Don't Exclude Me: Being Excluded in a Brand Community Owned by Other Users Leads Consumers to Avoid the Brand

Abstract

People are social animals and need to interact in communities to feel included. However, sometimes they face exclusion situations in many interactions. Nevertheless, little is known about how this issue affects consumers' purchases after being excluded from a brand community. In this study, We performed three laboratory experiments to demonstrate the proposed effects of social exclusion on consumer choice and sequential mediation. In this study, we demonstrated that after being excluded from a brand community, consumers perceive their relationship poorer compared with included consumers (study 1), exhibit lower perceptions of an ideal relationship with the brand (study 2), and are more prone to purchase a product in a rival brand (study 3). Furthermore, the sequential mediation of ideal perceptions of brand relationship and quality drives consumer intention to purchase a product from a rival brand. These findings contribute to the social exclusion theory and brand community literature by demonstrating how consumers felt after being excluded from a brand community and the psychological mechanisms underlying this effect.