I love you, but you let me down! How hate and retaliation damage customer-brand relationship

Fauzia Jabeen, Puneet Kaur, Shalini Talwar, Suresh Malodia and Amandeep Dhir

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2022, vol. 174, issue C

Abstract: The literature on the dark side of the customer-brand relationship is still evolving. Admittedly, scholars have given it noteworthy attention in the recent past, yet gaps persist related to the products and services, antecedents, and consequents examined. Our study augments the understanding of the negative aspects of the customer-brand relationship by examining brand hate and betrayal as its two manifestations. Using online food delivery (OFD) platforms as the product/service under focus, we employ a mixed-method approach to identify the negative experiences (i.e., safety and hygiene grievances, dissatisfaction, negative word of mouth, and advertisement overload) that could stimulate the negative emotions of betrayal and hate in customers. Thereafter, we examine the desire for avoidance and retaliation as a response to these negative feelings. Our model is grounded in the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework and tested through analysis of data collected from 342 OFD users in the United States. The structural equation modelling results confirm a positive association of customer dissatisfaction, negative word of mouth, and advertisement overload with brand betrayal and hate. Betrayal and hate, in turn, associate positively with avoidance and retaliation. Brand love positively moderates the association of advertisement overload with betrayal and hate and safety and hygiene grievances with betrayal.

Keywords: Brand hate; Brand love; Brand betrayal; COVID-19; Online to offline (O2O); Online food delivery (OFD) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162521006168
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:174:y:2022:i:c:s0040162521006168

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121183

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().