Consumer negativity towards brands: Brand hate or brand switch

Abstract

Purpose- Consumer negativity is one of crucial concepts for understanding and evaluating consumers in today’s world, since emotions play key role for consumer decision making. The study aims to examine consumer negativity with related concepts (brand hate and brand switch) in Turkey context. Methodology- A survey with 135 participants is used for data collection stage and study employs logistic regression and Mann Whitney Tests for methodology according to non-parametric structure of data. Findings- Results imply that all antecedent variables (negative past experience, symbolic incongruity and ideological incongruity) have positive relationship with brand hate, while only negative past experience and symbolic incongruity have positive relationship with brand switch. Mann Whitney tests also conclude that negative e-wom has significant differences regarding to brand hate and brand switch variables. Conclusion- Study included descriptive statistics regarding to Turkish consumer negativity for managerial implication. The study confirms antecedents of brand hate regarding to previous studies, while it implies ideological incongruity as most important antecedent. Brand switch concept is only affected by negative past experience and symbolic incongruity, this shows that ideological incongruity does not affect brand switch intention. Ideological incongruity is found important for concept with attitude nature (brand hate) while opposite conclusion is valid for concept with intention nature (brand switch).