Brand as Promise

Vikram R. Bhargava () and Suneal Bedi ()
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Vikram R. Bhargava: Santa Clara University
Suneal Bedi: Indiana University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2022, vol. 179, issue 3, No 15, 919-936

Abstract: Abstract Brands are widely regarded as a constellation of shared associations surrounding a company and its offerings. On the traditional view of brands, these associations are regarded as perceptions and attitudes in consumers’ minds in relation to a company. We argue that this traditional framing of brands faces an explanatory problem: the inability to satisfactorily explain why certain branding activism initiatives elicit the moralized reactive attitudes that are paradigmatic responses to wrongdoing. In this paper, we argue for a reframing of brands that calls for viewing brands as a series of normatively binding expectations that are ethically akin to promises. Our promissory framing of brands avoids the explanatory problem, illuminates a number of ethical requirements on branding, and reconceptualizes the role of brand managers.

Keywords: Brand activism; Marketing ethics; Theory of brands; Promise; Brand as promise (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04834-z

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