Brand Crisis Research Articles

The mechanism of brand crisis influence on consumer purchase intentions in the context of green development

The promotion of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China not only provides a pathway for the country to achieve its “dual carbon” strategic goals but also facilitates the transformation and upgrading of the automotive industry, contributing to social development and economic growth. This study examines the influence mechanism of brand crises on consumer purchase intentions within the NEV sector, an area critical to sustainable infrastructure and green development. Using a framework of “brand crisis—consumer negative emotions/perceived risk—consumer purchase intention,” and data from consumer surveys conducted in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhengzhou, and two other locations, the study employs regression models to analyze the relationship between brand crises and purchase intentions. Mediation effect models are used to explore how brand crises impact consumer purchase intentions through negative emotions and perceived risks. The results indicate that brand crises significantly reduce consumers’ willingness to purchase products from affected brands, posing a threat to the market stability and growth of the NEV sector. Moreover, negative emotions and perceived risks mediate the relationship between brand crises and purchase intentions, highlighting the importance of addressing both emotional and cognitive responses in crisis management strategies. To mitigate the adverse effects of brand crises, companies should adopt measures to improve consumer sentiment and reduce perceived risks, such as proactive communication, transparency, and effective recall procedures. Additionally, factors such as NEV performance, price, and charging infrastructure coverage also play a crucial role in consumer purchase decisions. Therefore, companies must consider these factors when formulating crisis response strategies to swiftly regain consumer trust and promote sustainable market and green development. This study contributes to the broader discourse on infrastructure development and public policy by providing insights into how brand crises in the NEV industry can be managed to support sustainable economic growth and development. By understanding the mechanisms through which brand crises affect consumer behavior, this research offers valuable recommendations for policymakers, industry professionals, and academic researchers focused on the interplay between infrastructure, development, and policy.

Analysis of the Influence of Online Public Opinion on Corporate Brand Value: An Efficient Way to Avoid Unexpected Shocks from the Internet

Nowadays, online public opinions (OPOs) significantly impact corporate brand value (CBV). To prevent corporate brand crises caused mainly by OPOs, it is essential to detect anomalies in OPOs related to corporate reputation in a timely manner. This study explores how dramatic changes in OPOs affect market capital value (MCV), the primary indicator of CBV, and aims to construct a CBV early warning evaluation model. First, a set of OPO indicators dedicated to CBV are selected based on correlation analysis between various popular OPO and CBV indicators collected through a literature review. The method of Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) is then employed to determine the indicator weights using data collected from popular social media platforms. Finally, the vector auto-regression (VAR) model is applied to validate the effectiveness of the proposed evaluation model. A case study involving several Chinese enterprises shows that abnormal changes in their MCVs consistently follow abnormal fluctuations observed in their OPOs, with a significant delay. This finding enables managers to promptly detect potential crises from the internet and take actions to avoid unexpected shocks.

Exploring the Influence Mechanism of Brand Crisis on Consumer Repurchase Behavior

Exploring the Influence Mechanism of Brand Crisis on Consumer Repurchase Behavior

Online faith-holder communities in crisis: proposing and testing a dual-challenge model

PurposeThough current literature has started to recognize the significant role that online faith-holders play in the context of brand reputation crises, extant research lacks a theoretical framework to explain the process in which online faith-holders endure the harm in brand reputation while collectively rebuilding the reputation. We propose and test a dual-challenge model for a more systematic understanding of faith-holder communities in brand reputation crises.Design/methodology/approachFocusing on collective-level communication activities, we quantitatively compared the volume, valence and variance of a faith-holder community’s communication (441,611 posts by 3,228 fans over 14 days) before and after a brand reputation crisis.FindingsOur longitudinal data demonstrated that the crisis was a significant threat to group sentiment and cohesion. Nevertheless, the community was highly resilient and adaptive. Their emotions quickly recovered, and they promptly restored group cohesion and coordinated crisis response efforts after the crisis.Originality/valueThis study challenges the traditional assumption that online users are independent, static and reactive during brand crises. Instead, it conceptualizes online faith-holder community as a connected, proactive and dynamically adaptive group in crisis situations. This dual-challenge model highlights the importance of internally fostering collective resilience while externally coordinating crisis responses in a faith-holder community.

Why did you delete my comment? Investigating observing consumers' reactions to comment‐deletion‐clues during a brand crisis

AbstractMany users criticize brands by posting negative comments on their social media pages when a brand crisis occurs. Brands often choose to delete negative comments when coping with brand crises. While deleting comments often goes unnoticed, complaints about comment deletion from users whose comments are deleted (e.g., “Why did you delete my comment?”) serve as clues for observers after a crisis. Drawing from Warranting Theory, this study examines comment‐deletion‐clues' impact on observers' forgiveness and negative word‐of‐mouth (NWOM) transmission and how two types of brand explanations (custom vs. general) alter this impact. Four studies show that the comment‐deletion‐clues reduce observers' intention to forgive the brand and increase the spread of NWOM. Furthermore, the results indicate that brands' custom explanations mitigate the adverse effects of comment‐deletion‐clues. This article is among the first to explore the role of content moderation during brand crises and extends the brand crisis literature and the emerging content moderation literature.

How Causal Dimensions of Product Harm Crisis Shape Consumer Moral Reputation towards the Crisis Company and Brand Crisis: The Moderating Role of Perceived Societal Damage

Irrespective of many management strategies, product harm crises, discrete, well-publicized occurrences in which products are found to be defective and dangerous, are increasing at an accelerating rate throughout the globe with negative consequences for companies and brands. It alarms the importance of scrutinizing this worst nightmare from a new empirical angle while focusing on the ethical eye of consumers. Therefore, the present study attempts to explore how causal dimensions of product harm crisis related to two Attributional grounds (company accused and consumer accused) shape consumer moral reputation towards the crisis company and crisis brand in product harm crises. A self-administrated, questionnaire was used to examine how Sri Lankan (n= 492) and Chinese (n=492) young consumers see company and brand through their ethical eye that reflects their moral reputation. Results revealed that consumer morally views company and brand in an entirely different way under the two Attributional grounds that ultimately affects brand equity and purchase intention of the crisis brand. There exist significant negative and positive links between consumer moral reputations towards the crisis company and crisis brand respectively, under consumer accused crisis. Subsequently, consumer moral reputation towards the crisis company has a significant negative link with consumer brand equity, while consumer moral reputation toward the crisis brand has a positive link with consumer based brand equity under consumer-accused crisis. This study provides new insights for the companies to manage such crises, while safekeeping the brand equity in midst of product harm crisis.

Impact of exogenous brand crises on consumer behaviour

PurposeGlobal brands have become increasingly vulnerable to external disruptions that have negative spillover effects on consumers, business and brands. This research area has recently garnered interest post-pandemic yet remains fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to recognize the most impactful exogenous brand crisis (EBC) and its affective and behavioural impact on consumers.Design/methodology/approachIn Study 1, we applied repertory grid technique (RGT), photo elicitation method and ANOVA comparisons, to identify the most significant EBC, in terms of repercussions on consumer purchases. In Study 2, we performed collage construction and content analysis to ascertain the impact of the identified significant crisis (from Study 1) on consumer behaviour in terms of affective and behavioural changes.FindingsStudy 1 results reveal Spread-of-diseases and Natural disaster to be the most impactful EBC based on consumer’s purchase decisions. Study 2 findings uncover three distinct themes, namely, deviant demand, emotional upheaval and community bonding that throws light on the affective and behavioural changes in consumer behaviour during the two significant EBC events.Research limitations/implicationsThe collated results of the two studies draw insights towards understanding the largely unexplored conceptualisation of EBC from a multi-level (micro-meso-macro) perspective. The integrated framework drawn, highlight the roles and influences of different players in exogenous brand crisis management and suggests future research agendas based on theoretical underpinnings.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which identifies the most important EBC and explicates its profound impact on consumer purchase behaviour, providing critical insights to brand managers and practitioners to take an inclusive approach towards exogenous crises.

Double-edged sword of corporate social responsibility (CSR) halo: the role of CSR efforts and crisis type and severity

ABSTRACT In recent years, the restaurant industry has been struggling with a variety of brand crises, including both product and moral harm crises. To mitigate the negative impact of such crises on their brands, companies are actively engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. While a number of previous studies have investigated the influence of CSR on consumers’ responses to a brand in a routine setting, few have incorporated crisis-related situational variables into their examination of the role of CSR in a brand crisis situation. In order to test the extent to which the CSR halo plays a role in consumers’ evaluation in a brand crisis event, this study used a scenario-based 2 CSR efforts (low/high) x 2 crisis type (product harm/moral harm crisis) x 2 crisis severity (low/high) experimental design. The findings suggest that a higher level of brand engagement in CSR can offset the negative consequences of brand crisis in the case of product harm and less severe brand crisis, compared to moral harm and severe brand crisis, respectively. Our results provide valuable insights for companies wishing to respond successfully to a brand crisis event based on predicted consumers’ responses and on their CSR reputation.

Natural Language Processing for Detecting Brand Hate Speech

Brand hate is a complex feeling that is not easy for companies to recognize. Mednini and Turki (2022) have confirmed that hate can originate from genuine brand haters or an employee who works with competitors, to spread negative word-of-mouth in communities. That is why it is important to detect this emotion. This study aims to identify brand hate speech based on NLP techniques to detect consumer hate sentiment using a chatbot. We present a methodology for fine-tuning the GPT 2 language model for sentiment analysis through text classification. Experiments are conducted on datasets in three languages — Arabic, French, and English — within the context of consumer consumption. The model is retrained on labelled data to effectively identify brand hate sentiment. Furthermore, we evaluate our chatbot by conducting semi-structured interviews with diverse consumers. The experimental results demonstrate a significant improvement in sentiment analysis performance, highlighting increased accuracy when compared to other models and baseline approaches. We achieved an accuracy rate of 0.98 in the training set and 0.84 in the testing set, showcasing the utility of using GPT-2 in this context. This research contributes to the capability of managers to identify brand hate speech, and proactively avert potential brand crises.

The effect of controllable and uncontrollable brand crises and product involvement on consumers’ repurchase intention

In this study we examined the impact of a controllable brand crisis vs. an uncontrollable brand crisis on consumers’ repurchase intention depending on degree of product involvement. The results revealed the mediating role of consumer forgiveness and the moderating role of Zhongyong thinking. In Experiment 1, we recruited 406 participants; the results showed that product involvement strengthened the negative impact of brand crisis type on consumer forgiveness, leading to less willingness to repurchase. In Experiment 2, we recruited 829 participants; the results revealed that priming Zhongyong thinking weakened the negative impact of brand crisis type on consumer forgiveness that led to less willingness to repurchase. Theoretically, the findings in this research distinguish the interaction effects between product characteristics and brand crisis according to type, and our research provides in- depth discussion of the role of brand crisis in marketing. Practically, we provide beneficial suggestions for taking advantage of East Asian culture and applying Zhongyong thinking to attenuate the negative impact of a brand crisis on consumers’ repurchase intention.

Assessing the Impact of A Product-Harm Crisis on Brand Trust And Brand Image: A Focus on the Listeriosis Crisis

Brand crises endanger companies, and no organisation is immune from them; each has an equal risk of experiencing one. Existing research on crisis brands lists detrimental consequences on the focus brand and experiments with coping mechanisms. Research on the impact of the brand crisis on brand trust and brand image is sparse. This study examines the impact of a product-harm crisis on brand trust and image. A descriptive quantitative research method was used to collect data from 384 randomly selected food retail store shoppers. The findings revealed that consumers continue to trust open and honest brands during a crisis. The research was limited to uMhlathuze municipality; thus, it cannot be generalised. The brand crisis was limited to the Listeriosis case. The study contributes to the current body of knowledge on brand management by providing insight into how organisations can respond after a crisis to regain their consumers' trust. The research concludes that taking responsibility after a crisis outbreak and being open and honest about the crisis can result in consumers' forgiveness, and they end up overlooking the crisis and its negative impacts.

Feeling close from Afar: Public reactions to racial profiling in retail and brand crisis management

Consumer racial profiling, a service failure unfairly targeting consumers based on their race, still prevails in the retail sector, impacting not only the direct victims' perceptions but also shaping the broader public sentiment toward the retail brand. To comprehend public reactions to a retail brand's racial (vs. non-racial) profiling service failure, we conducted three scenario-based online experiments with MTurk panels. In Study 1, we discovered that a brand crisis resulting from racial profiling service failure, as opposed to non-racial profiling, led to a more pronounced reduction in purchase intention toward the retail brand. This heightened negative response unfolded in a sequence, where the service failure initially triggered negative moral emotions among the public, subsequently shaping their judgment toward the brand, ultimately leading to a decline in purchase intention. In Study 2, we explored the role of perceived psychological distance as a moderator. We found that non-racial profiling service failure intensified negative moral emotions when the public perceived the service failure as more personally likely to happen to them (close). Meanwhile, the impact of racial profiling remained consistently high, regardless of psychological distance. In Study 3, when comparing the impact of distinct crisis management approaches (ethics of justice and ethics of care), we found that the ethics of care approach more effectively alleviated negative moral emotions in response to a racial profiling crisis than the ethics of justice approach.

Consumers’ attributions in performance- and values-related brand crises

PurposeDuring a brand crisis, consumers construct attributions to understand the cause of the crisis and to assign blame, with attributions of blame to firms consequently lowering brand attitudes. The purpose of this paper is to explore attributions of blame in performance- versus values-related brand crisis. Do consumers assign different levels of blame to values- versus performance-related brand crises?Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted three experimental studies, plus one pilot study, with American, British and Australian participants in which they manipulated the type of brand crisis as values- or performance-related to determine the extent to which consumers attribute blame to the firm and the effects of those attributions on consumers’ brand attitudes.FindingsFindings indicated that consumers assign more blame to firms for a values-related brand crisis than for a performance-related brand crisis.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study explain how consumers are harsher towards firms that violate some moral or social standards than those that exhibit product defects.Practical implicationsFor branding and public relations officials, finding greater internal attribution for values-related brand crises offers implications for how and what information about such crises ought to be conveyed to manage consumer response and brand reputation.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, the findings are the first to explore attributions in blame toward values- and performance-related brand crises.

Analyzing the Issues of Declining Revenue in Shiseido Group

The popularity of COVID-19 has led to a change in Shiseido China's revenue profile, with changes in turnover and operating profit between 2020 and 2022. The purpose of this paper was to explore the reasons for the decline in Shiseido China's turnover and profitability and make recommendations for improvement. The paper applied analysis and observation of Shiseido's revenue data, relevant data from the National Bureau of Statistics, and revenue data from competing brands, and combined theoretical knowledge in marketing to conclude that the first reason for the slow growth in Shiseido China's revenue and decrease in profit was the decline in product sales, with suggestions for making more use of China's emerging platforms for marketing and sales activities in response. The second reason for the slow revenue growth and profit decline in Shiseido China was that Shiseido was facing an aging brand crisis and was not appealing to young consumers. The recommendations in this paper were to enhance the brand rejuvenation of the Premium brand to increase its appeal to young people. The third reason for Shiseido's slow revenue growth and profit decline in China was the shift in consumer motivation that drives Chinese consumers to spend and Shiseido's failure to make timely strategic adjustments. The suggestions for improvement in this paper were to refocus cosmetics marketing campaigns, accelerate the rate of market research and strategic policy improvement, and establish a more dynamic mechanism.

The dynamic of employees’ trust in their organisation in a corporate brand crisis: the bounce-back effect of organisational identification

ABSTRACT Given their increasing number, corporate brand crises are a subject of growing academic interest. Today’s managers face a hostile and often uncontrollable external information environment. Maintaining employee trust during turmoil is key to crisis resolution. However, it is during crises that employee trust can be most threatened. Our study draws on social identity theory to understand the conditions under which trust is destroyed and possibly repaired after a corporate brand crisis. The results from two experimental studies suggest that corporate brand crises decrease employee trust due to the threat to their social image. However, appropriate mitigation strategies that restore employees’ social status can effectively repair their trust. This decline and repair dynamic is amplified among highly identified employees, suggesting that organisational identification has a bounce-back effect on this mechanism.

Sosyal Medyada Marka Krizi İletişimi ve Tüketici Marka Etkileşimi: Çalışanlarının Yarattığı Kriz Örneği

Social media enables brands to communicate instantly with consumers and drive user engagement. However, consumers’ brand engagement on social media is not always positive, especially in the presence of a crisis. Consumer brand engagement becomes more complicated given consumers’ empowerment through social media and the brands’ multiple stakeholders that shape brands’ value. The purpose of this research is to explore consumers’ multi-valenced online comments to a brand crisis communication initiated by front-line employees’ misbehavior to a group of consumers in the retail environment. Data was collected from the brand crisis communication that was shared on the official Instagram account of the brand. Focusing on real time Instagram data from consumers that reside in a collectivistic culture, a typology was developed to classify the hybrid and multi-valenced forms of consumer brand engagement. The study contributes to the consumer brand engagement and brand crisis communication literatures.

The Role of Information Management in Strategic Operational Decisions for Corporate Crisis Prevention

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the role of information management in strategic operational decision-making for corporate crisis prevention. Information management has an important role in the strategic decision-making of enterprises, and it can help enterprises to obtain, analyze and utilize key information, provide accurate data and intelligence support, and thus effectively prevent potential crises. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of information management in strategic operational decision-making for corporate crisis prevention and to reveal the specific application and effectiveness of information management in crisis prevention through case studies and theoretical research. Taking the prevention and response to supply chain crisis and the prevention and recovery of brand crisis as case studies, this paper analyzes in detail the specific applications and effects of information management in crisis prevention. In the section on the study of strategic operation optimization decision analysis models, we discuss the design and application of strategic operation optimization decision analysis models and the importance of strategic decision analysis in comprehensive operation sandbox simulation of enterprises. These models and methods can help enterprises to better optimize their decisions and improve the effectiveness of crisis prevention and response.

Does corporate social responsibility always lead to positive effects?

PurposeBrand crisis has become an increasingly common phenomenon recently. While corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays a role in mitigating the negative consequences of brand crisis, it is not always effective, especially for foreign companies. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the differential effects of CSR on brand crisis, considering the impact of country of origin and consumer ethnocentrism.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a 2 (country of origins: domestic vs foreign) × 2 (consumer ethnocentrism: high vs low) × 2 (CSR: before vs after related information is presented) between-subjects experiment to simulate a brand crisis. A fictional WeChat Moment posting was used as a stimulus. Data from 210 Chinese respondents were analyzed.FindingsWhen consumer ethnocentrism is high, the impact of CSR on consumer attitude toward the company undergoing a crisis was greater for domestic than for foreign companies. Conversely, for consumers with low ethnocentrism, the effectiveness of CSR in attenuating the negative impact of the brand crisis (i.e. the insurance-like effect of CSR) was insignificant across domestic and foreign companies.Originality/valueThis study extends the prior literature and clarifies the unclear results of previous studies on the effect of CSR on brand crisis by examining the impact of country of origin and consumer ethnocentrism. Novel insights into the insurance-like effect of CSR in brand crises were obtained.

브랜드 위기가 소비자의 부정적 감정에 미치는 영향

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to verify the effects of brand crisis causes and brand personality types on negative emotions. This research investigates the different impacts of intentional and unintentional crisis causes on anger and disappointment. Furthermore, the differential impacts of sincere and exiting brands on anger and disappointment are analyzed. Design/Methodology/Approach – This study tests four hypotheses through experimental designs using different scenarios. In order to make a sincere brand personality an expression, ‘innocent and faithful’ is used in describing a company, and words such as challenging, liberal, and creative are used for making an existing brand personality. 249 participated, and 201 responses were analyzed, excluding unfaithful questionnaires. Findings – The results of the study show that an intentional cause brings about anger more strongly than disappointment. By contrast, an unintentional cause led to disappointment more than anger. A sincere brand’s crisis was associated more strongly with anger than disappointment, and an exciting brand’s crisis influenced disappointment more greatly than anger. Research Implications – In intentional brand crisis and sincere brand situations wherein anger was greater than disappointment, a prompt apology may be necessary before implementing specific compensation tactics. This is because it is crucial to rapidly mitigate the negative impact of intense anger. On the other hand, disappointment is a slower-moving emotion that arises from suboptimal performance. Therefore, compensatory tactics may be required to meet consumer expectations.

Green Washing and Brand Crises: Modelling Consumer Trust Repair

This study proposes an innovative approach to rebuilding consumer trust following the negative impact of greenwashing, which often leads to a conflicted relationship between corporations and consumers. Through a novel integration of previously unconnected concepts, such as trustworthiness dimensions (Integrity, benevolence, and competence), credibility, empathy, forgiveness, consumer trust repair, revived brand equity, and repurchase intention, this study offers a nuanced and enhanced understanding of the consumer trust repair process. The current research seeks to integrate disparate concepts and theories into a cohesive whole, resulting in a modified version of the consumer trust repair process. Prior studies have examined the phenomenon of consumer trust repair in a relatively narrow and parochial manner and have failed to provide a holistic process-based model. This study, however, attempts to provide a comprehensive, process-based model of consumer trust repair. Through this holistic approach, this research makes a valuable and meaningful contribution to the field of consumer trust repair, providing brand managers with a deeper understanding of the consumer trust recovery process, which has been largely ignored in previous studies. This unique and comprehensive approach will surely capture readers' attention, as it offers a fresh perspective on a crucial issue facing the business world today.