 Brand avoidance, genetic modification, and brandlessnessMichael Shyue Wai Lee, Denise Conroy and Judith Motion Australasian marketing journal, 2012, vol. 20, issue 4, 297-302 Abstract: Much controversy surrounds genetic modification (GM), especially in Australasia, Britain and Europe. In spite of this controversy, there is little research linking GM with relevant anti-consumption topics. This article addresses the gap by using a brand avoidance framework to help understand consumers’ negative attitudes towards GM. Although brand avoidance research typically focuses on the avoidance of specific brands, this article uses the same framework in a different context and analyses the significant role that a negative association, such as GM, plays in anti-consumption. The findings indicate three reasons motivating avoidance of GM: concerns regarding safety, symbolic incongruity, and issues of morality, all of which map onto an existing brand avoidance framework. More importantly, this research concludes that in controversial industries such as GM, where consumers are more likely to be predisposed towards avoidance, a lack of brand awareness, or ‘brandlessness’, may be of short term benefit to companies, but is, nonetheless, a risky strategy. Keywords: Genetic modification; Brand avoidance; Anti-consumption; Qualitative data (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:aumajo:v:20:y:2012:i:4:p:297-302 DOI: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2012.07.003 Access Statistics for this article Australasian marketing journal is currently edited by Roger Marshall More articles in Australasian marketing journal from Elsevier |
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