When consumers sabotage brands

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) When consumers deliberately attack a brand with the objective of causing harm to it, this is known as «consumer brand sabotage». Marketing researchers at the University of Bern have examined this phenomenon in more detail, identified backgrounds and motives of brand sabotage and present initial countermeasures. In collaboration with the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, a research team of the Institute of Marketing and Management at the University of Bern describes a type of consumer behaviour that has not yet been sufficiently addressed by research whereby consumers deliberately attack a brand. 'In consumer brand sabotage, angry and frustrated consumers become hostile towards the brand and intentionally try to harm it', explains Andrea Kähr, first author of the study, of the Institute of Marketing and Management at the University of Bern. She and her co-authors have investigated the motives and backgrounds of brand sabotage. In a conceptual model, they show the escalation process from the initial behaviour of the company or brand to consumer brand sabotage. The study has now been published in the 'Journal of Marketing'.