking into account aspects such as brand hate (Hegner et al., 2017; Zarantonello et al., 2016) and other negative emotions towards brands (Romani et al., 2012), brand relationship dissolutions (Sussan et al., 2012) and negative consumer-brand relationships (Fournier and Alvarez, 2013; Park et al., 2013), consumer anti-consumption and anti-brand actions (Kucuk, 2008; Romani et al., 2015). Despite the significant advances in our understanding of consumer negativity towards brands, the area is still underdeveloped. The purpose of this special issue is to further advance our understanding of consumer negativity towards the brand.

We invite submissions on a broad range of issues in this regard, and welcome both conceptual and empirical contributions. Both quantitative and qualitative papers are welcome. In particular, we invite studies that:

• Further develop the conceptual domain of consumer negativity towards the brand;
• Investigate consumer negativity towards the brand in relation to different types of brands (e.g., product brands, service brands, corporate brands);
• Examine the antecedents and/or outcomes of consumer negativity towards the brand, as well as possible mediators and moderators;
• Look at how consumer negativity towards the brand develops over time;
• Suggest effective ways to manage and treat consumer negativity towards the brand;
• Explore consumer negativity towards the brand in different cultural contexts.

Some suggestions for broad themes include:

• Anti-brand behaviours
• Anti-brand communities
• Anti-brand parodies
• Anti-consumption attitudes
• Brand addictions
• Brand aversion
• Brand avoidance
• Brand dependencies
• Brand detachment
• Brand dislike and distaste
• Brand divorce
• Brand hate
• Brand transgressions and consumer betrayal
• Consume forgiveness and empathy
• Consumer anger
• Consumer boycotting
• Consumer desire for revenge
• Consumer reconciliation with the brand
• Consumer-brand relationship dissolution and/or resolution
• Irritating aspects of brand elements/marketing communications
• Negative brand image
• Negative consumer-brand relationships
• Negative word-of-mouth

All papers need to be submitted online to the Special Issue on “Consumer negativity towards brands” through the ScholarOne System (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jpbm). For informal enquiries you can contact the guest editors.

Deadline for submissions: 31th March, 2018.

REFERENCES

Fournier, S. and Alvarez, C. (2013). Relating badly to brands. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23(2): 253-64.

Hegner, S. M., Fetscherin, M., and van Delzen, M. (2017). Determinants and outcomes of brand hate. Journal of Product and Brand Management, 26(1), 13-25.

Kucuk, S. U. (2008). Negative double jeopardy: the role of anti-brand sites on the internet. Journal of Brand Management, 15(3), 209-222.

Park, C.W., Eisingerich, A.B., and Park, J.W. (2013). Attachment–aversion (AA) model of customer brand relationships. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 23(2): 229-48.

Romani, S., Grappi, S., and Dalli, D. (2012). Emotions that drive consumers away from brands: measuring negative emotions towards brands and their behavioral effects. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(1): 55-67.

Romani, S., Grappi, S., Zarantonello, L., and Bagozzi, R.P. (2015). The revenge of the consumer! How brand moral violations lead to consumer anti-brand activism. Journal of Brand Management, 22(8), 658-672.

Zarantonello, L., Romani, S., Grappi, S., and Bagozzi, R.P. (2016). Brand hate. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 25(1), 11-25.

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