BRAND HATE IN EMERGING MARKETS: THE ROLE OF INCOME IN ESCALATING EMBARRASSMENT TOWARD DETACHMENT

Abstract

The importance of negative consumer-brand relationship has been getting growing academic interest as it has been found to undermine brand equity and long-term firm performance. Among those, there is such an adverse relationship as brand embarrassment that has become a natural emotional reaction in case of discomfort or social embarrassment caused by the fact that a consumer is associated with a brand, especially in the context of socially visible consumption (Khan and Rahman, 2023; Kumar and Singh, 2021; Patel, Singh, and Verma, 2023). According to preceding research, these emotive experiences usually culminate into more severe negative feelings, such as brand hate, which can eventually result in consumers becoming psychologically detached to brands (Ali, Rehman, and Sarfraz, 2023; Rehman, Ali, and Sarfraz, 2022). Based on the attribution theory and psychology of hate, this research focuses on the process by which brand embarrassment can result in brand detachment by integrating the mediating attitude of brand hate and the moderating attitude of the income level (Sternberg, 2003; Ahmad, Khan, and Ali, 2021). The quantitative research design was applied to collect the data on the consumers and analyze the information with the help of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results are added to the literature on negative branding by describing the process of emotional escalation in emerging markets and how income level influences the emotional and behavioral reaction of consumers towards brands.