 The hate we create: How inter-brand hostility and consumer-brand identification turn fans into fightersJeremy S. Wolter, Vincent Myles Landers and Colin Gabler Journal of Business Research, 2025, vol. 199, issue C Abstract: Brands are increasingly showing hostility towards other brands for reasons such as litigation, politics, and social media virality. Such hostility is relatively unexamined and its effects on consumers is not well understood. The current research examines how hostility between two brands prompts consumers to oppose a targeted brand. Key to such opposition is whether consumers identify with a brand. To study inter-brand hostility, we develop a formative scale comprised of two, second-order dimensions and six, first-order dimensions. We then test the proposed effects via an online panel, a field study, and an experiment. All three studies confirm the proposed model and find that it applies to direct competitors and non-competitors. In addition, the studies find that the influence of inter-brand hostility is mediated by moral stereotyping, enhanced by moral identification over regular identification, and can decrease patronage for consumers who do not identify with the brand. Keywords: Consumer-brand identification; Consumer-brand disidentification; Brand hostility; Brand rivalry; Moral identification (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:jbrese:v:199:y:2025:i:c:s0148296325003583 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115535 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier |
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