Brand Hate and Non-Repurchase Intention: The Mediator Role of Word-of-Mouth: An Abstract

Recently, the negative consumer-brand relations received increasing attention (Davvetas and Diamantopoulos 2017). Although this growing relevance, researchers confirm how this area is still underdeveloped (Fournier and Alvarez 2013). Managerially, these negative feelings toward brands could become extremely dangerous since they are today instantaneously and broadly diffused through the Internet. In this networked scenario, the contents widespread through websites, and social media platforms can easily damage brands’ online reputation by influencing consumers’ perceptions and consequently their purchase decisions (Gregoire et al. 2009). Among these negative feelings, the brand hate concept represents a relatively new concept largely disregarded as a topic of research (Zarantonello et al. 2016). Conceptually, different studies examined the brand hate’s outcomes without simultaneously considering their online and offline nature (Hegner et al. 2017; Johnson et al. 2011). Moreover, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is a scarcity of studies dedicated to a specific target composed by consumers who hate a brand they already used and experienced. Notably, these customers represent the most fearsome brand haters with significant negative impacts on firms and brands’ performances (Kucuk 2015). In this regard, the objectives of the study are three-fold: (i) to analyze the brand hate from the actual customers’ perspective; (ii) to examine the possible relationships between brand hate, offline negative word-of-mouth (NWOM), online complaining, and non-repurchase intention; (iii) to test the possible mediating effects of offline NWOM and online complaining on the relation between brand hate and non-repurchase intention. To reach these objectives, structural equation modeling has been employed on a sample of 408 actual consumers.