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While brand punishment—through either individual or collective action—has received ample attention by consumer psychologists, absent from this literature is that such punishment can take the form of unethical actions that can occur even when the consumer is not personally harmed. Across three studies, we examine consumers’ propensity to act unethically towards a brand that they perceive to be harmful. We document that when consumers come to see brands as harmful—even in the absence of a direct, personal transgression—they can be motivated to seek retribution in the form of unethical intentions and behaviors. That is, consumers are more likely to lie, cheat, or steal to punish a harmful brand. Drawing on these findings, we advance implications for consumer psychologists and marketing practitioners and provide avenues for future research in the area.

Consumers develop committed and meaningful relationships with brands, yet still sometimes buy or use options that compete directly with these ‘relationship partners’, an activity that might be understood as a form of cheating or infidelity. Using data from three studies, we assess whether so-called triadic brand relationships – those that implicate an interpersonal third party (i.e., some form of interpersonal bond) – safeguard against cheating. We find compared to dyadic brand relationships that implicate only the consumer and the brand, triadic brand relationships protect against emotional and behavioral cheating by virtue of reinforcing expectations of consumer’s exclusive behavior and monogamy within the relationship.