Social media activism for resurrecting deleted brands: the role of consumers’ psychological reactance

Abstract

When companies delete brands, devoted, yet unhappy consumers experience psychological reactance and initiate brand resurrection movements (BRMs) to bring their beloved brand back into their lives. In this Web 2.0 era, numerous consumer-led activism initiatives have been launched via social media to resurrect dead brands. On the other hand, relaunching a deleted brand is a crucial decision for a company and involves various financial and strategic implications. Therefore, it becomes imperative for brand managers to understand the drivers of BRMs. This research investigates the role of nostalgic brand love, threat to freedom, and psychological reactance as drivers of social media activism for brand resurrection by surveying 499 participants of a real BRM who utilized social media to successfully bring their cherished brand back into the market. The findings show that psychological reactance partially mediates the relationship between threat to freedom and social media activism for brand resurrection, and fully mediates the relationship between nostalgic brand love and social media activism for brand resurrection. This research contributes to the brand management and marketing literature by (1) applying psychological reactance theory to BRMs, (2) introducing a new second-order construct (nostalgic brand love), and (3) expounding the mediating role of psychological reactance.