S.

Umit Kucuk

Brand Hate
Navigating
Consumer Negativity
in the Digital World
2nd Edition
Brand Hate
 S. Umit Kucuk

Brand Hate
Navigating Consumer Negativity
in the Digital World

2nd Edition
S. Umit Kucuk
University of Washington
Tacoma, WA, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-00379-1 ISBN 978-3-030-00380-7  (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00380-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954013

1st edition: © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
2nd edition: © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to
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 Contents

Part I  Understanding Brand Hate

1 What Is Hate? 3

2 What Is Brand Hate? 23

3 Antecedents of Brand Hate 49

4 Consequences of Brand Hate 87

Part II  Implications of Brand Hate

5 Semiotics of Brand Hate 105

6 Legality of Brand Hate: Dilution v. Collusion 129

7 Managing Brand Hate 163

Index 193

v
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 The emotion of hate 13

Fig. 1.2 Dimensions of hate 14
Fig. 1.3 Severity of hate 17
Fig. 2.1 Brand justice/injustice and hate 27
Fig. 2.2 Brand hate hierarchy 34
Fig. 2.3 Brand hate and anti-branding 36
Fig. 2.4 Brand hate through brand bullying. a Direct consumer brand
hate. b Indirect consumer brand hate through bullying 42
Fig. 3.1 Brand hate average scores (Results in Fig. 3.1. Indicates
average scores of Cold, Cool, Hot Brand hates rankings.
The brand hate scale can be shared upon request. GBH
is defined as “General Brand Hate”) 56
Fig. 3.2 Pictorial presentation of the company-related brand hate
antecedents (Dotted lines indicate PSF by CSR interaction
effects) 58
Fig. 3.3 Emotional intensity of brand hate antecedents 63
Fig. 5.1 Digital anti-branding discourse 114
Fig. 7.1 Metamorphosis of brand hater 165
Fig. 7.2 Brand hate management process 168
Fig. 7.3 Algorithm of brand hate management 176
Fig. 7.4 Brand hate negotiation 184

vii
 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Perceived injustice and hate 10

Table 2.1 Typology of anti-brand sites with regard to the NDJ matrix 39
Table 3.1 Root causes of consumer brand hate 52
Table 3.2 Company-related brand hate antecedent 65
Table 4.1 Brand hate behaviors 95
Table 6.1 Evolution of brand ownership 151

ix
 PART I

Understanding Brand Hate

 CHAPTER 1

What Is Hate?

Abstract  In this chapter, I tried to explain the hate in light of the avail-
able psychology literature. I tried to define general human feeling of
hate with examples in two important components: “threatened egotism”
and “perceived injustice”. I focused on threatened egotism and perceive
injustice as the major root-causes of feeling of hate and anger. I used
Sternberg’s hate classification in order to define the various dimensions
of hate. I have discussed various forms of hate from low level to high
level (or alternatively severe hate) in terms of Sternberg’s Triangular hate
model. After reading this chapter, readers should have a basic under-
standing of the concept of hate and its dimensions.

Keywords  Hate · Threatened egotism · Perceived injustice

Dimensions of hate · Hierarchy of hate · Severity of hate

Without something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and
action. Life would turn to a stagnant pool.
On the Pleasure of Hating, Hazlitt (1826/1995, p. 190)

Hate is one of the strongest human feelings. Some of us struggle with

this feeling on an almost daily basis. However, it is not a widely studied
subject in the fields of social and behavioral sciences. Part of the reason
is because hate is so negative and disturbing a feeling that generally peo-
ple do not want to talk about it, preferring to ignore it. Yet, its impact

© The Author(s) 2019 3

S. U. Kucuk, Brand Hate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00380-7_1
4  S. U. KUCUK

and influence is always present at both conscious and unconscious cog-

nitive levels. Neuro-chemists discovered that when we are dealing with
negative events, our body produces higher level cortisol, a hormone that
shuts down thinking center of our brain and activates conflict aversion
and protection behaviors, which eventually makes us to perceive nega-
tive events with greater emphasize than actually exists.1 Similarly, some
scholars claim that negative emotions and negativity in general have a
deeper impact on human feelings than positive feelings, cognition, and
behaviors. Research has revealed that people tend to recall negative
events more easily than positive ones and that negative experiences have
a deeper impact on people’s attitudes and behaviors than positive ones.2
This, in turn, can be conceptualized as “negativity bias”,3 meaning that
people tend to weigh negative experiences in their decisions more heav-
ily than positive ones.4 Thus, we may be led by our negative and hateful
emotions (such as anger, disgust, dislike, and so on) rather than posi-
tive emotions (such as love, happiness, compassion, and so on) when we
evaluate other people and objects. Or we are at least influenced by nega-
tive emotions as much as positive ones, yet we prefer to ignore this very
important emotion.
On the one end of the negativity, we have hate, and on the other
end of the positivity, we have love. Love and hate are building blocks of
our emotional lives. However, non-existence of love doesn’t necessarily
indicate hate or vice versa (Sternberg 2003). Neither hate can neces-
sarily be defined as total opposite of love as these two strongest human
emotions can also exist together as Sprott (2004, p. 304) discusses
“one can love some things about one’s partner and hate others at the same
time”. Interestingly enough, in some romantic relationships, the deeper
the love between partners, the deeper the hate gets when things didn’t
work out.5 It is ironic to say that but perhaps the love is the source of the
hatred we feel in some cases. Either way, having feelings of both hate and
love are how people give meaning and reasons to their lives, sometimes
in a peaceful way with love and other times in a painful way with hate.
However, as human beings, we like to see the positive side and tend to
ignore negatives most of the time. We love to love and we hate to hate,
and we want to be happy all the time. We do not want to think about
negative results and feel hatred, even though it is perhaps sometimes a
reasonable and logical outcome of our behaviors. This is in our nature.
We want to see happy endings in every event. In other words, we are all
programed to think positively—which is, I believe, our main life source.
 1  WHAT IS HATE?  5

Positive thinking makes us happy and everybody wants to be happy. At

certain points, it can be said that we are passively addicted to our hap-
piness. It is like watching Disney movies, which always feature happy
endings. Everything should be perfect, and the good guys are always
the winners, not the bad guys. We just cannot stand a situation in which
a bad guy beats a good guy. That makes us unhappy, and we feel pain
and perhaps hatred toward the self-defined bad guy. This is what I call
“happy- ending syndrome”. This syndrome is sometimes so blinding that
we do not listen to or even like people who always think negatively about
events or situations. We are all in search of our own Disney-like happy
endings in our lives, and we want to make sure we are not hunted by
any negativity. Thus, the question is: Are we drugged with our need for
happiness, and do we blind ourselves by thinking positively and denying
the negativity and hurtful truth surrounding us, even though we include
them in our decision-making processes? At some points, such negativity
will drag in hate and we simply do not want to go into that darkness and
those hateful feelings. But they are there nonetheless. Perhaps we want to
repress some of those negative and hateful feelings and deny the reality.
Showing hate is not acceptable in many societies and cultures,
although people might feel hate and all sorts of other negative emotions
on a daily basis. Although hate can be seen to be as natural a feeling as
love, showing anger and hatred is socially unacceptable and can even be
seen as a criminal act in many cultures. In other words, hate is a hidden
and mostly repressed feeling and can generally be seen in a passive form
in public rather than in active form. Thus, those emotions exist but are
buried deep in our subconscious. Sometimes when people see an angry
person, they say things like “it was shocking to see a crazy animal come
out from that nice guy”. The truth is that negative emotion or hate is
with us wherever we go, and we just need an incident to trigger our
hateful feelings. But it is so unacceptable to see those negative emotions
come out that some researchers define hateful feelings and hatred as
“mental abnormality” and in fact “mental illness”. Some believe that we,
as human beings, create “neurotic attachment to a self-created enemy”.6
So, the question is why do we need to create enemies? Are we poison-
ing ourselves with our misperceptions of others, events, and objects? Or,
alternatively, do we need to create enemies, so we can define who we are
not, instead of who we are? Freud indicates that most of these impulses
go all the way back to our past and our recollections it.7 He says that
such impulses perhaps played an important role in constructing our
6  S. U. KUCUK

consciousness level and hence in our mental life. Eventually, these rec-
ollections define who we are, or perhaps who we are not and therefore
develop our ego and identity. Along the way, through learning who we
are not, we discover the version of ourselves that we hate.
When we love and accept somebody else, we give up our ego or our
self-identity and simply accept the loved person’s identity in a controlled
manner; in fact, we try to be like them. That is how we build our per-
sonality from childhood. On the other hand, when we hate someone,
we keep a tight grip on our very essence of self in order to differentiate
ourselves from that hated side. This is needed, as it defines us as a per-
son. In other words, we hate and generate self-created enemies to satisfy
our own ego. This might make sense from an unconscious, psycholog-
ical point of view. Naturally, we feel threatened by the existence of the
unwanted self or identity, as Freud explains; we, as human beings, start
dreaming that person was dead, even if they were loved by us in the past.
In this context, if our ego is threatened or if our vulnerability of
self-image is revealed, in turn, we want to regain a sense of power
and try to get even with the other side in order to protect our defec-
tive image of ourselves.8 Sometimes, we create these power games
in our minds and fashion self-made enemies to protect our self-im-
age, even though they do not know that we see them as our enemies.
Unfortunately, we feel entitled to attack such self-made enemies. In
other words, whoever makes us feel less worthy, vulnerable, and weak
will eventually make us feel threatened and come to deserve our hate.
That is where hate starts and where ordinary people turn into monsters
and violent and hateful individuals. They lose the very essence of their
self. We start to frame those people negatively to our friends and soci-
ety to protect our self-image and, in fact, to promote ourselves.9 Sharing
and spreading our hate turns into a holy mission for some as we derive
comfort if more people hate the same person, group, or object. In other
words, hate can be contagious if others also share the similar identities
and social values with the hater. The need for rightfulness and social sup-
port that suits the hater’s ego eventually transform the individual hate
into us-versus-them mentality.
Overall, hate and negativity can easily be triggered when we are vul-
nerable and threatened as we are all influenced by various types of
prejudice throughout our lives. In this context, “threatened self” or
“threatened egotism” as conceptualized in psychology literature can be
seen as some of the main elements of hate, as follows.
 1  WHAT IS HATE?  7

Threatened Egotism and Hate

In psychology, hate is also discussed broadly within the threatened ego-
tism concept.10 This stream of literature looks at threatened egoism in
terms of the conflict between a person’s positive and negative self. People
can get this feeling easily, even if someone has threatened their posi-
tive self. Thus, the inner war between our positive and negative selves,
in fact, shapes our personality and makes us who we are. But if we feel
that somebody is attacking the very core of ourselves (positive self), this,
in turn, can trigger a hateful response. People reveal negative emotions
toward representations of negative selves to safeguard their own selves.
However, if a person has strong fundamentals within his/her positive
base or—in other words, if they have good self-esteem—that person per-
haps shows less hateful behaviors, aggression, and violence. It is consid-
ered that low self-esteem people may have more tendency to aggression
and hate, as such people are less secure about their own positive self and
ready to attack their negative selves.11 Although some research shows
that low self-esteem people can be less violent (specifically women can
have lower self-esteem than men),12 this does not mean that they feel
less hate toward negatives. Yet, there is not enough empirical evidence
to support this potential relationship. Alternatively, narcissistic, and ego-
istical people show aggression when they are criticized, and/or their ego
comes under attack.13 People whose ego and pride is threatened can
in fact sacrifice their personal gains and hold deep desires for revenge
against the people who threatened them. This is especially true when
the person whose ego is insulted perceives the insult as a falsely justified
act. Interestingly, if a person perceives the insult to his/her ego as true,
he/she might prefer a passive response and perhaps accept the insult and
silently move on.14 On the other hand, if the person sees the reasoning
behind this insult as justified or true, that might actually generate more
hate. In other words, the person does not feel threatened as long as the
person sees the criticism as real, justified, and true.

Perceived Injustice and Hate

This, in turn, shifts the focus on to another important factor: the truth
behind the justification of the insult. This justification can be well-
rounded for the hater but not for the hated side or perhaps not for a
third party. A hater’s prejudice and perception of truth can eventually
8  S. U. KUCUK

determine the level of hate felt by them. Thus, the important question is:
“How do haters justify their hate?” If there is no sound justification for a
person’s hatred toward another, that person, in turn, can be labeled as a
psychopath. Dehumanizing and demonizing the other side just because
they are different feeds the basic level of hate. In fact, this can be defined
as “prejudiced hate” or “psychopathic hate” (e.g., “all Muslims are ter-
rorist or bad”). In this case, attacking others’ negative selves can also
give prejudiced haters a way of empathizing with their positive selves.
In other words, this kind of hate has nothing to do with the hated but
rather the haters themselves. On the other hand, it is possible that some
hateful feelings can be logically well justified and might even make sense
(e.g., “everybody hates liars”).
The problem, at this point, is how you define fair, true, and/or
acceptable judgment on which everybody feels like they can agree. This
is almost impossible as everybody might have different perceptions of
the events, people, and objects. When people feel that they are seeing
unfair treatment or if they perceive an injustice, they will get upset and
feel more cross. This, in turn, fuels hateful feelings toward the accused
party. Thus, perceived injustice is another significant factor in defining
the concept of hate. In theory, hate is also discussed based on a party’s
negative prejudice, as it can generate irrational emotions and aggressive
impulses.15 Although hate is seen as perceiving others negatively, the
sense of rightness in the feeling is related to that person’s self, which is
shaped by their past history, personality, and threatened identity.16
Fair or unfair and justice or injustice are generally defined within
a social value system in which right and wrong or legal and illegal are
all delineated by society. When there is no strong social value system or
legal system in a society, it can be difficult to for people to justify their
hate if it does not fit into social norms or the legal system. Eventually,
this creates social chaos and depression. In such cases, even though there
is no system of reference, people tend to develop their own system of
judgment and justifications for their behaviors. But this personal judg-
ment is limited by a person’s perception and capability to sense and
understand all the influential factors. This process indicates how people
perceive injustice, not the truth, and it can be misleading most of the
time and limited to the societies moral principles. Nietzsche (2003) calls
this kind of society “nation of priests”, as everybody is expected to act
like a priest and keep telling each other what is right and what is wrong,
which eventually requires constant correction of your own and other’s
 1  WHAT IS HATE?  9

behaviors. This kind of rigid and dichotomous thinking make people

uncomfortable with themselves and others if they don’t fit such val-
ues as this puts them in small closed boxes and, in fact, creates a social
unrest and hate through each other. In such societies (nation of priests),
individuals who follow the perceived right blindly are rewarded while
the ones who question such values are socially punished or rejected
by the society (even by law). Thus, this eventually empowers the ones
who followed the so-called and perceived morally right path, and they
were praised and promoted in society’s social hierarchy. Nietzsche calls
the individuals who blindly follow the exposed morality values as “herd-
man” (Nietzsche 1990, p. 115). The herd-man can truly hate if someone
acts outside the scope of society’s moral circles. The truth is all of us,
or at least majority of us, wanted to be loved, nurtured, and secured by
a group or a society and tries to work hard to deserve the group’s love
and acceptance. In some ways, I feel like we all want to be a herd-man
as we need to be loved, cared, and protected, yet we don’t want to be
brainwashed and exploited by the value systems we are not consciously
and fully comprehend and aware of. As Nietzsche (1990) indicated, we
hold such social value systems so deeply that, we are, most of the time,
not even able to aware of them as value at all. In fact, those values are
imbedded so deeply into us that we even legalize them that we don’t
accept the existence of another alternative or explanation. Basically, such
value systems become our own truth even though they might not be the
truth itself. Thus, we uphold some of these values with law to legitimize
our social existence in this world.
In this context, law could also be seen as representation of all people’s
or at least the majority’s agreement on a belief and or social values. We all
agree that crossing on a red light is illegal, not yellow, blue, or pink light.
We all came up with the idea that everybody should stop in red light and
developed this rule so that we could establish social order. By develop-
ing these agreed value systems, we legalize our social codes and behaviors
and create our own herd-man like behaviors. Thus, if you cross on a red
light, you are acting against society’s will and value system, which could
be perceptional and change from culture to culture. Similarly, if you fit
into a social group, you are accepted and loved by the group. Otherwise,
it is possible that you will be gently pushed aside and rejected by the
group. Or, perhaps you will be hated. Thus, the legality and illegality
dimensions used in Table 1.1 can be discussed with regard to whether a
behavior or a person can fit socially with the group or not. In a way, by
10  S. U. KUCUK

legalizing social systems, we teach people how to channel their hate in an

acceptable and rational way that fits with society’s value system.
Perceived injustice and unfairness are based on what a society decides
is acceptable and unacceptable, based on how that society is influenced.
We are all influenced by events we have witnessed, whether they are true
or false, fair, or unfair.

Rejection and Intense Hate

In a personal or professional relationship context, if somebody continu-
ously treats you unfairly and also denies the legal consequences of his/
her actions, you will most likely hate this person. The duration of unfair
behavior can also determine the level and degree of hate a person might
feel. Imagine your boss is lowering your salary and harassing you with-
out good reason while others are getting fair treatment and raises. In
fact, some of your peers get promotions even though they do not even
deserve them from your point of view. In that scenario, perhaps you can
even hate your peer who is unfairly promoted. Even though you might
be protected by law, you probably will not want to take legal action and
stand against your boss; perhaps you have low self-esteem or no trust to
the system and will just accept this unfairness and move on. In this situ-
ation, your negative feelings and hate toward your boss increase expo-
nentially every time you find yourself undergoing an unfair, abusive, and
illegal treatment. Some thinkers define hate through a person’s helpless-
ness in a situation where his/her personhood is reduced.17 Others define
hate in this context as “power inequality” or asymmetric power structure
in a system.18 This situation is indicated by the “Intense Hate” box in
Table 1.1. In a consumer–company relationship context, if a consumer
cannot get their money’s worth in a relationship with a service provider
and the service provider refuses to provide the promised services to a
consumer, it is again expected that we would see some intense consumer
hate against the company.

Table 1.1  Perceived injustice and hate

Legal/socially acceptable Illegal/socially unacceptable

Fair Acceptance and love Moderate hate

Unfair Moderate hate Rejection and intense hate
 1  WHAT IS HATE?  11

Moderate Hate
You might perhaps hate the person who finds loopholes in the system
and treats you unfairly. Imagine a tobacco company which is trying to
build a cigarette factory in a less developed part of the world. They know
that 90% of people will die of lung cancer or similar causes if they smoke.
Yet, they build a new cigarette factory and sell the cigarettes at lower
prices so that people can buy them. This is not illegal, yet neither are
these fair and ethical decisions. Similarly, imagine a company discovers
a lifesaving medicine and put price tag on the pill of about half of your
monthly income. Thus, it does not give you the chance to live. If you
have money, you have a right to live, but if you do not, then you deserve
to die. This company’s act is most likely not illegal, yet it is very unfair
(while still acting within the rules of the economic system created with
everybody’s approval). You would probably try to find a way to justify
and legitimate your hatred toward this company. This can be labeled as
moderate hate since the action is taken is not illegal. Some people hate
their parents and think that they are not fair to them. But generally
speaking that kind of hate does not affect your relationship that much.
You might blame them for being unfair to you, but they are still your
parents, and you cannot change it! That is, what it is meant by “moder-
ate hate”.
Similarly, moderate hate can be generated by actions which are ille-
gal but fair. For example, at the end of some action movies, you see
that the main character or hero eventually defeats the bad guys, and for
one second he hesitates to destroy them when he has the chance. For
a moment, you feel that your hero will forgive bad guys and let them
go. One wrong move and he kills them all. The cops can see what hap-
pened, and even though they can arrest him for murder, they let him go
because he did the right thing. What the cops did in the movie is illegal
actually, but it was fair to let the hero get away without any charge as he
protected the social order and social norms. Some people hate the cops
because they did not do their job well, and some people hate the crimi-
nals because they threatened the social order.

Acceptance and Love
Acceptance generally happens when people are treated fairly and legally
in a mature and nurturing way. Even though you might be punished
12  S. U. KUCUK

for something, you know the reason for it and that does not necessar-
ily take your love and positive feelings away. Reasonable people generally
think that it was fair, in fact, and some accept responsibility and say, “I
deserved it”. You still feel broken inside, but you know that it was not
you; it was what you did that is being punished. If other side forgives
you even though you know you were not right, that eventually gener-
ates compassion and love. We approach that person with love because
we know that he/she was right. In many situations, if our perception
of justice is threatened, we feel violated and feel hate toward whoever is
behind that act. Love and hate are two closely related concepts and rep-
resent the far limits of the continuum of human emotions. Love indicates
acceptance and compassion, while hate is an emotional survival instinct
when we feel helpless and threatened by an intruder. Although love can
be fake, hate is always real and has definitive power in shaping who we
are and what we are capable of doing. This is echoed in the words of
the poet Thomas Hardy: “To understand the best of us, we must first be
willing to take a look at the worst of us”.

Dimensions of Hate
Hate, as an emotion, is at the farthest edge of the negative emotions
scale. According to thesaurus, there are at least fifty major emotions
that can be directly associated with the word of hate. Although there are
many words that can be associated with hate with different levels of emo-
tional intensity, social psychologists generally don’t define hate as a pri-
mary emotion, but rather as a secondary emotion with anger, disgust,
irritation, hostility, and so for.19
As pictured in Fig. 1.1, some negative emotions can be very closely
associated with hate such as anger, furious, mad while some others can
be associated with moderately such as repel, disgust, dislike (the darker
and the brighter the red colors get, it indicates that the deeper and more
intensive the emotions get in the figure). Finally, others can be associated
low with the emotion of hate such as devaluation, diminishing, or avoid-
ance as pictured with lightly shaded colors in Fig. 1.1.
Thus, it is clear that hate is not a unidimensional concept and that it
has many layers. It would be naive to discuss hate only based on anger
and violent behaviors. Some people internalize their hate, but others
openly express it and thus commit violent and criminal acts. The com-
plexity and multifaceted nature of hate is well-discussed by Andrew
 1  WHAT IS HATE?  13

Fig. 1.1  The emotion of hate

Sullivan,20 a journalist, who focused on the horrific effects of hate crimes

as follows:

There is hate that fears, and hate that merely feels contempt; there is
hate that expresses power, and hate that comes from powerless; there is
revenge, and there is hate that comes from envy. There is hate that was
love, and hate that is a curious expression of love. There is hate of the
other, and hate of something that reminds us too much ourselves. There is
the oppressor’s hate, and the victim’s hate. There is hate that burns slowly,
and hate that fades. And, there is hate that explodes, and hate that never
catches fire.

Sullivan’s definition is one of the most comprehensive definitions,

and it indicates the complexity of the concept of hate. Thus, it is fair
14  S. U. KUCUK

ŽůĚ

^ŝŵŵĞƌŝŶŐ ^ĞĞƚŚŝŶŐ
,ĂƚĞ ,ĂƚĞ
Burning
HATE

ŽŽů ,Žƚ
ŽŝůŝŶŐ
,ĂƚĞ
Fig. 1.2  Dimensions of hate

to say that hate can be discussed from many different perspectives.

For example, some scholars define hate as mixture of emotions such as
combination of fear and anger21 or disgust and anger.22 But, the most
comprehensive conceptualizations of hate came from Robert Sternberg
(2003). His conceptualization has a boarder and multifaceted perspec-
tive. Sternberg defines hate, in general terms, with three major compo-
nents: devaluation, negation of intimacy, and anger (as also pictured in
Fig. 1.2).
Sternberg conceptualizes cold hate as “devaluation and diminution”
while cool hate is “negation of intimacy and disgust” or simply seek-
ing distance from a hated side; and finally, hot hate is “anger and fear”.
Figure 1.2 illustrates the relationships between basic hate components
and how these dimensions of hate eventually generate the feeling of
general hatred by either functioning individually or through interact-
ing with other hate components. Thus, it is necessary to investigate
such emotions separately to understand the layers of emotion of hate,
as follows:
 1  WHAT IS HATE?  15

Cold Hate (Devaluation–Diminution)

This kind of hate is generally characterized as seeing the targeted side
as worthless beings. Although some authors think that devaluation is
not the same as hate, it is agreed that devaluation is an early and initial
stage that sets the stage for true hate.23 In other words, small differences
can be enough to trigger hateful feelings if they are perceived as nega-
tive. Human beings always have the tendency to differentiate themselves
from others by devaluing the targeted group.24 Freud (1957) indicates
that people tend to find meanings in exaggerated differences between
themselves and those for whom they do not feel affection. Freud calls
this “narcissism of minor differences” (p. 199; see also Gabbard 1993).
So, hate slowly roots in a person’s life through such differences created
by their narcissistic manner. This, in fact, can be true for those who have
never encountered or met members of the targeted group.25 Sternberg
(2003, pp. 311–312) uses an example to define such phenomena: “It is
not uncommon to find anti-Semitism or anti-Islamic cognitions among
people who have never actually met a Jew or a Muslim”. Yet, it is possi-
ble that an anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic person can change his/her view if
an opportunity arises to meet the hated group. Because this kind of hate
reveals itself in situations where people share similar views, it is called
“cold hate”. It seems that this is a more secret and hidden hate inside
people, which has not yet formed and found its life but which is still
there. Perhaps people cannot even name such feelings as hate, yet they
feel some negativity toward targeted group.

Cool Hate (Negation of Intimacy–Disgust)

This kind of hate represents disgust and feelings of repugnance against
the targeted group. The hater tries to avoid this group and distances
himself from the hated side with very clear and strict lines because they
see the other side as subhuman and evil. Indoctrination with feelings that
the hated side is evil, murderous, and demonic is the main satisfaction
of the hater. Sternberg (2003, p. 311) defines this feeling of cool hate
as “visceral prejudice” toward hated side. Such hater s do not necessar-
ily feel a desire for revenge, which marks the major difference between
anger and disgust or hot hate and cool hate. Cool hate has very direct,
clear, and dichotomous thinking, while cold hate does not have such
strict and clear differentiation. In this sense, hateful feelings are more
16  S. U. KUCUK

intense in cool hate than cold hate. Through this strongly dichotomous
differentiation, the hater claims a right to fight against the devil and the
corruption believed to be manifested by the other side. Demonization
provides an incentive to act and/or brings the hater closer to acting
against the hated side.26 In cool hate, personal or external factors push
the individual to turn up the heat of their hate and make them ready to
act against the hated side accordingly.

Hot Hate (Anger–Fear)

This kind of hate represents extreme hostility and anger toward a threat.
Such hate can generate sudden anger and can easily lead to “hot active
violence”.27 However, there is difference between momentary anger
and one leads to hate and violence.28 Fitness and Fletcher (1993) indi-
cate that anger cannot be misidentified, while hate can. Anger cannot be
sustained for longer periods (such as days and weeks), but hate can be.
In this context, hate seems to represent longer-lasting anger and more
intense feelings than do spikes (such as anger) in people’s emotional
world. Furthermore, hate can be discussed in terms of being trapped and
boxed in, unlike anger which is more an external representation of inner
hostility.29 Yet, when you look at these two concepts in terms of emo-
tional intensity, there is almost no difference.30 Either way, it is clear that
hate involves anger and can be seen as an indication of strong, intense,
and deeper hateful feelings. Thus, anger or hot hate represents a high-
level form of hate.

Severity of Hate
Sternberg (2003, 2005) provided important clues about how these three
types of hate construct interact with each other. In his triangular the-
ory of hate, he also defines four additional hate constructs as follows:
simmering hate (cold and cool hate together), seething hate (cold and
hot hate together), boiling hate (cool and hot hate together), and finally
burning hate (cold, cool, and hot hate together). Thus, Sternberg’s con-
ceptualization also provides a new classification approach for hate dimen-
sions based on the severity of hate. For example, if there is only a single
component (only cold, cool, or hot hate dimensions existing individu-
ally and separately) available in the hate construct, that represents “mild”
hate; if two components are present, that can be labeled as “moderate”
 1  WHAT IS HATE?  17

hate; and finally, if all three hate constructs are present, that indicates the
highest form of hate—“severe” hate. Sternberg’s hate taxonomy cov-
ers all types of possible hate combination and constructs, which are also
illustrated in Fig. 1.2.
Severity of hate can eventually determine the intensity of such neg-
ative emotions. Figure 1.3 illustrates intensity of hate in a hierarchical
format. The hierarchy depicted in Fig. 1.3 clearly represents mild, mod-
erate, and severe hate in light of Sternberg’s hate taxonomy. Similarly,
some other researchers classify individuals based on the intensity of
hate they feel. For example, people can be seen as light haters, or what
Frankfurt (1971) calls a “faint-hearted hater”. Such haters are gener-
ally ashamed when they realize that they hate somebody. This kind of
self-awareness perhaps does not fit the individual’s personality, yet they
cannot feel otherwise. At the opposite end of this continuum, there are
what Frankfurt (1971) calls “wholehearted haters”, who are dedicated to
their hatred of targeted groups, objects, or persons. This type of people
in fact feels completed and fulfilled when they are defined by their hate.31
Similarly, Gaylin (2003) defines these kinds of haters as “true or raw
haters”. In fact, he claims that such haters live with hate daily and that
for them it is a way of being. These people are generally obsessed with
their enemies and are attached to their hate and the hated side through
paranoia.

HIGH

ƵƌŶŝŶŐ,ĂƚĞ ^ĞǀĞƌĞ,ĂƚĞ
ŽŝůŝŶŐ,ĂƚĞ
^ĞĞƚŚŝŶŐ,ĂƚĞ DŽĚĞƌĂƚĞ,ĂƚĞ
^ŝŵŵĞƌŝŶŐ,ĂƚĞ
,Žƚ,ĂƚĞ
ŽŽů,ĂƚĞ DŝůĚ,ĂƚĞ
ŽůĚ,ĂƚĞ

LOW

Fig. 1.3  Severity of hate

 18  S. U. KUCUK

Overall, it is clear that hate is a multifaceted and complex subject. It is

intriguing that there is not enough study focused on such a biased, easily
manipulated, and misunderstood concept. Our ignorance and denial of
such emotions are perhaps due to our desire to build a more positive and
more loving world. But without understanding such negativity, we won’t
be able to advance in our minds and in our lives. This issue in turn has
gained too much attention in both consumer psychology and consumer
behavior as consumers started to show hateful emotions as a result of the
digital revolution. Thus, the next section will focus on consumer hate,
specifically consumer brand hate.

Notes
1. Glaser and Glaser (2014).
2. Ito et al. (1998) and Fossati et al. (2003).
3. Kanouse and Hanson (1972).
4. Kanouse (1984).
5. Jin et al. (2017).
6. Gaylin (2003).
7. Freud (1943).
8. Beck (1999) and Sternberg (2003).
9. Beck (1999).
10. Baumeister and Butz (2005).
11. Toch (1993).
12. Kling et al. (1999).
13. Bushman and Baumeister (1998).
14. Baumeister et al. (1996).
15. Sternberg (2005).
16. Opotow (2005).
17. McKellar (1950).
18. Solomon (1977).
19. Shaver et al. (1987) and Storm and Storm (1987).
20. Sullivan (1999, p. 54).
21. Kemper (1987).
22. Plutchick (1991).
23. Staub (1989).
24. Staub (1990), Tajfel (1978, 1982), and Tajfel et al. (1971).
25. Sternberg (2003).
26. Fitness and Fletcher (1993) and Fitness (2000).
27. Beck (1999).
28. Beck and Pretzer (2005).
 1  WHAT IS HATE?  19

29. Davitz (1969, p. 35).

30. Fitness (2000).
31. Frankfurt (1971).

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 CHAPTER 2

What Is Brand Hate?

Abstract  In this chapter, I define the concept of brand hate in light

of the general psychology of hate as discussed in the previous chapter.
Consumer perception of brand injustice and unfairness are discussed as
the starting point of brand hate. The components of brand hate are con-
ceptualized as “cold”, “cool”, and “hot” brand hate in light of consumer
psychology and behavior literature. Types of consumer brand hate and
potential hate interactions among various consumer behaviors are dis-
cussed. The conceptual link between brand hate and anti-branding is
developed. Furthermore, I introduced various forms of brand hate emo-
tions from various social context such as “brand bullying”. This chapter
provides a broader conceptual context about the newly introduced brand
hate concept, its components, and degree of brand hate (or defined as
“severity of brand hate”).

Keywords  Brand hate · Brand injustice · Cold brand hate · Cool

brand hate · Hot brand hate · Anti-branding · Severity of brand hate
Brand bullying

I don’t really hate it any more than I hate any of the other brands I hate, but
sure, I hate Dell as much as the rest.
Anonymous Consumer

© The Author(s) 2019 23

S. U. Kucuk, Brand Hate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00380-7_2
24  S. U. KUCUK

There is a substantial increase in consumer hateful behaviors targeting

well-known corporate brands because of increasing pace of digitalization
of consumer markets. In today’s digital markets, no brand can escape
from consumer criticism and can be immune to consumer negativity.
Part of the reason is that the Internet makes so easy to publicly com-
plain, and such consumer criticism, negativity, and complaints can easily
reach millions of consumers simultaneously. As consumers can “anony-
mously” communicate with markets, that makes them to show their true
feelings without revealing their true identities. In physical face-to-face
shopping environments, majority of consumers prefer to pressure or hide
their true emotions but let them lose to their close friends and family
such feelings once they leave physical shopping environments. Thus, it
was almost impossible to detect the consumer’s true emotions during
and even in post-purchase stages as they intended to share their expe-
riences with only the people who are close to them. As a result of such
anonymous and non-face-to-face communication technologies intro-
duced by the Internet, consumers now channel their true feelings espe-
cially hateful criticism into the markets without worrying about revealing
their identities as well as not worrying whom they are directing their
hate to as there is no real face to talk to. It is like writing your diary with-
out hiding your true emotions, without worrying about who to hurt.
Open your heart and soul truly as it is. Thus, consumers reveal even their
most hideous and hateful feelings that have been pressured for a long
time. Such negative speech we witness in consumption spaces is reach-
ing unpresented levels, and the brand hate concept is sitting right at the
heart of this change.
Hate in psychology literature is generally discussed in terms of inter-
personal relationships. However, people can also feel hate toward objects
that represent systems of meaning to which they are opposed. Thus,
hatred for a person or “interpersonal hate” and hatred for an object or
“object hate” can be different. Research has found that about a third of
student respondents associate their hate with “something” rather than
“someone” (e.g., I hate McDonald’s).1 This kind of hate, or “object
hate”, is not studied and discussed in either consumer psychology and
behavior theories or in general psychology. It is not clear whether peo-
ple ascribe more valence to actions against persons or objects they hate.
However, research shows that people interact with brands like their
friends, enemies, and acquaintances, and they share with them their feel-
ings and emotions in different forms—attributing human characteristics
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  25

to the brands.2 On the other hand, there is no research into whether

people’s interpersonal hate can get more severe than object hate or vice
versa. Also, every consumer attaches different emotions to different
brands, and different emotions can be triggered when we see different
brands. You feel happiness when you see one specific brand, while you
feel hate and anger when you see another brand. Brand hate, in this con-
text, is not studied as widely as brand love in both consumer behavior
and psychology literatures. In other words, brand hate is a relatively new
concept and needs to be discussed in depth in the next section in light of
the previous examination of the psychology of hate.

Definition of Brand Hate

When brand hate is pronounced in any conversation or discussion, the
first thing people think is that brand hate should be a polarized version
of brand love. In short, it is thought that it is total opposite of brand
love. This is not true all the time, as brand hate does not necessarily
indicate lack of brand love but can just mean indifference.3 Thus, peo-
ple who do not feel love toward a brand do not necessarily feel hatred
toward it but just feel neutral or show a lack of interest or simply are
indifferent. This feeling of numbness is not actually an indication of
something bad and traumatic. There are layers of different negative
emotions that are seeded into brand hate feeling. In other words, there
is more into brand hate than just not feeling love toward a brand. Yet,
brand love as a concept is a good starting point to really understand
what brand hate can be.
There are many examples in branding and consumer psychology liter-
ature of consumers developing strong positive emotions toward brands,
such as feeling loyalty to or love for a brand. Clearly, consumers can
also develop negatively intense emotions against brands. In general,
when people feel positive about a person and an object, they develop
“approach” behavior, and they try to get close, but they develop “avoid-
ance” behavior when they feel negative about a person or object.4 From
the branding point of view, consumers develop “brand attachment”
when they feel positive about a brand and develop “brand aversion”
when they feel negative (aka “Attachment-Aversion” model).5 Such
negative brand experiences received less attention from both academics
and practitioners until we started to witness consumer hostility toward
hated brands in many online consumer networking sites, in reviews, and
26  S. U. KUCUK

on complaint boards. Today, it is almost impossible to read online con-

sumer reviews without running into hateful language about companies,
employees, and their brands. Consumers are now able easily to reveal
their true emotions since most of interactions can be anonymous in dig-
itally mediated communication platforms. As a result, passive and hid-
den negative emotions can now be actively observed in the digital world
because of the open and anonymous nature of Internet communication.
Thus, research recently has started to focus on the dark side of the con-
sumer–brand relationship, and new negative consumer–brand relation-
ship concepts are developed, such as brand dislike,6 brand avoidance,7
negative brand emotions,8 brand divorce,9 and anti-branding.10 Such
negative consumer–brand relationships can influence consumers deeply
and memorably—in ways that can harm a company’s brand equity more
than actually expected as such negativity spread in the digital world with
a heartbeat. In fact, some authors believe that managing negative brand
experiences is more important than building positive brand connections,
especially in brand equity building processes.11 Similarly, in my research,
I also found that there is a link between consumer-generated anti-brand-
ing activities targeting well-known brands and brand value. This, in turn,
suggests that negative brand associations might be playing a more active
role than positive ones, and thus the development of a valid and struc-
tured conception of brand hate is a necessity.
Most of the brand hate feelings track back to consumers perception of
unfairness and injustice as discussed in the previous chapter. The differ-
ence between consumer’s perception of what is fair and what is not with
their interactions with the brand and company reveals where the brand
hate is seeded. Consumers naturally expect to receive fair outcome when
they are interacting with brands. Any behavior creates poor outcome
and/or low-quality relationship between brand and consumers lead
the way to hate in consumption places. Consumers’ perceived injustice
increases specifically if the brand can’t deliver the promised or expected
value by performing poorly (aka distributive injustice12), or if the brand
proposes unfair policies such as unfair product return policies (aka proce-
dural injustice13), or if the brand treats consumer disrespectfully in ways
that contradicts itself with previously established norms (aka interac-
tional injustice14). If such consumption injustices cannot be fixed by the
company in a timely and an expected manner, consumer frustration can
quickly turn into passionate negative emotions and hatred toward the
brand, as broadly discussed with regard to interpersonal hate in psychol-
ogy of hate literature in the previous chapter.
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  27

Perceived justice and fairness can only be reached if a consumer

receives an outcome that is equal or greater than what is expected from
a brand, or alternatively if consumer gets the return of what is invested
into brand for the exchange value. If a consumer continues to receive
the expected or greater than expectations outcomes, that creates brand
satisfaction, loyalty, and love. However, if the brand continuously fails to
deliver the promised outcomes as an exchange value, this eventually cre-
ates consumer disgust, anger, and brand hate as also pictured in Fig. 2.1.
Thus, consumers’ perception of the ratio of brand offerings to con-
sumer expectations sits at the heart of consumer brand hate concept.
Every brand is a commercial entity and has something to offer. Brand
offerings can either be physical such as product itself or psychologi-
cal and/or emotional such as identity, feeling of belonging to a group,
as support to a social cause. Every brand has also liability to carry and
deliver such brand assets to satisfy its consumers’ needs. Positive con-
sumer–brand relationship can only be established if the brand delivers
the promised offerings to consumers or goes beyond the expectations.
This, in turn, leads to brand love if the brand constantly accomplishes
to provide promised offerings to consumer. If such promised offerings
can fall short, consumers eventually feel aversion and try to distance
themselves from the brand. This is where a brand hate can initially be
formed as also discussed in Attachment-Aversion15 models in consumer
psychology literature. Consumers’ feelings of justice and fairness can be
shattered when brand offerings can’t be met or exceed the perceived
liabilities. In other word, consumers’ perceived distributive, proce-
dural, and interactional justice feelings determine either brand is going
to be loved or hated. In the brand love–hate continuum, brand justice,
which covers all the aforementioned justice elements discussed, sits in
the middle of brand love and hate as pictured in Fig. 2.1. Every brand
and consumer want to be just each other in a simple consumer–brand
relationship. In this context, brand injustice is the turning point from

ƌĂŶĚLove ƌĂŶĚJustice /Injustice ƌĂŶĚHate

> 1 = 1 < 1

ƩĂĐŚŵĞŶƚ ǀĞƌƐŝŽŶ

Fig. 2.1  Brand justice/injustice and hate

28  S. U. KUCUK

where brand hate starts and continues to grow with increasing volumes
if brand can’t manage to balance the offerings-expectations equity by
recovering injustice elements. Each injustice element (distributive, pro-
cedural, and interactional justice) works differently in creating brand
hate. Depending on product, service, or situation, consumers might tol-
erate a specific injustice element with various capacities over others. The
research found that consumers might tolerate distributive injustice when
there is a strong relationship between company/brand and the con-
sumer.16 This is true in many cases. For example, I don’t mind getting
a bad coffee once in a while from my favorite café place as baristas were
always really nice to me, and we develop good friendship over the years.
Nevertheless, the opposite could also be true. Seinfeld fans could eas-
ily remember the famous “Soup Nazi” episode in which the Soup Nazi
(the soup maker and the business owner) who cooks very delicious soup
that almost everybody can’t help themselves but go taste those addic-
tively delicious soups. Everybody behaves themselves and quietly wait on
the line and show utmost respect to Soup Nazi so that they don’t get
eliminated from the line and future services provided by this amazing
cook. But, Soup Nazi is a very angry man, and he can treat his consum-
ers very badly and refuse to serve them soup, which is hard to handle for
most of the consumers. I still can hear him saying “no soup for you, one
moth” when Jerry slap his counter by getting ahead of the line and asked
a soup. Clearly, this is a comedy, but there is some reality behind it, and
some readers can find similar examples from their lives. Thus, sometimes
consumers can tolerate such procedural and interactional injustice aspects
as long as they get distributive justice. In other words, each injustice ele-
ment can hurt consumer–brand relationship in different ways and kin-
dle hateful feelings in different forms. However, in each individual justice
element is not satisfied, the brand gets closer to be hated more and
more. If more than one injustice elements can’t be satisfied (say both dis-
tributive and procedural injustice), or all of the injustice elements can’t
be served, then consumers might finally feel real hate toward the brand.
Overall, it can be said that brand hate indicates consumers’ negativ-
ity toward a brand, its associations, and its identity as a result of con-
sumer’s perceived brand injustice with the relationship with the brand.
Any consumer-brand interaction which gives consumers bad and painful
experiences in both physical and emotional levels potentially lead to the
way to the brand hate. In a broader sense, brand hate can be defined as
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  29

consumer detachment and aversion from a brand and its value systems as
a result of constantly happening brand injustices that leads to intense and
deeply held negative consumer emotions. Such negative emotions can
vary from simple devaluation and diminution to disgust and contempt to
anger similarly discussed in Stenberg’s hate conceptualization. In other
words, brand hate is more than just one emotion and covers various lay-
ers of different negative emotions. These emotions play different roles in
forming brand hate, and such emotions will be discussed in detail, and
the following section is dedicated to that.

Components of Brand Hate

Because hate is theoretically a very complex and multilayered concept,
we need a broader brand hate construct. This is possible by translating
Stenberg’s hate conceptualization in the previous chapter into the con-
sumer–brand relationship context. Sternberg’s conceptualization offers
a broader understanding of the concept and goes beyond just revealing
anger and death wishes toward the hated sides or objects. Therefore, I
will use it as a springboard for a brand hate conceptualization and will
define brand hate in three major constructs as follows: cold brand hate,
cool brand hate, and finally hot brand hate. These brand hate constructs
will be discussed with the equivalent and related theories in consumer
psychology literature.

Cold Brand Hate

Cold brand hate can be conceptualized as devaluing the hated brand and
eliminating any sort of relationships with it, thus ignoring and leaving
the hated brand behind. Cold brand hate can be characterized as seeing
the targeted brand as worthless. The hater tries to distance himself/her-
self from the hated brand, its associations, and followers. Thus, in cold
brand hate consumers try to lessen the importance of the brand in their
lives. This devaluation process is where consumers start disconnecting
slowly and coldly from what the hated brand represents. This separation
and effort of dissociation from the hated brand is a less costly approach
to avoiding the potential harms from the hated side as perceived danger
is minimal17 and perhaps gives more meaningful resolution to the con-
sumers. Such diminution and devaluation processes are widely discussed
30  S. U. KUCUK

in the context of the consumer self and brand identity relationship in

consumer behavior and psychology literatures.
As the brand is a useful and convenient tool for the expression
of one’s beliefs, values, and personal style, devaluing and avoiding
unwanted brand images and associations that do not fit consumers’
self-concept can be seen as an indicator of a passive form of hate expres-
sion. Cold brand hate consumers prefer to avoid the brand, as discussed
in “identity avoidance”, which is due to a mismatch of the consumer’s
self-identity and the brand identity.18 As a result, consumers can also
develop negative selves as opposites to their positive self in the con-
sumption arena. In general, consumers are able explicitly to share their
negative feelings with society by developing distinct negative selves and
negative identities which polarize them from the hated brand. In other
words, a consumer’s negative self can also reveal what is the person’s
positive or ideal self. It can also be claimed that negative and positive
selves are complementary and validate each other. However, negative
selves could be more intense, powerful, and predictable social indicators
than positive selves.19 Similarly, research shows that dissociated reference
groups might play a more significant role in consumer self and brand
identification processes than positive brand associations.20 Likewise,
brand aversion studies focus on comparisons of enticing versus annoying
consumer selves and enabling versus disabling consumer selves, scruti-
nizing these constructs to reveal the silent war between consumers’ pos-
itive and negative selves.21 If negative selves play a predominant role in
consumers’ personal lives, an adverse attitude, a cold or silent hate, and
most likely a strong avoidance of the disliked brand can be witnessed.
One could pretend that a consumer’s positive self could manipulate
itself in brand love while negative selves work on brand hate.22 In this
kind of brand hate, inculcation of the brand as criminal or socially irre-
sponsible could also be the purpose of the brand haters. Cold brand
hate, in this context, can be seen as the representation of consumer neg-
ative selves which eventually manifest as hate toward the brand that does
not fit with the consumer’s individual and social identification needs.23
Although it is not a deep, core or extreme feeling, such dissociation
and/or avoidance efforts by the person defining himself/herself as dif-
ferent to the disliked brands, can be seen as early indicator of a slowly
evolving brand hate.
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  31

Cool Brand Hate

Cool brand hate refers to consumer negative emotions such as repul-
sion, resentment, revolt, and finally disgust toward a disliked brand.
The feelings discussed in cool brand hate are stronger than just trying
to distance a person’s stand on an issue, but entail rather a total dislike,
unhappiness, and a strong dissatisfaction created by the brand. These
feelings do eventually lead to distinct distancing efforts by drawing clear
lines between the brand and its associations and the consumer. Distancing
is the early stages of the feeling of disgust. In fact, a person who feels
disgust may create a vociferous stand against the hurtful and hated side.
Thus, the distancing discussed here is a kind of escape and different to
what is defined in the cold brand hate section. It indicates something
more like an “escape” from the disgusting person/group/object by voic-
ing displeasure loudly. People perceive threats at a higher level and feel
themselves to be challenged with the high costs of avoiding the harm
implied by disgust.24 Thus, emotions are stronger, and behaviors are
sharper in cool brand hate, as disgust includes a more expressive outcry
and escape, rather than just a silent distancing from the hated brand.25
Although in consumer psychology literature disgust is usually studied
in terms of a physical feeling because of dirtiness of products or services,
the feeling of disgust can also represent “moral disgust”.26 Moral disgust
in the world of consumption is a result of the company’s selfish effort
to put company and brand benefit over consumer benefits. Cool brand
haters are so disgusted by the company and brand that they exit the
market27 by boycotting the brand28 and thus liberate themselves from
meaningless consumption circles, as discussed in “consumer liberation
and escape”29 concepts. Some research indicates that not providing an
exit option from brand consumption cycles, which is the case in many
oligopolistic and monopoly markets (aka “held hostage” due to high
switching costs30) might trigger a brand disgust especially this accompa-
nied with distributive injustice. Some also may change their consump-
tion patterns as a result of brand disgust by creating their own solutions,
conceptualized as “sovereign consumers”.31 In cool brand hate level,
consumers might feel threats at a higher level than cold brand hate and
accept high costs for avoiding the harm in disgust.32 The emotions are
stronger as disgust includes a more expressive outcry and “get away”
feeling than silent distancing and self-devaluation.
32  S. U. KUCUK

Hot Brand Hate

Feelings of extreme anger and anxiety toward a brand are represented in
hot brand hate. Thus, revealing extreme anger and aggressive responses
targeting hated brands is its focus. In general, angry people have higher
willingness to take greater levels of risks to lower the potential harm
expected from the hated side, and therefore they can easily get violent
and attack it.33 Angry consumers are relatively new to the consumer
research area, but there is increasing interest in studying angry consum-
ers’ behaviors. When some consumers feel helplessness and frustration,
this, in turn, might lead to very extreme and in fact explosive reactions
toward the hated brand. This can be seen particularly after a major ser-
vice failure,34 or sometimes socially irresponsible corporate actions raise
consumers’ willingness to punish such brands.35 Consumers can reflect
their anger onto frontline service providers, and they may try directly
to harm company property and deliberately attack employees, violating
the company’s policies.36 Feelings of being cheated by the company, or
feeling being taken advantage of or stuck with an unwanted contract or
something unexplained could eventually push the consumer to the edge.
The things done by the company are so absurd that you simply shoot
through the roof, lose control, and get violent. Consumers’ dissatisfac-
tion with services or a company’s stand on a social issue could also be
associated with a greater likelihood of active anti-branding activity and
extreme brand hate in such cases. Although a betrayed and helpless feel-
ing increases angry consumers’ desire for revenge and willingness to hurt
the company,37 anger as an emotion has more momentary magnitude
and might last in a shorter duration.38 In hot brand hate, consumers
could be actively engaged in some disruptive behaviors, which even can
be perceived as anarchistic.

Types of Brand Hate

Although there are three distinct types of brand hate introduced in this
section, cool and cold brand hate indicate more passive and attitudi-
nal brand responses or more intrinsic mental training against the hated
brand, while hot brand hate signifies more active and behavioral brand
responses including violence. Thus, it is possible to group these con-
sumer brand hate constructs into two types as follows:
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  33

1. Attitudinal Brand Hate (combination of cold and cool brand

hate): This kind of brand hate indicates only a negative emotional
attachment. Consumers might share these feelings with their close
friends and family or sometimes keep their emotions private. They
can passively differentiate their stand against the hated brand by
distancing themselves and informing fellow consumers about it.
2. Behavioral Brand Hate (hot brand hate): Expressing negative emo-
tions, antipathy, and hate loudly toward a brand in public. Such
behavioral indications can be formed by owning a brand hate site,
involvement in hate group discussions, posting complaints on
third-party complaint sites about the brand, or simply being an
anti-brand activist.

Alternatively, such individual and independent hate constructs (cold,

cool, and hot brand hate) can also be defined as “mild brand hate” ele-
ments, similar to Sternberg’s classification. It would be sensible to indi-
cate that these individual hate components are quite difficult to detect
separately, and they appear as some combination of both cool and cold
or cold and hot hate structures in many situations. In this context,
Sternberg’s (2003, 2005) dual hate model can, once again, provide an
informative structure for how to classify various types of brand hate con-
struct. Similarly, we can define a cold and cool brand hate combination
as “simmering brand hate”, while a cold and hot brand hate combina-
tion is “seething brand hate”; and a cool and hot hate is “boiling brand
hate”. A combination of all of these hate factors can be defined as “burn-
ing brand hate” (cold, cool, and hot brand hate components together).
Similarly, simmering, seething, and boiling brand hate indicates “mod-
erate level brand hate”, while burning brand hate indicates the most
“severe and ultimate level of brand hate” as it covers all the other hate
constructs. Furthermore, starting from hot brand hate to burning brand
hate, it is easy to observe some forms of behavioral brand hate reactions
also pictured in Fig. 2.2.
Clearly, the most dangerous and harmful form of brand hate is
“burning brand hate”. Most of the attitudinal brand hate construct can
sometimes be difficult for a company to detect; behavioral brand hate
measures are not only stronger indicators of losing consumers but also a
sign that attacking behaviors, in the form of anti-brand activity, is about
34  S. U. KUCUK

hŶŝĚŝŵĞŶƐŝŽŶĂů DƵůƟĚŝŵĞŶƐŝŽŶĂů^ƚƌƵĐƚƵƌĞ
Brand Hate Intensity

^ƚƌƵĐƚƵƌĞ

,Žƚ

ŽŽů ,Žƚ ,Žƚ ŽŽů

ŽůĚ ŽŽů ,Žƚ ŽůĚ ŽůĚ ŽŽů ŽůĚ

Brand Hate Levels

ŽůĚ ŽŽů ,Žƚ ^ŝŵŵĞƌŝŶŐ ^ĞĞƚŚŝŶŐ ŽŝůŝŶŐ ƵƌŶŝŶŐ

Mild Brand Hate Medium Brand Hate Severe Brand Hate

ƫƚƵĚŝŶĂůƌĂŶĚ,ĂƚĞ ĞŚĂǀŝŽƌĂůƌĂŶĚ,ĂƚĞ

Fig. 2.2  Brand hate hierarchy

to happen. Each brand hate construct has the potential to fire up some
level of anti-branding activity targeted at hated brands.

Brand Hate and Anti-Branding

When a consumer decides to end their relationship with a brand and
there is a strong consumer dislike toward the brand, this, in turn,
increases the consumer’s likelihood to become involved in anti-branding
behaviors targeting that brand.39 The stronger the consumer’s previous
relationship with the brand, the harsher, and tougher the criticism from
them may be, and the consumer’s willingness to engage in anti-branding
activities may be increased.40
Most anti-branding efforts in the digital world start with using
domain names similar to corporate counterparts. Many such anti-brand
domain names are easy to remember (such as northworstair.org for
Northwest Airlines, shameway.com for Safeway’s, starbucked.com for
Starbucks, killercoke.org for Coca-Cola, and so forth). Anti-brand sites
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  35

purposefully use the targeted corporation’s brand name in their domain

name to increase their visibility and the findability of their version of
brand meanings in digital markets. Such haters also purposely embed
insulting and negative words in their domain names so as to express their
anger and frustration while entertaining and educating consumers and
audiences. In an attempt to prevent the creation of such anti-corporation
and anti-brand Web sites, some companies have purchased the addresses
of potential negative brand Web sites—for example, Volvo’s volvosucks.
com, Chase Manhattan’s chasesucks.com, ihatechase.com, and Exxon’s
exxonsucks.com.41 Famously, priceline.com purchased pricelinesucks.
com even before priceline.com went online.42 In some industries, many
of the leading brands seem to have anti-brand sites. With these domain
names, anti-brand sites also benefit by sharing the link popularity, brand
awareness, and Web traffic of the targeted brands’ site in many search
engine results and in consumer surfing decisions on the Internet. Anti-
brand sites sometimes show up in the top ten search results when a cor-
porate brand is searched on major search engines. Other sites also take
advantage of mistyping (aka “typosquatting”) to steal traffic directed
to the targeted brand, as in the case of untied.com, a hate site target-
ing United Airlines (united.com). For these consumer haters, anti-brand
sites have turned out to be major message dissemination venues and a
powerful communication tool. Such anti-branding hate sites subvert
many brand slogans, associations, and meanings by introducing new
semiotic meanings on their Web sites (aka “subvertisement”). Consumer-
generated anti-branding images are also conceptualized as “doppelganger
brand images” in theoretical discourse.43 Anti-branders try to undermine
the perceived authenticity of the original corporate brand meanings and
slogans and eventually expose the firms to cultural backlash in consump-
tion spaces. Although doppelganger brand images incite critics of cor-
porate brand meanings, they do not necessarily manifest very extreme
negativity and/or reflect deeply held consumer hate toward disliked
brands. Thus, doppelganger brand images can be seen as subsections of
general anti-branding activities and expressions of brand hate.
Furthermore, such consumer anti-branding hate sites not only sub-
vert brand meanings but also exchange information, organize boy-
cotts, and coordinate lawsuits to revolutionize consumer movements
against targeted brands. The goal is to influence bigger crowds and
initiate anti-corporate movements on the Internet. Thus, many anti-
brand sites have functions beyond being ordinary complaint sites
36  S. U. KUCUK

(such as e-complaints) and cover a wide range of issues—not only dissat-

isfaction caused by a simple transaction or service failure. Many of these
sites appear in the form of consumer revenge sites discussing inconsist-
ent services and greedy business philosophies, disgruntled current and
ex-employee sites (walmart-blows.com), and political basis Web sites
(homedepotsucks.com and McSpotlight.com—highlight their respective
target companies’ harming of the environment by destroying rainforests,
their use of harmful packaging, corruption of culture, monopolistic, and
anti-labor market practices). However, the legality of these anti-branding
hate sides is a very controversial issue and will be discussed broadly in
Chapter 6. But it is clear that all of the above forms of anti-brand hate
sites directly and indirectly impact consumers’ perceptions of the tar-
geted brand’s identity and image, affecting consumer purchase decisions
and eventually even potentially damaging the companies’ market share.44
Therefore, there is a strong and linear relationship between consumers’
brand hate and anti-branding actions focused on the hated brand as also
discussed in Fig. 2.3.
Not all haters feel brand hate at the same level. As discussed above,
the lowest level of brand hate in the brand hate hierarchy comprises cold
brand hate, while the highest level of brand hate is burning brand hate.

An-Branding Audience
Focus Domain

Aacking Anarchist Public

Company
Re-direcng
True Hater

Faint-hearted Hater

Informing Private

Cold Cool Hot Simmering Seething Boiling Burning

Level of Brand Hate

Fig. 2.3  Brand hate and anti-branding

 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  37

Thus, it is reasonable to expect the lowest level of anti-branding activities

in cold brand hate while the highest level of anti-branding activities will
appear in burning brand, as also pictured in Fig. 2.3. In psychology lit-
erature, individuals who feel low-level hate are defined as “faint-hearted
haters” while higher-level haters can be described as “wholehearted hat-
ers”.45 As discussed in Chapter 1, Faint-hearted haters can sometimes be
ashamed that they in fact hate somebody, but this might not be the case
in the branding world since the brand as an object has less interactive
power to influence consumers and is soulless material when compared
to human beings. Thus, this shame is less of a possibility. Such sorts of
haters are also defined as “mild” level haters in Sternberg’s classification
and thus can be defined as “mild level brand haters” in the brand hate
context. Some of these kinds of haters hate brands because they want to
show loyalty to their friends or in-groups and perhaps hate these brands
on a fashionable basis, as discussed similarly within the “symbolic haters”
concept.46 In other words, they do not even know why they hate it, but
hating a given brand is a commitment to friends and reference groups.
On the other hand, other haters display a higher-level hate. Frankfurt
(1971) calls these types of individuals “wholehearted haters”, who are
dedicated to hate the targeted group, object, or person. This type of
person in fact feels pride in their hate and defines themselves with it.
Similarly, Gaylin (2003) defines these kinds of haters as “true or raw hat-
ers”. Their hate is so deep and strong that such individuals feel targeted
hate in every aspect of their daily life. They are simply obsessed with their
enemies and build everything around the hate they have made their own.
Thus, it is fair to define such obsessed and paranoid haters as “die-hard
haters” or “true-haters”. True haters can be placed in Sternberg’s classifi-
cation between the medium and severe hate level. If true haters’ requests
are not heard and problems are not resolved by the company, their hate
can exponentially increase to the highest levels and lead to extreme con-
sumer emotions and even violations of law and anarchist acts toward the
brand. These consumers feel severe hate and at some point might even
lose control of themselves momentarily. Thus, I will call these kinds of
angry and hateful consumers “anarchist consumers”, as also indicated in
Fig. 2.3.
Such haters can exhibit various types of anti-branding activity depend-
ing on the level of hate they feel. In this context, consumer-generated
anti-branding responses can be classified into three forms: (1) anti-brand-
ing activities focused on “informing” fellow consumers about negatives
38  S. U. KUCUK

of the brand, (2) a focus on convincing other consumers to stop buy-

ing the hated brand and thus “redirecting the consumption”, and finally,
and (3) a focus on directly attacking the hated brand with the purpose of
hurting, harming, or destroying it.47 Initially, every anti-branding activity
starts with sharing bad experiences about the disliked brand with fam-
ily and friends, and other like-minded people. Anti-brand sites are exem-
plars of what the Internet has to offer in terms of empowering consumers
and giving them a voice. By informing their close circles about what is
wrong, the consumer actually starts disseminating the ugly truth behind
the hated brands to the markets. With the advancement of Internet tech-
nology, now consumers can easily broadcast their messages and organize
themselves with other like-minded consumers to start using anti-brand
Web sites as weapons of empowerment to battle corporate wrongdoing.
Although dissemination of negative messages starts at the private or close
circles level, it can easily reach the whole market in a short time, espe-
cially on the Internet. These kinds of anti-branding activity are generally
expected from faint-hearted haters, as also presented in the “audience
domain” column in Fig. 2.3. However, some consumers might not be
satisfied with these initial anti-branding efforts and wish to go beyond.
They go directly to the company with their complaint, asking for expla-
nations and compensation for their inconvenience due to companies’
failing products/services and policies. If consumers do not get a satisfac-
tory response, they change their consumption habits by protesting about
the company. Some consumers actively use expressive protests, boy-
cotting, or complaint behaviors in consumption markets. Others might
send online petition links to like-minded consumers and get involved in
boycott movements. Others build anti-branding Web sites with catchy
domain names to exchange information, organize boycotts, and coordi-
nate lawsuits, which thus function beyond the role of ordinary complaint
and review sites. Many of these sites also appear in the form of consumer
revenge sites (aolsucks.com and starbucked.com). These kinds of dedi-
cated anti-branding efforts can only be expected from true haters who
put this fight at the center of their lives.
Finally, some anti-branding activities solely focus on destroying the
hated brand and thus develop attacking strategies. Such hate site follow-
ers use very extreme language and graphic semiotics against the targeted
brand.48 These attacks are aimed at the brand’s identity and everything it
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  39

represents, deploying unforgettable and disturbing figures and symbols

such as swastikas, skulls, and the like. The complaint and communication
domain is on the whole public, and such anti-branding activities focus on
scandalous claims and very extreme graphic symbols of negative brand
images. Some of these anti-branding activities feature legal attacks with
case numbers and other public information. These sorts of direct attack-
ing behavior are typical of anarchist consumers, as discussed above.
All of the anti-branding activities discussed directly and indirectly
impact other consumers’ perceptions of the targeted brand’s identity,
image, and consumer purchase decisions and thus might eventually affect
its value. Kucuk (2008, 2010) showed that the higher the brand value
the more anti-branding and hate attacks there are targeted at the brand,
which is conceptualized as “negative double jeopardy (NDJ)”. It was dis-
covered that NDJ has two main components: “brand rank” indicates the
brand’s placement or rank among other valuable and well-known brands;
and “brand consistency” indicates how long the brand has been ranked
in the list (e.g., annually published Business Week’s “Top 100 Most
Valuable Global Brands List”). These two dimensions can be used to
show how much hate the select brands are generating in markets. After
a close investigation and sets of qualitative analysis, it was possible to
develop an NDJ matrix, as it is shown in Table 2.1.
We can classify consumer-generated branding efforts into four groups:
Experts who target the brands that are consistently ranked well-known
brands (ranked at the top); Symbolic Haters who target brands that are
consistently ranked at the bottom of the list; Complainers who gener-
ally target brands inconsistently ranked at the top of the list; and finally,
Opportunists who tend to target brands ranked inconsistently at the bot-
tom of the list. Experts generally have better understanding of markets

Table 2.1 Typology
Brand rank
of anti-brand sites with
regard to the NDJ High Low
matrixa
Brand High Experts Symbolic haters
consistency Low Complainers Opportunists
aKucuk (2008)
40  S. U. KUCUK

than many ordinary consumers and are capable of sensing and reading
market changes very well (some of them may also have worked in the
industry for a while). On the other hand, symbolic haters rely on word-
of-mouth and rumors; thus, they focus on the myths behind the targeted
brands (e.g., “everybody talks negatively about/hates this brand, so I
guess I should hate them too”). Complainers focus more on operational
problems, such as service failures, rather than the main philosophical
problems behind the brands. Opportunists are generally on the hunt for
scandalous news; thus, they are fed by media rather than personal exper-
tise or experience, and they maximize their visibility via search engines and
by social networking with other consumers. Thus, opportunists are happy
as long as they are noticed and generate some traffic to their Web sites.
Interestingly, when I revisited anti-branding activities for the same
brands in a longitudinal study after four years,49 I found the same NDJ
effects and discovered that consumer-generated anti-branding activities
had gained significant power and visibility over that period. The results
also show that there is a significant and increasing relationship between
such consumer-generated anti-branding activities, brand hate, and brand
value. Survival rates of these consumer-generated anti-branding sites
revealed that most of the complainers’ and opportunists’ anti-brand Web
sites had gone, but the majority of experts’ and symbolic haters’ ones
were still around after the four years. Furthermore, the study revealed that
there was a clear increase in the number of experts’ and symbolic haters’
anti-branding efforts and sites. In other words, they had gained more
power over the intervening years, while complainers and opportunists had
lost their search-ranking dramatically. This, in turn, indicates that brand
consistency might be one of the major factors behind typical NDJ patterns.
Thus, we can term this new phenomenon as having “horizontal NDJ”
effects. That is, brands consistently listed as valuable generate more hate
than ones listed in the top of the value scale. In my research, I realized
that experts have deep and strong hatred toward the brand they target.
They are actually talented haters. Some of the experts are in fact worked
for the company for a while, and they know what is going on inside it;
thus, their hatred is real. On the other hand, symbolic haters can be
fed with news and rumors by media, social networking sites, and blogs.
The technological advancements in social networking and blogging sys-
tems also provide fruitful environments for such haters to keep going
over years. As a result, anti-branding activities can be seen as indicators
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  41

of active, behavioral, and expressive hate in consumer markets. Another

interesting expressive and behavioral brand hate concept is brand bullying.

Brand Hate and Brand Bullying

Consumers can hit brands with rude and unjustified messages without
a notice in the digital worlds. Although some consumers might right-
fully get angry and exercise their first amendment right of free speech to
inform other fellow consumers, the free-speech rights don’t protect mar-
kets from bullying and fake information either. Bullying, especially cyber-
bullying, is today’s epidemic especially among teens. Although a bully
might think that he/she is joking with his/her friends, some of these
behaviors can be carried on to adulthood, with a dramatic impact on
one’s personality and life perspective. This, in turn, can generate hatred
toward the person who bullies and the object, which could be a brand,
used in the bullying process. During my anonymous interviews with
consumers, one of them explained why she hated a specific brand, as it
brings up negative feelings and memories:

I hate fubu because in middle school, one of my bullies always wore fubu.
She would make fun of me on a daily basis because I couldn’t afford
to buy the types of clothes she could buy. So, from then on, I hated
everything FUBU.

Bullying is a sign of having power over someone else and a strong indi-
cator of power imbalance between the bully and the bullied.50 Such
power imbalance as a concept is widely discussed in hate psychology.
Some bullies can be really rootless and manipulative so that bullied peo-
ple can define bullies as a “devil” or “monster”, which is similar to how
many anti-branders and brand haters define the company and brand they
hate.51 Bullying involves regular and repeated humiliation, belittling,
and intimidating the bullied,52 which eventually creates deeply held and
strong hatred toward the bullies. In fact, bullies enjoy bullying and do
not care about the damage they cause to the bullied person’s emotions
and life. Furthermore, bullying always happens in front of some sort of
audience, and thus the insult and harassment created by bullies can gen-
erate very extreme hate, deeper than the regular direct consumer brand
hate discussed here so far.
42  S. U. KUCUK

The aggression and harassment carried out by the powerful side or

bully is so strong and unbearable that the hateful feelings created by
them can also be reflected in everything bullies represent, including
brands they like. In other words, consumer hate in regular consumption
spaces is more direct, as indicated in Fig. 2.4a, and less severe as it does
not necessarily include social players and does not require an audience.
But bullies’ favorite brands can eventually be seen as representations of
the bullies themselves and that, in turn, could be enough to make the
bullied hate that brand, considering the severity of insult and harassment
he/she experienced. This indirectly created brand hate through the bul-
ly’s loved brand is illustrated in Fig. 2.4b.

(a)

ŽŶƐƵŵĞƌ ,ĂƚĞ ƌĂŶĚ

(b)

ŽŶƐƵŵĞƌ ŽŶƐƵŵĞƌ
(Bullies) ,ĂƚĞ
(Bullied)

,ĂƚĞ
,ĂƚĞ

>ŽǀĞ

ƌĂŶĚ

Fig. 2.4  Brand hate through brand bullying. a Direct consumer brand hate.
b Indirect consumer brand hate through bullying
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  43

In some cases, the person who is bullied through a brand might not
have any idea about the brand used in bullying process. Thus, the con-
sumer hates that brand even though he/she has never used it or had any
previous thoughts about it. This is caused just through the play of brand
identities in order to hurt somebody emotionally. In many cases, the bul-
lying can be so severe that the bullied person might need clinical help
in their life to get over such an illogical hate connection. Sometimes a
brand can be at the very heart of this hateful bullying process.
Such brand bullying can reach extreme levels especially in teenagers
and adolescences world. Dr. Samil Aledin, my colleague, studied exten-
sively brand bullying’s negative impacts on teenagers. In his work,53
one of the research participants defined the brand bullying as the worst
kind of bullying as there is not much you can do about it unless you
are rich and can effort to socially valued and highly expensive brands.
Dr. Aledin discovered that some teenagers go serious decision process
of what to wear or not to wear in order to avoid becoming a target of
bullying in their social environments. We communicate with each other
through brands in our social environments. These teenagers are also
doing the exact same thing, defining who they are and who they are not
by screening others to find their place in life. This is the very subject sits
at the hearth of hate studies in psychology, classifying individuals “us vs.
them”. If they are not from one of us, then they deserved to be bullied.
This, in turn, fires hateful relationship between both sides.
Dr. Aledin indicates that teenagers go through an interrogation pro-
cess by the potential bully why they didn’t wear the brands accepted by
their social group. Dr. Aledin conceptualizes this phenomenon as “brand
interrogation”, a confrontation process in which a teenager explains why
he/she doesn’t have a certain branded product that is not appreciated
by the peers. If a person can’t pass the brand interrogation process, then
he/she is subject to severe bullying and exclusion from the group as
a form of brand hate. Many teens are harshly bullied because of their
choice of branded outfit they wear. That’s indeed the reflection of bully’s
brand hate to another teenage who pays the price as social intimation
and aggression. This selection process can be very painful especially when
majority is on the bully’s side. In teenagers’ world, these kinds of inclu-
sion v. exclusion decision from a group can be made daily basis depends
on what kind of brand a person can wear. And hence such victimization
process can generate a deeper hate toward the brand in the middle of
this dispute.
 44  S. U. KUCUK

Dr. Aledin underlines the root-causes of this kind of brand bullying

as materialism. In this context, he indicates that materialism and brand-
ing are enabling teenager groups to gain more power and control of
their peers with the acts of interrogation, derogation as well as creating
criteria for being included, excluded, or ignored. This, in turn, is the
fundamental reason behind the hate or brand hate teenagers feel each
other in their social environments. The sad side is, such bullied teenag-
ers will probably carry such emotional scars of social exclusion and bully-
ing experience rest of their life as they will likely feel the same traumatic
experiences whenever they see the brand in their social surroundings.
Thus, brand hate can be seeded in consumers mind and feelings as early
as teenage times and works silently through a person’s preferences and
personality over the years without detected by the company and brand
who is at the heart of such hate and bullying.

Notes
1. Opotow (2005).
2. Fournier (1998).
3. Wiesel (1986).
4. Chen and Bargh (1999).
5. Johnson et al. (2011) and Park et al. (2013).
6. Dalli et al. (2006).
7. Lee et al. (2009).
8. Park et al. (2013).
9. Sussan et al. (2012).
10. Kucuk (2008), Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009), and Kucuk (2010).
11. Fournier and Alvarez (2013).
12. Blodgett et al. (1997) and Avery et al. (2014).
13. Tax et al. (1998) and Tyler (2005).
14. Bies and Shapiro (1987) and Goodwin and Ross (1992).
15. Park et al. (2013).
16. Priluck (2003).
17. Hutcherson and Gross (2011).
18. Lee et al. (2009).
19. Wilk (1997).
20. White and Dahl (2007).
21. Park et al. (2013).
22. Carroll and Ahuvia (2006).
23. Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009) and Kucuk (2015).
 2  WHAT IS BRAND HATE?  45

24. Hutcherson and Gross (2011).

25. Smith and Ellsworth (1985).
26. Rozin et al. (2008).
27. Hirschman (1970).
28. Sen et al. (2001).
29. Firat and Venkatesh (1995) and Kozinets (2002).
30. Fournier and Alvarez (2013).
31. Holt (2002).
32. Hutcherson and Gross (2011).
33. Rozin et al. (2008).
34. Gelbrich (2010) and Johnson et al. (2011).
35. Sweetin et al. (2013).
36. Gregoire and Fisher (2008) and Gregoire et al. (2010).
37. Gregoire et al. (2009).
38. Ben-Ze’ev (2000).
39. Johnson et al. (2011) and Park et al. (2013).
40. Johnson et al. (2011) and Gregoire and Fisher (2008).
41. Fitzgerald (2000), Nemes (2000), and Harrison-Walker (2001).
42. Harrison-Walker (2001).
43. Thompson et al. (2006).
44. Kucuk (2008), Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009), and Kucuk (2010).
45. Frankfurt (1971).
46. Kucuk (2008, 2010).
47. Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009).
48. Kucuk (2015).
49. Kucuk (2010).
50. Mishna (2012).
51. Kucuk (2015).
52. Boddy (2011).
53. Aledin (2017).

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 CHAPTER 3

Antecedents of Brand Hate

Abstract  I discuss major brand hate antecedents in twofold in the chap-

ter: company-related antecedents and consumer-related antecedents. I
discuss company-related antecedents as “product and service failures”
and “corporate social irresponsibility” with data. Furthermore, I discuss
the potential interactions among company-related antecedents as some
companies can both serve dysfunctional products and services failures
and can be socially irresponsible. These potential antecedents are dis-
cussed in light of the consumer complaint and corporate social respon-
sibility literature studies. In consumer-related antecedents, I generally
focused on consumer personality disorders and traits that might function
as major antecedent such as narcissistic individuals. Narcissism and enti-
tlement are interchangeable as major consumer brand hate indicators in
this chapter. Big Five and Agency v. Communion personality traits and
their potential interactions with consumer brand hate are also discussed.

Keywords  Product failure · Service failure · Corporate social

irresponsibility · Narcissistic consumers · Entitlement · Big five
personality traits · Agency v. communion

I hate this brand because it is the epitome of greediness and they take advan-
tage of the people who they target.
Anonymous Consumer

© The Author(s) 2019 49

S. U. Kucuk, Brand Hate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00380-7_3
50  S. U. KUCUK

Consumers can now easily access many products and services all around
the world as a result of the digital emancipation of markets. The number
of options for products and services is increasing as more and more com-
panies enter digital consumption spaces. More options have increased
consumers’ economic power1 and expectations from companies and their
brands. The gap between consumer expectations of brands and their
actual performance on many social and service issues is widening and
leading to more conflicts and hostility in the markets as also discussed
with brand justice/injustice concept in the previous sections. One of the
main reasons behind increasing consumer anger and frustration in con-
sumption spaces is elevated consumer expectations from companies as a
result of this rising consumer power in digital environments.2 Consumers
can also now easily voice their disappointments due to the ease of
Internet access, which has created speech equalization between consum-
ers and corporate broadcasting systems.3 As a result, today’s digitally
empowered consumers’ expectations are higher than before, which can,
in fact, lead to greater consumer disappointment in service failures and
corporate wrongdoing. This, in turn, has started to generate increased
hatred toward these brands. Such hate can even increase exponentially
if consumers also have an unforgiving nature and personality problems.
Thus, the question I am going to investigate in this section is “what trig-
gers consumer brand hate?” or “why consumers hate your brand?”
As mentioned above, there could be many reasons behind consumer
brand hate, but such hate antecedents can be analyzed in major two
components: (1) company-related antecedents and (2) consumer-related
antecedents.

Company-Related Brand Hate Antecedents

What do companies do to make consumers really angry and disappointed
so that this, in turn, creates a never-ending hatred for a brand? Most
negative consumer feelings are the result of negative consumer experi-
ences and disappointments. In a recent 24/7 Wall Street journal article,
America’s most hated companies are listed through analyzing various
information sources including American Customer Satisfaction Index,
employee reviews from Glassdoor, as well as additional consumer sat-
isfaction surveys.4 When these most hated twelve brands are analyzed,
the major antecedents such consumer hate is collected in two major
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  51

domains. The most frequently raised problem is negative consumer expe-

riences with the brand and/or low consumer satisfaction ratings. The
second most repeated cause is appeared to be unethical and irresponsible
company decisions on various social issues such as employment discrimi-
nation, CEO bonuses, pricing scandals.
Similarly, other studies also discussed these factors as the major
antecedent consumer brand hate in the literature. For example, in our
research,5 we found that there could be three major company-related
triggers of anti-branding: (1) transactional (dissatisfaction as a result of
product or service failures—e.g., keeping a broken automobile or bad
room service), (2) market-industry (disappointment with a brand or
discontentment with irresponsible business practices—e.g., produc-
ing products that are hazardous to the environment), and (3) ideo-
logical (ideologically dissatisfied consumers who are in search of social
change through actions such as changing the economic system—e.g.,
hating Coca-Cola because it is a perfect representation of capitalism).
Both market-industry and ideological anti-branding antecedents seem
pointing out the major social and societal antecedents while transac-
tional anti-branding antecedent indicates major product/service fail-
ures. Our findings revealed that the greater the dissatisfaction in both
product/service failures and the brand’s stand-in social issues matter for
consumers, the greater the likelihood of getting anti-branding activities
and hence brand hate. Similarly, consumer brand retaliation studies also
found four major retaliation antecedents: product failure, service recov-
ery failures, perceived injustice, and finally, situational factors.6 These
findings can also be directly linked to brand hate phenomenon as there
is a close relationship between the motives of consumer retaliation and
brand hate.7
In this context, I also run a short survey with consumers and directly
asked them if they have any brand they hate and why they feel hate the
brands they don’t like. I simply asked consumers to name the brand and
explain the reasons behind their hateful feelings with a couple of sen-
tences to an open question. I have collected 600 consumer responses.
Two experts independently went through these narrated consumer
responses without sharing their views each other and independently
grouped consumer responses with very high reliability scores at the
end of their coding process. Interestingly, no consumers claimed that
they don’t have any brand they hate. This also indicates that brand hate
52  S. U. KUCUK

might, in fact, be widely felt among most of the consumers as almost

everyone has one brand to hate.
The results of this simple survey revealed that consumers generally
justify their brand hate in three major antecedents. These three brand
hate antecedents are shared almost the same percentages among the con-
sumers I have interviewed with. Such brand hate antecedent components
namely are: “brand value unfairness”, “product/service failures”, and
“corporate social irresponsibility” as I also summarized in Table 3.1.
The consumers who are grouped in brand valueunfairness antecedent
indicated that they are upset with the brands that they are very expensive

Table 3.1  Root causes of consumer brand hate

Root causes Consumer beliefs about hated brands

Brand value unfairness Overpriced: High priced for the quality introduced,
(34%) crappy products
Overrated: Herd mentality—blindly following the
brand under influence of marketing hype
Identity clashers: Disliking the identity represented by
the brand and its followers
Oppositional loyalists: Love of their brand makes them
to hate competing brand
Product/service failures Quality failures: Poorly functioning products,
(37%) malfunctions
Service failures: Post-purchase service failures, poor
consumer services
Corporate social irresponsibility Greed and monopolization: Company comes first
(29%) mentality, being monopoly, greedy and exploitive,
usage of cheap labor underdeveloped countries, unfair
competitive practices
Health hazards: Unhealthy product ingredients, prod-
uct side effects, hazardous chemical usage in products,
GMO products
Bad employee treatments: Unfair wages, no health care
for employees, unpaid extended hours of work
Environmentally dangerous business operations:
Business practices accelerate climate change, wasting
environment
Social injustice issues: Consumer discrimination
issues (e.g., gay rights), racism, negative consumer
stereotyping
CEO misbehaviors: CEO derogatory public remarks,
CEO personal scandals, unlikeable CEO personality
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  53

and “overpriced”. This also echoes with distributive injustice argu-

ments as these consumers might feel that the value offered by the brands
is above its price; thus, the brand is not worth to buy. Thus, consum-
ers’ perception of unfair pricing can be seen as an important brand hate
antecedent. Similarly, some other consumers see these brands not only
overpriced but also “overrated”. This complaint has some social aspect.
These consumers might believe that some consumers are unconsciously
falling prey into corporate marketing hypes and fake value creation pro-
cesses rather than real product/service value in their perception. They
don’t necessarily believe that these brands deserve this much of con-
sumer attention and admiration, and thus, they are overrated.
In some sense, these consumers seem to secretly blame users of these
hated brands as they believe they are foolishly following the brand just
to be noticed in the society or gain some status rather than its real value.
One consumer discusses this aspect as follows: “is overpriced stuff, sim-
ply selling a label and contributing to smugness”. This consumer simply
says other consumers are buying the brand because of its label or because
of its brand power not its function or physical benefits, and thus, this
brand doesn’t deserve to be admired nor loved. Similarly, another con-
sumer sees the brand injustice simply with a utilitarian point of view
and underappreciates the social value a brand can introduce as follows:
“purely social status symbol with a price tag twice that of a comparable other
brand”. Some of these consumers see the other consumers who buy the
brand, even though it’s overpriced and overrated, as the victims of the
brand not the beneficiaries of the brand. The resentment against these
consumers who buy the brands blindly just for the social status recog-
nition not for value propositions also indicates some level of social con-
flict between consumers who can effort these brands and the ones who
can’t. This eventually leads a way to “us versus them” mentality, which is
at the heart of the psychology of hate, as introduced another significant
component of brand value antecedent. I named this antecedent “identity
clashers” as indicated in Table 3.1. In most of the cases, consumers find
the brand personality unfit for their own personalities and friction cre-
ated by the differences between brand and consumer personalities trig-
gers brand hate. In some cases, consumer perhaps wants to be associated
with what the brand represents but can’t find a common ground to make
that association possible as explained by one of the consumers as follows:
“I hate this brand because it seems to be only geared toward good looking,
thin, young people. It’s very exclusionary and stuck-up”. Such negative
54  S. U. KUCUK

stereotyping is at the heart of identity clashers’ brand hate. The deeper

the negative stereotypes that are attributed to hated brand get, the more
likely that divide between consumers grows faster and leads the way to
brand hate.
I have also discovered limited numbers of different types of clashers
which I called “oppositional loyalists” as indicated in Table 3.1. When
a consumer’s love for a brand is strong and sound, the hate toward
the competing brand in the same category (aka “oppositional loyalty”)
might be triggered. For example, a consumer explained his hate toward
a specific football team as follows: “They beat the 49ers and won the
Superbowl”. This asymmetric relationship between the loved and hated
brand might be another reason behind the brand hate. Similarly, another
consumer justifies her loyalty to a soda drink by reflecting hate toward
other competing brands as follows: “it’s something almost like apple pie
in that everyone thinks you have to like it, and assumes you do like either
Coke or Pepsi. I don’t drink or like either one, so it bothers me to always be
asked things like, Coke or Pepsi, as if everyone likes one or the other”. The
love felt toward a favorite brand may lead to devaluation of an alter-
native or competing brand as this is one way of protecting an ongoing
love relationship with the brand. This view also supports some findings
of the interpersonal relationship with psychology literature. Research has
shown that people judge the alternatives poorly when they are in a com-
mitted and satisfying relationship with their partners.8 Interestingly, it is
easier to detect such oppositional loyalty effects for product categories
with a higher social signaling value.9 That means the higher the brand’s
social signal value is, the bigger the brand hate might get. This potential
relationship can also be linked with negative double jeopardy (NDJ)10
phenomena (the higher the brand value is, the bigger the magnitude of
anti-branding efforts is). Thus, I will call this “Negative Social Jeopardy”
(NSJ) as directly linked to social status and hence social signaling power
of brands and brand hate. Although NSJ needs to be investigated more,
it can be interpreted that this potential link indicates how social and soci-
etal level indicators motivate brand hate.
Majority of consumer hate covered in brand value unfairness ante-
cedent predominantly points at overpriced and overrated product
and brands. A few other value unfairness components focus on clashes
over the products’ social value rather than more utilitarian price/value
comparisons.
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  55

The second major antecedent of consumer brand hate is determined as

“product and service failures” in my sample as also indicated in Table 3.1.
This issue is broadly studied in consumer complaint literature and per-
haps the most studied brand hate antecedent in consumer retaliation and
anti-branding literature studies. Many other consumers justify their brand
hate as various product quality and service failure issues as indicated in
the following original consumer quote: “they make products with no taste”
or “they make dangerous cars” or “I have many packaged arrived dam-
aged”. These consumers are generally very upset with the product/service
performance and not necessarily if they get a good value for their buck.
Some other consumers talk about how terrible the product/service is per-
formed even after they receive good post-purchase services. It seems these
consumers are willing to work with the company to fix their problems,
but post-purchase brand services failed them one more time, which even-
tually leads to strong disappointment and hate toward the brand. One
consumer, in this context, shares his frustration with the brand as follows:
“I purchased a laptop from the company that had many issues. The com-
pany wanted me to pay for the shipping to return the item but after it was
returned, the same issues were there”. It seems the brand or company didn’t
even realize or appreciate the second chance given to them by consum-
ers, and that eventually caused extreme satisfaction. It can be argued that
these consumers might have had some level of love toward the brand,
but they might have felt rejected as a result of the failure of post-purchase
services. In general, such product and service failure elements are deter-
mined as major consumer dissatisfaction and complaints reasons which
eventually lead to hate toward product/service provider and the brand
(Krishnamurthy and Kucuk 2009; Gregoire et al. 2009; Kucuk 2015).
The last brand hate antecedent focuses on irresponsible, greedy, and
unfair business practices represented by the brand as also indicated with
various consumer quotes in Fig. 3.1. Many blamed the brand they hate
with corporate greed, bad treatment to employees, and environment
and more. Consumers feel that these brands are going outside of the
socially acceptable rules and norms, and harm society by acting immor-
ally. Previous researches showed that consumers are more likely to show
extreme negative emotions and hate when companies act socially irre-
sponsible (Thompson et al. 2006; Krishnamurthy and Kucuk 2009;
Sweetin et al. 2013; Kucuk 2015). Almost one-third of the respondents
indicated this issue as their major brand hate antecedents, and hence,
56  S. U. KUCUK

Fig. 3.1  Brand hate average scores (Results in Fig. 3.1. Indicates average scores
of Cold, Cool, Hot Brand hates rankings. The brand hate scale can be shared
upon request. GBH is defined as “General Brand Hate”)

this dimension is defined as “corporate social irresponsibility” (CSI) in

Table 3.1. CSI type brand hate antecedent has a stronger and longer
impact on consumer feelings as it is a more common issue than individ-
ual disappointments and it carries both personal and social concerns for
consumers (Kucuk 2010). These consumers have high social conscious-
ness and aware of what is going on in their society in general. They are
not necessarily buyers of the brand but judge these brands in terms of
their stands in various social and political issues. As part of the reason,
they know that they can be impacted by such socially and/or environ-
mentally harmful company policies sooner or later as a member of the
society they live in. This, perhaps, generates stronger negative feelings
toward the brand.
After asking consumers to explain why they hate specifically those
brands to determine the major brand hate antecedents, I also asked
them to scale their hate toward the brands with the 13-question brand
hate survey. I asked these consumers to scale their agreement and disa-
greement on a pretested brand hate sentences by using a 7-point Likert
scale (1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree) as a part of this
experiment. General consumer brand hate feeling is measured with three
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  57

questions previously developed by Johnson et al. (2011), and I have used

three questions separately for both cold and cool brand hate and finally
four questions for hot brand hate. The results are reported in Fig. 3.1.
CSI issues apparently facilitate the most consumers hate among all
the brand hate questions tested. CSI issues generated most of the hate
in general brand hate (average score is over 4 out of 7), cold and cool
(average score is over 6 out of 7), and hot brand hate (average score is
over 5 out of 7) levels as depicted in Fig. 3.1. In other words, consum-
ers who base their hate on CSI issues reveal stronger and hotter brand
hate than any other brand hate antecedents. My longitudinal study also
supports this idea as I found that anti-branding Web sites dedicated to
brands with CSI issues stay around longer than the anti-brand Web site
that dedicated to product/service failure issues (Kucuk 2010). Similarly,
a recent (Zarantonello et al. 2016) research also showed that the level of
brand hate is significantly higher for corporate wrongdoings compared
to other factors such as product/service failures. These authors’ find-
ings indicated that corporate wrongdoings might trigger more aggressive
responses toward hated brands rather than other antecedents. Another
interesting study (Kahr et al. 2016) also found that consumers who base
their hate on corporate irresponsibility issues sabotage the hated brand
more directly and effectively than other brand-hating consumers. These
studies and statistics I have shared in Fig. 3.1. all indicate that CSI has
strong potential to generate a deeper, stronger, and long-lived brand
hate than other brand hate antecedents.
It can also be observed in Fig. 3.1. that average consumer brand value
unfairness scores are slightly greater than product/service failure scores
in both general brand hate and cool brand hate levels but almost the
same level in cold brand hate level. In cold brand hate level, all the ante-
cedents received the highest average hate scores. It seems these consum-
ers very much like to distance themselves from the brand and devalue
the brand by showing cold hate, compared to cool and hot brand hates.
The lowest hate scores for these antecedents are observed in hot brand
hate level. This also proves that cold brand hate could be the first action
consumers are willing to take when they feel hatred toward a brand as
discussed in the previous chapter.
It can be said that we can determine various brand hate antecedents
for various types of product and services for different situations and sce-
narios. Various authors also proposed the importance of various brand
hate antecedents in this newly developing consumer brand hate literature
58  S. U. KUCUK

as discussed above. However, almost all the researchers found two dom-
inant brand hate antecedents: “product/service failures11” (PSF) and
“corporate social responsibility12” (CSI). In my sample, I also proposed
a new antecedent in addition to PSF and CSI, which is conceptualized
as “brand value unfairness”. Similarly, majority of the factors discussed
under “brand value unfairness” antecedents (overpriced and/or over-
rated) can also be associated with PSF as these factors could also be the
end result of PSF. In this context, although some other studies pro-
posed identity-based brand hate antecedents (e.g., “symbolic incongru-
ity” by Hegner et al. 2017) similar to this chapter’s “identity clashers”
and “oppositional loyalist” conceptualization discussed under “brand
value unfairness” antecedent, their role and magnitude were limited than
expected. And, in fact, these identity-based brand antecedents might par-
tially be represented in CSI as a brand’s stand on social issues may also
define its identity that’s not liked by haters of the brand. Thus, it can be
claimed that both PSF and CSI cover the greater conceptual and empir-
ical ground as brand hate antecedents as major company-related con-
sumer brand hate antecedents in this chapter (see Fig. 3.2).

36)

Interactions %UDQG
+DWH

&6,

Fig. 3.2  Pictorial presentation of the company-related brand hate antecedents

(Dotted lines indicate PSF by CSR interaction effects)
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  59

Theoretically, PSF is extensively studied in “Consumer Complaint”

literature, while CSI is most widely studied in “Corporate Social
Responsibility” (CSR) literature in consumer behavior theory. The lack
of CSR efforts naturally defines the presence of companies’ socially
irresponsible business practices or what we called in this study CSI.
Although consumer complaints can be discussed in the domain of indi-
vidual-level consumer responses, there is also need for understanding
the impact of such complaining behaviors on the social level. Complaint
behaviors are no longer limited to private conversations but are now a
public phenomenon in today’s digital consumer markets.13 Thus, in the
case of both brand hate antecedents, it is more likely to see more active
and aggressive consumer brand hate in both individual and public levels.
Thus, the interaction of these two antecedent elements with brand hate
also needs to be investigated closely to see if, in fact, these sources raise
consumer brand hate further in consumption spaces. Additionally, there
is one more component: the interaction of PSF and CSI as one of the
leading indicators of consumer brand hate will be discussed in the fol-
lowing section as also depicted with dotted lines in Fig. 3.2.

Product/Service Failures
Any product or service failures mean a consumer cannot get his/her
money’s worth. This unfair business transaction creates injustice, and if
such failures cannot be recovered in a timeframe of consumer tolerance,
the resulting dissatisfaction and frustration can transform into hate. If
such hate reaches an unbearable level, it is generally shared with others
so that the person can find some emotional support and resolution. In
the past, consumers were more likely to share these negative feelings only
with their family and friends (aka “private responses”). The majority of
consumers were circumstantially far less likely to voice their complaints
publicly. Thus, most negative feelings and complaints faded away and
were forgotten as there was no real and effective way of communicating
and expressing dissatisfactions with companies and markets. This meant
that there was a silent majority of consumers who felt ignored, neglected,
and alienated. However, today’s consumers feel less alienated because
of the connectivity afforded by online communities. The Internet pro-
vides non-personal and anonymous complaint opportunities to the silent
majority of consumers. Because there is less human-to-human interaction
on the Internet than in a traditional complaint process, it is now easier
60  S. U. KUCUK

to voice any complaints about product and service failures.14 As a result,

the number of complaining consumers is increasing and there is no com-
pany which is complaint-free in today’s digital markets, just as there is
no escape from consumer complaints, dissatisfactions, disappointments,
and hate. Today, consumers who are frustrated with product and ser-
vice failures find it easier to raise their voices and complain by access-
ing Internet-based consumer complaint sites,15 consumer review sites,16
consumer anti-branding Web sites, blogs, and social networking sites.17
Yesterday’s silent majority of consumer complainers are now transformed
from passive receivers to today’s active broadcasters who showcase their
dissatisfaction to the markets.
A service failure can ultimately lead to major consumer disappoint-
ment, revenge, and hate. Consumers can directly and vindictively
complain, even damaging a firm’s property and willfully violating the
company’s policies.18 Most of the research into consumer complaint
behaviors in service failures has been focused on consumer retaliation
and revenge behaviors. Revenge, in this context, is a strong indicator of
long-lasting hate, until the hater achieves perceived justice for his or her
part by punishing the source of pain and dissatisfaction. Thus, revenge
can be identified as a very vivid and living form of hate. Although
revenge focuses on correcting a problematic behavior, the way to estab-
lish correct behavior can be justified through extreme anger and vio-
lence. This, in turn, might help explain why consumers actually feel hate.
Consumers simply want to harm the company and its representation
through brands. Such consumer rage can be short term but high inten-
sity. For example, my research has found that most consumer complaint
anti-branding Web sites disappeared after a couple of years even though
they developed strong anti-branding activities against the targeted brands
that were not able to deliver their promised benefits and services. Yet,
consumers who suffer major product and service failures can now easily
create opposition to brands and plant additional anger and brand hate
that will reach a larger audience in the digital markets. Moreover, recent
studies also indicate that consumers who feel powerful are more likely
to take direct revenge and engage in complaint behaviors.19 Similarly,
another study has also revealed that consumers are more likely to com-
plain online if they shop online regularly.20 A new stream of research21
also shows that many consumers feel empowered in digital spaces, which,
in turn, pushes consumer motivation to complain and engage in revenge
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  61

behaviors to an all-time high. Today’s many online complaint forums are

major places to reveal consumer dissatisfaction, revenge, and hate. It is
easy to see how consumers feel betrayal as a result of poorly performing
products and services in these digital gathering places. Such aforemen-
tioned technological conveniences have accelerated deployment of the
various forms of online complaint, review, anti-branding, and retaliation
activities concerning markets.

Corporate Social Irresponsibility

Corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) can be defined as the opposite of
corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR has been a very important
part of many corporate business strategies and policies. Studies indicate
direct or indirect positive links between CSR and consumer identification
with a company,22 consumer attitudes toward a product,23 and consumer
satisfaction.24 In other words, CSR can maximize business returns and
increase the chances of being a successful business.25 By contrast, it has
also been established that CSR might harm consumer satisfaction if the
corporation lacks innovativeness and only invests in CSR activities (see
endnote 13). Thus, consumers want to see companies’ and their brands’
honest and diligent efforts to create a better future for all. This is also
echoed by many anti-branding haters as well.
A majority of brand haters justify their brand resistance as consumers’
efforts to remind companies of their responsibilities and obligations.26
Although CSR activities can enhance consumers’ positive feelings about
a brand, they likely want to inflict punishment if the brand starts behav-
ing socially irresponsible.27,28 In other words, if consumers believe that
brands, as a reflection of company values and philosophy, are acting irre-
sponsibly and threatening consumer and public welfare, then consumer
responses will probably generate more anger—which eventually leads
to brand hate. Many consumer-generated anti-branding activities focus
on spreading consumer hate by showcasing corporate irresponsibility in
order to alert ordinary consumers of immoral corporate decisions and
wrongdoing, and to enlist those consumers in their opposition.29
Similarly, CSI can be linked with the literature of psychology of injus-
tice, which defines hate based on moral judgment and moral exclusion.30
In this context, hate provides moral exclusion where the people or groups
are outside the boundaries of justice (aka “the scope of justice”), and can
62  S. U. KUCUK

be seen as evil, inhuman, or simply nonentities, while morally included

parties receive fair and deserving treatment (aka “moral inclusion”).31
Companies who act irresponsibly are excluded from consumers’ lists of
favorite brands. Thus, those excluded are psychologically seen as dis-
tant, and it is unacceptable to allow them inside the scope of justice.32
Opotow et al. (2005) discuss moral exclusion based on four interrelated
major subjects: coexistence, human rights, gender equality, and environ-
mentalism. The very same subjects also sit at the heart of CSR initiatives.
In fact, a company’s ethicality is measured predominantly with these
dimensions in many CSR lists in the markets. Consumers who are highly
conscious about a company’s stands regarding social issues can see such
companies as lying outside their scope of justice and so morally exclude
them from their social value system and hence feeling hate toward such
a corporation and its brands. Similarly, recent research has revealed that
some technologically empowered consumers are attacking irresponsible
brands by dehumanizing and demonizing it in their digital anti-branding
semiotics, so as to keep these companies and their brands outside their
scope of justice.33 The moral exclusion concept is closely related to the
moral brand avoidance concept as broadly discussed in anti-­consumption
literature. Moral brand avoidance, as also discussed in Chapter 2, can
be defined as an ideological mismatch between a consumer’s ideologi-
cal beliefs and the values represented by the brand.34 Consumers justify
their anti-consumption and anti-branding motives based on whether the
selected brand acts morally or not, or alternatively if such a brand fits the
consumer’s moral beliefs.35 If the brand does not act morally, then it is
held accountable and responsible for its actions; it is thus avoided and
perhaps hated. Such morality issues are important reasons why consumers
avoid and hate some brands. This stream of research indicates that moral
brand avoidance focuses on societal issues that relate to irresponsible ways
of doing business, but it is obvious that such moral issues can go beyond
avoidance and lead to consumer brand hate. Similarly, other research
indicates that luxury brands might be hated because of their poor corpo-
rate social performances.36 Such poor corporate social performances and
moral ideological differences between corporate brands and consumers
can lead to extreme emotions, like anger and hate toward such brands,
as discussed earlier. Thus, corporately irresponsible brands can be hated
more by the consumers who are at the other end of the scope of moral
justice. That is, if a company/brand is not performing well on social
issues, that failure will result in more protests and brand hate.
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  63

Brand Hate Intensity

PSF Based Brand Hate

CSI Based Brand Hate

Time
;ŵŽŶƚŚƐ͕LJĞĂƌƐͿ

Fig. 3.3  Emotional intensity of brand hate antecedents

CSI-based brand hate feelings are generally deeply seated in consum-

ers’ memory and stay for a longer time, unlike consumer complaints.37
A recent study also revealed that consumers might love back the brand
they hated if PSF-based brand hate issues resolved one way or another,
while consumers who justify their brand hate based on CSI issues keep
negativity toward the brand all the way to the end as it seems there is
no turning back from these hateful feelings for these consumers38 as also
depicted in Fig. 3.3. This, in turn, indicates that CSI-based brand hate
can be very hurtful and damaging to the targeted brands. If the company
can’t handle PSF-based brand hate issues appropriately, the brand hate
will aggregate every product and service failures and eventually reach
unreturnable hate destination.
As discussed above, CSI-related brand hate can also be associated
with disgust and repulsion against the brand as discussed with “moral
inclusion” concept. These types of brand hate features are associated
with “cool brand hate” as broadly discussed in Chapter 2. On the other
hand, consumer complaints as a result of product/service failures gener-
ally lead more to anger and sudden spikes in consumers’ temper but they
are not as long-lived emotions as CSI-based brand hate emotions. This,
in turn, can be directly associated with short-lived anger-based “hot
brand hate”.
64  S. U. KUCUK

Although these two major hate antecedents might lead to brand hate
individually, it is also possible to see stronger hate reactions when both
product/service failure and CSI components interact with each other.
An increasing amount of hate can be expected if the company does not
adequately handle social as well as individual consumer complaint issues.
In one of my studies, I used macro-level market indicators, which are
qualified with secondary data sources, and found that CSI affects con-
sumer brand hate partially through the interaction with PSF (Kucuk
2018), yet my results reveal direct link between PSI and consumer
brand hate. Other studies also found direct link between CSI and con-
sumer brand hate (Romani et al. 2013). Although CSI and PSF issues
can individually play important role in triggering hate toward a brand,
consumers brand hate can reach very extreme levels, especially when
these two antecedent acts together (e.g., high levels of CSI and PSI).
Thus, this potential interaction link between CSI and PSF also needs to
be discussed.

Potential Interaction Effects of Antecedents

CSR can be classified as an important driver of the consumer’s ultimate
satisfaction. Furthermore, CSR boosts consumer satisfaction, which
was initially generated by product/service quality, to a new and higher
level. In other words, CSR transforms individual-level consumer satisfac-
tion into public-level positive admiration of the company. This, in turn,
enhances and ensures the company’s image in the public eye and creates
additional market value for the company.39 However, CSR might not be
enough to generate consumer satisfaction by itself if the company has
low product and service quality. In this context, CSR efforts can actually
be seen as insincere participation in the company’s relationship with con-
sumers if the company is still trying to recover unfixable product/ser-
vice failures. These efforts can eventually backfire in the form of negative
consumer perceptions.40 These negative consumer perceptions of a CSR
program can create the disconnect with consumers that is frequently
seen in corporate brand protests, anti-branding efforts, and brand hate
messages.41 This disconnect or negative impression of a company with
miscalculated CSR agendas can generate even more consumer dissatis-
faction, negative market returns,42 and weaken the positive impact of a
brand message43 and brand value44 and might generate more brand hate.
Thus, a lack of the necessary amount of CSR effort in a company’s busi-
ness philosophy and practices can also generate consumer dissatisfaction
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  65

Table 3.2  Company-related brand hate antecedent

Corporate social irresponsibility (CSI)

PSF-based complaints Low High

Low Brand love Prospect brand
High Insincere brand Brand Hate

when these brands fail to perform. In other words, if a company suffers

significantly as a result of both product/service failures and CSR (inter-
acting with individual antecedents), the potential hate targeted to the
company’s brand can be seen at unprecedented levels. Such company-re-
lated antecedents and interaction effects are discussed in the following
matrix in Table 3.2.
Therefore, in order to monitor consumer brand hate, companies
should closely check their CSR and consumer services/complaint man-
agement systems. It was previously shown that companies with high CSR
investment but that were not serious about their consumer services and
post-purchase complaints were not seen by consumers as making sincere
business efforts.45 This is also conceptualized as an “insincere brand”
in Table 3.2. These brands should first focus on consumer complaints,
and then CSR practices, if they want to improve their reputation and the
well-being of consumers. A company’s CSR efforts can be questioned
if the same company cannot provide clear solutions for PSF-based con-
sumer complaints. Companies with bad CSI records (or low CSR ini-
tiatives) and a greater number of consumer complaints will be among
“the most hated brands” in the market, as also indicated in Table 3.2.
The companies that are in this situation should first focus on consumer
complaint management efforts at a basic level and then start rebuilding
their business philosophy with the help of CSR initiatives. Investments
in CSR will eventually help both company brand identity and consumer
well-being in a positive way. By contrast, companies with low levels of
consumer PSF complaints and high levels of CSR initiative are most
likely to be “the most loved brands” in the markets. These brands, in
turn, are on the right path to winning their customers’ hearts and wallets
and to making a strong impact on future generations. Finally, companies
with low consumer PSF complaints and poor social responsibility records
should carefully position their CSR initiatives to place their brands with
the well-loved ones. In summary, these brands are doing good work in
handling consumer PSF complaints but should prepare their “prospect
66  S. U. KUCUK

brands” with a view to the realities of consumers’ social expectations

from companies.
In my longitudinal research,46 big differences were not found between
the feelings reported in Table 2.1. But, it was found that almost 50%
of the well-known brands focus more on consumer PSF-based com-
plaints than on corporate responsibility issues. Loved brands’ corporate
responsibility scores are almost twice those of hated brands. Thus, if
brands focus on CSR efforts in addition to improving consumer com-
plaint scores, they might have chance to reach the loved-brand category.
Otherwise, there is a danger that these brands will be hated more. In
other words, without significant CSR efforts, a reduction in consumer
PSF complaints will not provide a better future for these brands. The
findings revealed that well-known brands do not completely realize the
role of CSR in brand hate. Without a significant level of CSR effort, it
is possible that these brands will be hated and/or will suffer significant
brand value and reputation losses in the future. In today’s dynamically
changing digital markets, no company and no brand can afford to be
perceived as socially irresponsible.
Most anti-branding activities as a reflection of brand hate appear to
be motivated by the company’s inability to handle consumer PSF-
based complaints in the right way or by company wrongdoing or a
wrong-standing on one or more of the many social issues that matter to
consumers. So, it could be interpreted that complaining consumers who
might be more sensitive to the changes in CSR issues might hate brands
more. This, in fact, indicates that PSF complainers might be strong can-
didates for being future brand haters unless the companies can success-
fully change their course apropos these CSI problems.
Although such company-related or controlled factors can fire up con-
sumer brand hate, consumers can also easily feel more hatred toward
brands because of their demanding and unforgiving personalities. As
discussed in the beginning of the chapter, there is a need to look at
consumer personality features to see how these elements play a role in
consumers’ brand hate.

Consumer-Related Brand Hate Antecedents

Although company-related factors play very important role in creating
brand hate, some of the brand hate might have nothing to do with the
company but rather with consumer him/herself. Not all consumers are
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  67

right about their claims and their hateful feelings and behaviors toward
brands. Consumer brand hate could also be the result of consumers’
own personality features rather than company-related factors (which are
external factors most of the time). For example, some consumers can eas-
ily fall into hateful paths because they feel they are entitled to receive
superior services and they think that whatever they say and do is right
even though it does not make sense from the general public’s norms and
point of view. These kinds of consumers do not fit the expected norms
of regular consumers and perhaps they should be treated differently. In
other words, what was discussed previously under company-related ante-
cedents focuses on what makes consumers hate brand the most, while
for consumer-related antecedents will be discussed here focusing on who
might likely or have a potential to hate the brands easily than others.
This issue is naturally related to consumer personalities traits.
In the digital markets, consumer personalities are not hidden yet eas-
ily reflected out because of the anonymous nature of communications.
In fact, some users are discovering their other self (e.g., their negative
selves) they don’t know they have in the digital platforms as there is
no central control mechanism in the Internet. As if today’s digital plat-
forms function like laboratories where various types of consumer iden-
tities are experimented and re-discovered. In some situations, it is also
almost impossible to determine the physical distance of the communica-
tor on the Internet, which creates another shield of protection to availa-
ble consumer identity and perhaps give birth to new consumer identities.
These kinds of technological conveniences are opened to a new discus-
sion about if such technological advancements are making us, as con-
sumers, mean and rude. We know that consumers feel empowered in
online-shopping environments47 and the research revealed that power
also corrupts the powerholder,48 and such powerholders can be further
rude, selfish, and unethical.49 Individuals are so empowered in the digital
world that they can say whatever they want to say without thinking of
its consequences. If you didn’t like a specific person, you can simply go
online and trash that person just to make yourself feel better, not because
that person deserves that, because you just can. Most likely nobody can
find where the accuser is or even can’t figure out who that person is,
but majority perhaps think that the accuser is an innocent person. This
kind of “fakefication” (a disinformation campaign or process of pur-
posely attacking a person/business/brand with a fake online story and
emotional outburst to hurt the target rather than based on robust and
68  S. U. KUCUK

reliable facts) hurt company’s/brand’s reputation. Nonetheless, there is

also significant increase in unethical consumer behaviors (such as unau-
thorized downloading, hacking, and online stealing) directly costing mil-
lions of dollars to companies.50
Personalized and individualized communication infrastructure sits at
the core of digital empowerment. This, in fact, has been the backbone
of the capitalist consumption system we have living in all these years.
It seems digital consumption platforms are the steroids with old capi-
talist mentality, which naturally motivates more personalized attention
and services that eventually make some consumers ruder and more self-
ish. Perhaps, narcissism and entitlement effortlessly grow in this highly
personalized and individualized consumption spaces as everyone gets
accustomed to receiving exactly what they want, or in fact more than
what actually they want it without a question as consumers can now
easily access to greater numbers of alternative products on the Internet.
This eventually gives revengeful feelings more justification which reveals
itself as increasing brand switching behaviors in the digital shopping
platforms. I call this phenomenon “revenge switching”. Consumer can
easily switch to other available alternatives in a speed of second if things
go wrong with a brand they are planning to purchase. Or, alternatively,
now consumers ask the service providers if they provide the similar
product at the same lower price and service, and if they don’t, the con-
sumers switch where they get the value they dictate not the company
as in the old times. Thus, increasing product and service availabilities
in the digital consumption places eventually entrenches consumers’
feeling of entitlement and hence creates brutal shopping environments
for companies who don’t know how to please their consumers in every
step of shopping processes. It could be a bold statement, but I can’t
stop saying this, it seems digital shopping environments are making us
feel more entitled and perhaps narcissistic. The current developments
in today’s digital world are indicating that direction. Consumers now
feel more entitled to receive supreme products and services, and this, in
turn, creates more hateful feelings toward the company and brand that
can’t provide such values the way consumers wanted. Such narcissistic
and entitlement feelings are defined in psychology as personality disor-
ders. Thus, such aforementioned personality disorders’ and other related
personality traits’ influence on consumer brand hate needs to be investi-
gated closely.
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  69

Consumer Personality Disorder

I know it could be hard to accept for some, but we, as human beings,
are naturally egoistic and selfish creatures. This is very well discussed by
Freud (1943), describing how our selfishness evolves from birth:

We had little difficulty in finding the period in the past of the individual in
which there is nothing strange in such egoism and such wishes, even when
directed against the nearest and dearest … A child in his earliest years is
just the person who frequently displays such egoism in boldest relief, invar-
iable, unmistakable tendencies of this kind … for a child loves himself first
and only later learns to love others and to sacrifice something of his own
ego to them. Even the people whom he seems to love from the outset are
loved in the first instance because he needs them and cannot do without
them – again detach itself from egoism: it is a literal fact that the child
learns how to love though his own egoism. (p. 181)

Some people always think more highly of themselves than others. In

other words, some people take negativity inward toward their own self
and others reflect negativity back outward to the source that created
such negativity or threat to the person. Thus, hate is directly related to
people’s self-perception. People who have highly positive self-views can-
not stand receiving negative criticism from others, as discussed broadly
in threatened egotism theory.51 The perfect example of individuals who
feel such an inflated self-view and positivity about themselves is narcissis-
tic people. Lash (1979) defines narcissism, in this context, “as a psychic
formation in which love rejected turns back to self as hatred… (p. 35)”.
Narcissistic person is actually in love with himself and everything reminds
his weaknesses deserve his hate as discussed by Lash (1979) as follows:

The narcissist admires and identifies himself with “winners” out of his fear
of being labeled a loser. He seeks to warm himself in their reflected glow;
but his feelings contain a strong admixture of envy, and his admiration
often turns to hatred if the object of his attachment does something
to remind him of his own insignificance. (p. 85) [Emphasizes added]

Clinical tests revealed that when narcissistic and/or egoistic individu-

als are criticized or insulted, they reveal very aggressive responses when
compared to other individuals.52 It is also highly possible that narcissistic
70  S. U. KUCUK

individuals will show more aggression and hate when they think they are
right even though their ego is not necessarily threatened by somebody
else, which is also defined as narcissistic personality disorder in clinical
psychology.
In this context, consumers with problems with their self-image can
reveal some degree of personality disorder in especially stressful situations
in general. Thus, consumers with narcissistic disorders could be associ-
ated with consumer brand hate as they think they are entitled to privi-
leges and superior service that nobody else gets. In fact, recent statistics
indicate that pathological narcissistic personality disorder is on the rise
in most of the Western world.53 Research found that 7.7% of men and
4.8% of women might have narcissistic personality features in the USA
alone.54 Part of the reason behind such personality changes and increases
in narcissistic entitlement behaviors in today’s world could be the natu-
ral result of the rise of the capitalist consumption mentality which puts
“extreme individualism” and “personalization” at the heart of every
aspect of our lives.55 As discussed earlier, such features are also at the
heart of digital shopping revolution. Thus, I wonder if we are destined
to witness more hate in our places of consumption, as our economic sys-
tems are inherently built upon individualist principles. As this personality
feature is on the rise, consumer complaints, dissatisfaction, and hate are
on rise as well. It is therefore more likely that before to witness consum-
ers who hate a brand as a result of their non-agreeable natures or narcis-
sistic personality features even though the company and brand are just
doing fine at handling the potential problems. This is further evidenced
by research which has revealed that people who have high narcissistic and
entitlement personality features are prone to getting easily into conflict
with others and hence potentially feeling more hate than others and the
brands.
Although narcissism and psychological entitlement concepts happen
to be separate constructs, they indicate the similar direction in behaviors
of brand-hating consumers. Relevant to this, entitlement is classified as
one of the main components of narcissism.56 It is discussed in psychol-
ogy literature that people who are high on the entitlement continuum
think that they deserve more than others which reveals itself in the per-
son’s behavior as well. Entitlement, as a personality trait, indicates that
such people have feelings of “deservingness” and they expect to be
treated accordingly in many situations.57
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  71

In this context, psychological entitlement does not necessarily indicate

a situation where you have not received the deserved products, services
or attention in exchange for your money; rather, it indicates a strong
sense of entitlement, when you think you need to receive an exceptional
service and products even though you pay the same amount of money
as everybody else. In other words, such entitled individuals believe that
they deserve more service and more attention and thus more favorable
treatment than anybody else in regular shopping, all things being equal.
The situation can get worse with regard to product and service failures.
They ask for more attention than anybody else even though they were
served rightfully, like everybody else, and within the company’s promised
terms. And, if they do not receive swift and requisite support, they can
easily show extreme emotions and aggression.
Research in the psychology of entitlement and narcissism has revealed
that thus entitled individuals do not easily agree on anything with their
counterparts. These people are neither considered nor cooperative when
conflict appears. So, a high level of entitlement indicates a low level of
agreeableness.58 Moreover, studies have found that highly entitled indi-
viduals can also reveal aggressiveness and anger.59 In fact, in some situ-
ations, anger can get very explosive and lead to exaggerated violence.60
Similarly, such people cannot easily let go of things and forgive. Entitled
people are, most of the time, less willing to forgive any fault or errors
and hence express more frustration than regular people.61 In fact, rela-
tionship closeness, severity of offense, or apology do not affect enti-
tled people’s willingness to forgive.62 Clearly, entitled individuals feel
negatively toward others who do not corroborate what they think they
deserve. They perceive high risks in forgiving others as explained by
Exline et al. (2004, p. 909): “Their greater perception of injustice is likely
to make forgiveness seem like a more dangerous or unfair option”. They
are stubbornly attached to their perception of injustices as that’s per-
haps the only way to make them feel superior over the person they are
dealing with. Furthermore, although they insist on receiving an apology
and expect reparations, often these people are not easily satisfied with an
apology because of their highly inflated sense of entitlement. They might
end the relationship and go their own way with anger and more hostile
feelings and responses. Therefore, it is highly likely that we will see more
revengeful and hateful feelings toward brands and companies that do not
understand and listen to highly entitled individuals. It is very difficult
72  S. U. KUCUK

to agree on anything with these people as long as they believe they are
right, and they can quickly go ballistic at any product/service, policy, or
relationship failures. In fact, such individuals can easily reveal anger even
when there is no ego threat in place.63 Thus, it is possible to see that
such entitled individuals might experience more anger and hate toward
poorly performing brands than regular consumers.
Furthermore, research shows that entitled individuals might be more
sensitive about their self-image and inflate their image more than nec-
essary, which eventually leads to relationship conflicts with the people
around them and hence hostility.64 This, in turn, can be associated with
cold brand hate as discussed in the previous chapters. If a brand’s percep-
tual image does not fit psychologically with the highly entitled person’s
self and desired image, such an individual might feel more hostility and
hate toward the brand.
Another important feature of the people who are high on the entitle-
ment scale is that they seek power in many situations as that is the way
they can be right all the time and be able to win the many arguments
into which they potentially fall. More control and dominance are simply
what entitled people want to get. In other words, power asymmetry is
what the entitled individual wants in any relationship, as long as they are
on the powerful side. Thus, if the entitled consumer feels more power-
ful toward the brand, he or she might feel brand hate when things go
wrong. And, digital shopping tools are certainly providing empowering
relationships in favor of consumers in relationship with their vendors. If
consumers complain about the disliked brand, they are practicing their
rights and in fact exercising their power against the hated brand by going
to online review boards or social networking sides. As indicated earlier,
online consumer complaints are on the rise more than in the brick and
mortar store environment,65 and perhaps entitled consumers enjoy this
empowerment more than others, as voicing a complaint is an easier and
more effective way of exercising power over companies thanks to the
Internet.66 Therefore, the entitled consumer might be highly likely to
complain and reveal brand hate in order to show dominance and punish
brands and companies. If such entitled consumers see themselves as the
weak side of the communication (the weak side of power asymmetry),
they feel and generate more hate than others. The reasons such haters
feel so strongly about these brands are because they want to see them-
selves on an equal footing with a brand acting badly. Thus, if they cannot
reach equality with the company and cannot talk with them on an equal
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  73

footing, this will eventually trigger more anger, frustration, and hate. In
short, if entitled consumers cannot be heard and helped accordingly by
the company, their feeling of injustice and weakness will increase brand
hate.
Overall, it can be said that if highly entitled and narcissistic consum-
ers gain more power in consumption spaces, more pressure on compa-
nies’ operations can be observed from these individuals, which eventually
leads to more hate and revenge when there is less or no communication
and understanding on both sides. I call this the “brand disaster formula”
which is “entitled consumer + power = brand disaster”. Thus, in psycho-
logical terms, an entitlement personality can be seen as one of the major
consumer-related antecedents of brand hate. But, this cannot be limited
to only narcissism and entitlement; thus, other personality traits and their
potential interactions with brand hate should be investigated.

Consumer Personality Traits

Not every consumer who feels hate toward a specific brand should be
classified as high in “entitlement” or “narcissism” scale. Some consumer
can still feel hatred toward a brand easily than others, perhaps under the
influence of their own personality traits. Clearly, every consumer has
different personality, and hence, everyone has different level of capacity
to feel love or hatred toward a brand. Some consumer personality traits
might have greater potential to lead to hateful feelings than others when
everything is being equal (means that all the company-related brand hate
antecedents are unchanged and hence no impact on personality). For
example, an individual might have more extravert personality while some
other might have more introvert personality. Thus, it can be expected
that these two individuals might respond to hateful situations differently.
This can be true for other potential personality traits that can be related
to feeling of hate. In other words, the question is “which consumers are
more prone to feel hatred than others?” or “How does consumer per-
sonality play a role in consumer’s feeling of brand hate?” I will try to
explore this question with various personality traits discussed in psychol-
ogy literature in this section.

Brand Hate and Big Five 

The most commonly studied personality traits in psychology litera-
ture are Big Five personality measures. Big Five, as also indicated in
74  S. U. KUCUK

its name, discusses individual’s personality based on five major person-

ality traits. These are namely “Agreeableness”, “Conscientiousness”,
“Extraversion”, “Neuroticism” (or Emotional Stability), and
“Openness” (or Openness to New Experience). Big-5 personality traits
are differentially associated with positive emotions,67 and thus, these
traits relationships with major negative emotion such as brand hate can
provide some comparative insight for brand hate research. I will start dis-
cussing each personality traits and their potential relationship with brand
hate concept one by one as follows.
Agreeableness, as an important personality feature, is based on traits
such as altruism, affection, kindness, and selfless concern for others.68
Agreeableness is negatively associated with entitled and narcissistic indi-
viduals69 who are likely to feel and express more anger, aggression, and
hateful behaviors. Similarly, research also revealed that there is a nega-
tive correlation between “anger to God” feelings in agreeableness traits
for narcissistic individuals.70 Equally, research also revealed that agreea-
bleness can positively be associated with happiness,71 and agreeable indi-
viduals can rank higher the person they loved rather than person they
hated.72 Furthermore, it is found that people who are high in agreeable-
ness scale are less likely to swear and use hostile language.73 In consumer
world, agreeableness generally indicates a less conflicting relationship and
behaviors with a salesperson during a transaction, which eventually might
lead to anti-branding activities.74 These findings all indicate that people
who are in high in agreeableness scales might less likely to feel brand
hate as they could easily forgive hated side as they try to compromise the
potentially conflicting issues and try to find a solution.
Conscientiousness, an another very important personality trait,
includes thoughtfulness and goal-directed behaviors and related to
trusted brands.75 Research shows that there is a negative relationship
between conscientiousness and “anger to God” for specifically narcissistic
individuals.76 Furthermore, conscientiousness is also positively associated
with happiness,77 and thus, it is highly likely to be negatively associ-
ated with negative feelings such as anger, revenge, and hate. Similarly,
research also revealed that conscientious individuals rate themselves and
the person they love more conscientious than person they hate.78 It is
also found that a person high in conscientiousness scale is less likely to
involve hostile swearing,79 and thus, a person who is high in conscien-
tiousness scale might feel less hate toward targeted brands.
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  75

Extraversion is a personality trait that manifests as excitability, asser-

tiveness, and high amounts of emotional expressiveness. Past research
has shown that extraverted people have indeed engaged in relationship
with social brands.80 Extraversion individuals prefer short-term avoidance
goals.81 Thus, if a person is high on extraversion scale, it is expected that
the person would avoid the hated brand. This is also discussed as “fight”
(flight vs fight) instead of flying/escaping from confrontation and dis-
tancing oneself from the brand.82 Thus, it can be discussed that there
could be a positive relationship between brand hate and extraversion
personality when everything is being equal. However, it should also be
noted that if consumers hold cold brand hate, more introvert behaviors
such as avoidance and distancing can also be observed. These consumers
could take flight by not involving in active revenge or expressive hate. It
would be likely to see hotter brand hate in extravert individuals only for
a limited and short time period like little spikes. But, this issue requires
additional research.
Another Big Five personality trait is called neuroticism (or conversely
emotional stability) which is defined as the propensity to experience
unpleasant and disturbing feelings and emotions.83 These personality
traits could easily be associated with brand hate. Emotional stability is
positively correlated with happiness,84 as well as “short-term pursuit of
approach”85 which increases the risk of a person’s predictable behavioral
outcomes. Neurotic individuals demonstrate traits such as anxiety, frus-
tration, depression, and shame and are shown to be less satisfied with
their interpersonal relationships. Such feelings are also components of
hot brand hate dimensions as previously discussed in this book, and it
could be a major leading emotion of consumer brand hate.86 Consumers
with high scores on neuroticism would use brands to compensate for
the lack of love they might experience in their daily interactions as they
have lower-quality interpersonal relationships. It has also been shown
that consumers use brands to strengthen their belongingness to social
groups,87 to cope with interpersonal rejection and social exclusion88 or
to satisfy their needs for self-enhancement.89 Thus, it is likely that the
lower the person’s emotional stability, the higher the brand hate could
get.
The last Big Five personality trait is openness. Openness indicates
person’s openness to new experiences, receptiveness to new ideas,
approaches, or experiences,90 and it is a major personality trait that can
be directly linked to creativity, innovativeness, and sensitivity. A recent
76  S. U. KUCUK

study found that lower openness can be related to increased nega-

tive attitude.91 Similarly, it has also been discussed that openness might
influence the level of brand love experienced (Costa and McCrae 1985;
Voorn et al. 2015). In other words, if openness can play a leading factor
in brand love and can be related to negative attitudes, there is a chance
that such personality trait could also be linked to brand hate. In this con-
text, it is possible to propose that the lower the level of openness a per-
son has, the higher the brand hate could get. Although theoretically easy
to discuss this proposition, there is a need more empirical analysis to test
aforementioned relationships.
In my initial tests, I found two statistically significant relationships
between consumer personality traits and brand hate. Those personality
traits are “agreeableness” and “conscientiousness”. Openness, extraver-
sion, and neuroticism personality traits didn’t show any significant results
in my initial tests. It can be said that these personality traits I couldn’t
find any significant results indicate and carry more emotions than con-
scious thinking. On the other hand, agreeableness and consciousness
personality traits indicate more logical and deeper processing of one’s
emotions and feelings. This finding itself tells that brand hate perhaps
is a deeper and very logical emotion than one can expect and as it can
directly be linked to our conscientiousness. In other words, highly con-
scious individuals are better at figuring out a company’s wrongdoings
better than other consumers and this, in turn, transforms into brand
hate easily than others. This interpretation also supports why I couldn’t
find any statistically significant relationships between neuroticism.
Perhaps, because brand hate is not a feeling goes up suddenly and short-
lived emotion. Thus, brand hate is not an abnormal or unstable emo-
tion, but it develops itself during a relatively long course of time, and
hence, it is a real and a stable emotion than it is expected when the sub-
ject is consumption of brands. Part of the reason, perhaps, is our denial
of the existence of this feeling (hate) as we all try to hide and pressure
this feeling in deep down in our consciousness, and it only reveals itself
if there is a strong justification to develop in consumers’ consciousness.
Nevertheless, brand hate might have been developing in our deep con-
sciousness and erupts when it matures with increasing company failures
and it reveals itself as anger or some other forms of extreme negative
emotions. Thus, one could claim that consciousness and agreeableness
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  77

are the primary personality traits behind brand hate even though other
Big five personality traits role in brand hate is not clear at this point.

Brand Hate and Agentic vs. Communion

Although the Big Five personality traits cover a wider range of person-
ality features, there is also another very important perspective that is
widely studied personality trait and could potentially be linked to brand
hate research. That is Bakan (1966)’s famous “Agentic vs. Communion”
personality traits. Agency emphasizes a person’s individuality, self-confi-
dence, competence, competitiveness, and dominance, while Communion
indicates motives such as kindness, cooperativeness, personal warmth,
and sociability in the literature.92 An Agency–Communion comparison
is also associated with masculinity–femininity personality characteristics,93
as well as a person’s judgment of himself/herself or as a member of a
group.94 From a personal psychology point of view, these two different
motivational points discuss two opposite subordinate factors of personal-
ity traits: “dominance/ambition” (represented by Agency) versus “nur-
turance/warmth” (represented by Communion).95 In another word,
Agency and Communion are negatively correlated and hence can be
interpreted as orthogonal personality concepts,96 like love and hate.
Research showed that people are prone to use Communion (rather
than Agency values) when they are talking about their self-perception,
but they prefer Communion features rather than Agency when they are
dealing with others.97 In other words, dominancy of such factors can
switch depending on the person’s situational malleability. A person’s
self-description might reveal more Agency than Communion (A > C)
characteristics in work-related issues, whereas Communion could be
more dominant than Agency (C > A) when dealing with family mat-
ters.98 It follows that Communion values could be surfaced easily in
environments where there is love, while Agency is apparent in compet-
itive environments where selfishness and assertiveness are a norm (which
also generates more traction and hate among different sides).
However, the judgment of self comes with a personality bias as a
form of exaggeration of self-perception; Paulhus and John (1998) call
this “superhero bias”. An extreme form of Agency can be associated
with narcissism,99 where this kind of Agency is defined as agentic nar-
cissism.100 Narcissistic individuals would see the brand as the problem
 78  S. U. KUCUK

not themselves, as discussed earlier section above, even when the brand
performs expectedly fine. On the other hand, individuals who rate high
on the Communion scale would probably feel less hatred toward hated
brands as they value kindness, cooperation, and warm social relation-
ships with others. In a Communion-narcissistic case, individual would
feed his/her self-view of grandiosity with unrealistic positive feelings,101
would avoid direct confrontation with the brand, and if there is a prob-
lem, perhaps they would see themselves as the problem not the brand
and hence they try not to harbor grudge and hence brand hate.
Thus, it can be expected that Agency personality traits play a more
dominant and active role in a person’s personality when a person is deal-
ing with negative events, such as product/service failure or irresponsi-
ble and unethical corporate behaviors, which require the person to stand
up to protect his/her and perhaps others’ rights toward a brand. In my
research, I have found more Agency dimensions are statistically signifi-
cantly correlated with brand hate than Communion dimensions. Agency
personality traits can become very apparent and more easily detected than
Communion traits (A > C) when hateful emotions dominate a person’s
feelings. In general, it can be assumed that Agency personality traits can be
positively associated with brand hate while Communion personality traits
are negatively related to consumer brand hate.
As a result, aforementioned consumer personality traits can be used
as early signs of potential consumer brand hate. Companies that have
frequently failed to deliver satisfactory relationships with their consumer
need to work with these consumers closely in order to avoid the hate aim
at them and their brands.

Notes
1. Kucuk (2008b).
2. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007), Cherrier (2009), and Gregoire et al.
(2010).
3. Wu (1999) and Kucuk (2009a).
4. Sauter and Stebbins (2017)
5. Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009).
6. Funches et al. (2009).
7. Lee et al. (2009), Bryson et al. (2013) and Gregoire et al. (2009).
8. Johnson and Rusbult (1989).
9. Silden and Skeie (2014).
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  79

10. Kucuk (2008a).
11. Ward and Ostrom (2006), Kucuk (2008a, 2010, 2015), Gregoire et al.
(2009), Johnson et al. (2011), and Tripp and Gregoire (2011).
12. Thompson et al. (2006), Kucuk (2008a, 2010, 2015), Sweetin et al.
(2013), and Romani et al. (2013).
13. Ward and Ostrom (2006).
14. Lee and Jude (2012).
15. Harrison-Walker (2001) and Lee and Jude (2012).
16. Zhu and Zhang (2010).
17. Kucuk (2008a, 2010) and Tripp and Gregoire (2011).
18. Gregoire et al. (2010).
19. Gregoire et al. (2010).
20. Lee and Jude (2012).
21. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007) and Kucuk (2008b).
22. Sen and Bhattacharya (2001) and Bhattacharya and Sen (2004).
23. Berens et al. (2005).
24. Luo and Bhattacharyan (2006).
25. Du et al. (2010).
26. Kay (2006), Kucuk (2008a, 2010), Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009),
and Katyal (2010).
27. Romani et al. (2013).
28. Sweetin et al. (2013).
29. Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009) and Hollenbeck and Zinkham (2010).
30. Opotow (1990) and Opotow et al. (2005).
31. Deutsch (1985), Staub (1990), Opotow (1990), and Opotow et al.
(2005).
32. Opotow (2005).
33. Kucuk (2015).
34. Lee et al. (2009).
35. Portwood-Stacer (2013).
36. Bryson et al. (2013).
37. Kucuk (2010).
38. Zarantonello et al. (2016) and Kucuk (2018).
39. Luo and Bhattacharyan (2006).
40. Sen and Bhattacharya (2001).
41. Kucuk (2008a, 2010, 2015) and Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009).
42. Varadarajan and Menon (1988) and Luo and Bhattacharyan (2006).
43. Katyal (2010).
44. Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009).
45. Sen and Bhattacharya (2001) and Luo and Bhattacharyan (2006).
46. Kucuk (2018)
47. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007).
 80  S. U. KUCUK

48. Kipnis (1972).
49. Roberts (2014).
50. Freestone and Vincent-Wayne (2004).
51. Baumeister et al. (1996).
52. Bushman and Baumeister (1998).
53. Lash (1979), Campbell et al. (2004) and Twenge et al. (2008).
54. Stinson et al. (2008).
55. Bender (2012).
56. Campbell et al. (2004).
57. Campbell et al. (2004).
58. Campbell et al. (2004) and Grubbs et al. (2013).
59. Bushman and Baumeister (1998), Campbell et al. (2004), and Grubbs
et al. (2013).
60. Reidy et al. (2008).
61. Exline et al. (2004).
62. Exline et al. (2004).
63. Campbell et al. (2004).
64. Moeller et al. (2009).
65. Lee and Jude (2012).
66. Kucuk (2009b, 2012).
67. Shiota et al. (2006).
68. Costa and McCrae (1985).
69. Campbell et al. (2004).
70. Grubbs and Exline (2013).
71. Chamorro-Premuzic et al. (2007).
72. Aumer et al. (2015).
73. Jay (2009).
74. Kucuk (2008) and Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009).
75. Mulyanegara et al. (2009).
76. Grubbs and Exline (2013).
77. Chamorro-Premuzic et al. (2007).
78. Aumer et al. (2015, p. 4).
79. Jay (2009).
80. Mulyanegara et al. (2009).
81. Heller et al. (2007).
82. Gregoire et al. (2009).
83. Shaver and Brennan (1992).
84. Chamorro-Premuzic et al. (2007).
85. Heller et al. (2007).
86. Zarantonello et al. (2016).
87. Reed (2004) and Swaminathan et al. (2007).
88. Loveland et al. (2010).
 3  ANTECEDENTS OF BRAND HATE  81

89. Malär et al. (2011).

90. Shaver and Brennan (1992).
91. Ferguson et al. (2017).
92. Abele and Wojciszke (2007).
93. Bakan (1966) and Ward et al. (2006).
94. Abele and Wojciszke (2007) and Uchronski (2008).
95. Abele and Wojciszke (2007).
96. Abele (2003), Kirchmeyer (2002), Abele and Wojciszke (2007), and
Gebauer et al. (2012).
97. Abele and Wojciszke (2007).
98. Uchronski (2008).
99. Paulhus (2001).
100. Gebauer et al. (2012).
101. Gebauer et al. (2012).

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 CHAPTER 4

Consequences of Brand Hate

Abstract  This chapter discusses consequences of brand hate. It discusses

potential consumer responses in light of the consumer complaining, neg-
ative Word-of-Mouth (WOM), and consumer boycotting literatures. The
changes in consumer responses with the Internet technology and what
it means for brand hate is also broadly discussed. The chapter provides
classifications about potential consumer responses in both attitudinal and
behavioral levels. Potential brand damages and anti-branding and brand
hate reflections and their impact on individual and social level consumer
behaviors. Finally, the chapter also discusses consumer illegal and unethi-
cal behaviors as reflection of their brand hate also discussed with the
newly developing literature.

Keywords  Consumer complaining · Consumer voice · Negative WOM

Boycotting · Online reviews · Illegal consumer reactions · Consumer
reviews

Pissed off at Wal-Mart, I needed a constructive way of releasing my frustra-

tion, so I bought a silly domain name and designed a Web site dedicated to
my anger. I have created this site in retaliation against Wal-Mart for their
crappy customer service and for treating their employees like s–t.
Anonymous Consumer1

© The Author(s) 2019 87

S. U. Kucuk, Brand Hate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00380-7_4
88  S. U. KUCUK

Hate is a very strong emotion that there are always some reactions come
out from this emotion. Sooner or later, the consumer who feels hate-
ful feelings can’t resist to act and reflect his/her frustration toward the
brand and perhaps to whole market. Such hateful consumer reactions
are now able to influence brand value and market preferences with the
advancement in the Internet and networking technology. From a tech-
nological standpoint, individuals are now on the same footing with the
corporation—the corporation has a Web site and so does the consumer,2
and, in fact, in some situations, consumers are better broadcaster than
their corporate counterparts. Thus, complaint and expression of neg-
ative emotions are easier than before, and it is clear that we couldn’t
observe this level of consumer hate reflected in markets without techno-
logic advancement in communication systems. But, the question remains
“how consumers react to hated brand or how do they reflect their nega-
tive feelings toward the hated brand and markets?” And, of course, how
does this hate influence market relationships and market by itself?
When consumers feel negatively about their brands, the first reac-
tion might find a resolution with the brand and the company, and if that
doesn’t work out well, they might eventually cut the relationship with
brand and start retaliating the brand in order to feel better about them-
selves and hence try to reach self-served justice and inner peace. Such
feeling of betrayal and poor treatment eventually lead to search for jus-
tice. Consumers either ask compensation or prefer retaliation if there is
no fair resolution. During this process, such frustrated consumers will
share their experiences with like-minded consumers and markets to make
sense of their relationship with the brand. Some scholars classify these
responses based on “destructive vs. constructive punitive actions”,3 and
some others classify based on “direct vs. indirect revenge”.4
Destructive punitive actions focus more on consumer actions that
aimed at directly harming the company and its brand by discrediting and
talking badly about the company and brand. Bad mouthing the brand
publicly and generating negative publicity by utilizing negative WOM
about the brand suggesting not to but the brand can be associated with
these kinds of punitive actions. On the other hand, constructive punitive
actions are more aim at changing the company’s practices by maintain-
ing and enhancing the relationships with the company by emailing com-
pany or organizing some temporary boycotts. The point is not to cut
the relationship with the company but to teach the company its error.
Consumers might end up participating collective movements such as
 4  CONSEQUENCES OF BRAND HATE  89

boycotts and demonstrations in order to change the company’s conduct.

From this point of view, destructive punitive actions can be associated
with negative WOM whereas constructive punitive actions can be asso-
ciated with directly complaining to the company (aka “voice response”)
and boycotting. Similarly, negative WOM is also classified as indirect
revenge behavior as consumers publicly complaining about the brand
and company behind the company. On the other hand, direct revenge
responses include vindictive complaining to company by getting into
face-to-face confrontational responses such as insulting an employee, hit-
ting an object, or slamming doors. These kinds of consumers can get eas-
ily angry as they think that this bad experience is so absurd that could
be only happen in a joke not in the real life. For some, this situation can
only be happened in a practical joke, and you hear the word “you got to
kidding me” all the time. In a practical joke, the joker pushes his victim
to an emotional edge until the victim can’t handle it anymore and totally
loses his/her cool. Unfortunately, some companies are not purposely
creating practical jokes but in fact truly pushing consumer to emotionally
unknown edges that could only happen in a practical-joke setup. In these
situations, consumer constantly goes back his/her perceptional justice
and fairness equation in mind (as depicted in Fig. 2.1.) and can’t find
a way to balance his equation out, and eventually explode to the service
provider, company, brand, and everything represented by the company.
When consumer doesn’t receive a reasonable response from the com-
pany and turn berserk as a result, he/she simply exits the relationship
or goes by own. That point company loses its control on the situation
and consumers, and thus complaint can turn into a nasty negative WOM
campaign and a boycott aim at hurting the company and brand. These
behaviors are first discussed in Hirshman’s (1970) “Exit, Voice and
Loyalty” theory. Hirshman indicates that dissatisfied consumers either
voice their complaint to the company and/or then exit the relation-
ship or cutting off their relationship with company and go away to cre-
ate their own solutions. This is a direct rejection of the company and its
brand is aimed at deleting the memories the brand from the consumer’s
mind. However, the brand rejection decision is highly depended on the
resolution outcomes of the consumer complaint. If resolution offerings
are not satisfying enough for consumers, rejection impulses will trigger
in two main responses as discussed in the theory: “avoidance” and/or
“revenge”.5 If this dissatisfaction is based on poorly performing products
or services rather than CSI-oriented dissatisfaction, the hate might fade
90  S. U. KUCUK

away over time.6 Part of the reason, consumers need to give too much
energy to continue this fight, and they prefer to avoid brands rather
than constantly retaliating them7 as also broadly discussed in consumer
personality traits section. Overall, it is clear that major consumer reac-
tions of brand hate can be discussed with consumer complaining liter-
ature as a direct revenge behavior, which includes negative, vindictive,
and revengeful WOM, and boycotting or anti-consumption behaviors as
a major consumption and brand avoidance response.

Consumer Complaining and Negative WOM

Scholars discuss that consumer brand hate could be a distinct and meas-
urable subtype of consumer dissatisfaction.8 Similarly, greater consumer
dissatisfaction is likely to be related with greater consumer anti-brand-
ing and hate activities.9 The studies also revealed that consumer dissatis-
faction directly leads to consumer complaining behaviors10 and negative
WOM.11 Thus, consumer dissatisfaction and hate can generate complain
behaviors.
There are three main types of consumers complain behaviors were
detected in the literature: “voice response”—complaining to the retailer,
“private response”—talking to friends and relatives, and finally “third
party responses”—such as writing to the Better Business Bureau.12 The
third-party responses are defined as “hard” actions, with voice and pri-
vate responses as “easy” actions in the literature.13 As private and third
party responses use the sources outside the company, these responses
are defined as direct revenge behaviors while voice responses can be
considered as indirect revenge since the consumers are still trying to
stay in company’s information loop.14 With advent of the Internet
technology, the easy actions are getting easier for majority of consum-
ers. Furthermore, such private responses have now transformed into
public response as a result of the Internet technology15 as many private
responses can be easily shared with everybody because of the Internet’s
democratic architecture. On the other hand, third-party complainers are
more willing to exert the effort to choose the “hard” action because they
may believe businesses to be less responsive to complaints and feel it is
necessary to voice their complaints when they are dissatisfied.16 Thus,
we started to see more consumers are complaining third-party institu-
tions against the brand they hate. If a company can’t meet complaining
consumers’ expectations, that would eventually generate strong negative
 4  CONSEQUENCES OF BRAND HATE  91

emotions and hate toward the brand in macro-market level as well. In

other words, the power and the form of consumer complaining behav-
iors have changed as a result of advancements in social networking sides.
This, eventually, has transformed negative WOM behaviors as an alter-
native complaining mechanism. Negative WOM as a form of consumer
complaining is so common in today’s digital markets that it is now
almost impossible to not to run into a negative online consumer attacks
or reviews when others are searching for products and services.
With the Internet, now there is a high transparency in the markets,
everybody can see who is complaining about which brands and products
as well as how companies are approaching such disgruntled consumers.
This market transparency eventually significantly increased effectiveness
and efficiency of negative consumer WOM campaigns in markets. In old
times, WOM had no technologic aspect as many complaints were stuck
in private conversations, and power of the WOM was mostly dependent
on narrators’ trustworthiness. Nowadays, consumers can not only write
about their dissatisfaction to their in-groups and/or in review boards
but also disseminate strong counter-arguments against companies by
creating their own brand hate and anti-branding symbols, pictures, and
videos that reach majority of markets. Thus, the power of WOM is not
solely depended on story teller’s trustworthiness but also supported with
consumers’ pictorial and video evidences of the company’s failures that
could sit at the heart of consumers’ hateful feelings. This also pushed
the richness of consumer-generated anti-branding and brand hate semi-
otic into new levels as millions of consumers can easily access to such
consumer-generated subvertisements (consumer-subverted advertise-
ment) in real time. Consumers are no longer passively receiving whatever
company and brand dictate, but actively changing the rhetoric for their
benefits with their own creation of subvertisements and negative recom-
mendations. Although such consumer-generated anti-branding semiotics
and subvertisments will be discussed in detail in the next chapter, it is
possible to see that one single can generate a mass negative WOM cam-
paign and hurt company in the digital world. For example, when Dave
Carroll, a musician, discovered that his guitar’s neck is broken because
of baggage handling failure, he complaint to the airlines after his flight
for compensation.17 He tried about 9 months to resolve this issue by
his own through using the airlines’ own consumer service channels,
but he was not able to make an inch progress. As a result, he created a
short music video and shared with fellow consumers. The video quickly
92  S. U. KUCUK

reached 5 million of download in a month, and currently it is viewed

more than 18 million people. Finally, the airlines compensated his dam-
ages, but it was too late to save the company from public humiliation.
As one of the major consequences of brand hate, negative WOM can
be triggered by the majority of company-related brand hate antecedents
(namely product/service failures and corporate social irresponsibility).18
Consumers who found the brand deceptive, misleading, and perhaps
intrusive will eventually get into business of generating and disseminat-
ing negative WOM about the hated brands.19
In fact, such negative consumer voices and comments—a digital man-
ifestation of consumer complaint and dissatisfaction—reach levels that
might also harm the future idiosyncratic stock returns of firms.20 Early
cases revealed that bad experiences might spread much faster than good
experiences in a form of negative WOM in the digital places as discussed
with above case. Furthermore, studies showed that if the consumers had
strong brand relationship with their brand, they would be more demand-
ing with the company in service failure recovery efforts.21 This, in turn,
might increase the strength and volume of WOM. In other words, your
consumers who loved your brand in the past might also easily turn to
be hateful WOM machines attacking you daily bases. A recent research
showed that the greater the love, the deeper the hate gets,22 and thus
the consumer who deeply loved your brands is also capable to hate your
brand in the same magnitude or more if the brand fails. This, in turn,
might emphasize and increase the legitimacy and the credibility of nega-
tive WOM.
Many of the anti-branding forums, Web sites, and discussion boards
are used as major information media platform for liked-minded haters
to stay up-to-date.23 Furthermore, haters have now better chances to
broadcast their hateful messages and influence whole market including
neutral consumers because of the increasing digitalization and penetra-
tion of the social network sites in markets. For example, Dave Carroll’s
guitar was broken because of the airlines’ poor baggage handling pro-
cess before the Internet, his complaint wouldn’t go beyond a couple of
friend’s daily conversations to the whole market and to the people many
of them strangers to him. In other words, brand haters can go beyond
their baseline audiences and access to neutral market audiences and
actors. Thus, some neutral audiences can even be involved in generat-
ing negative WOM although they had no experiences with the brand or
never purchased the brand before. Some of these consumers are simple
 4  CONSEQUENCES OF BRAND HATE  93

influenced by the story raised with negative WOM, or simply following

their close friends as consumer-generated WOM is generally perceived
more credible that marketer-generated message on the Internet.24 These
types of consumers’ behaviors are similar to consumer type defined as
“symbolic haters” in the previous sections. For these consumers, hating a
specific brand is like a fashion, they do it because their friends converted
them to do so. Thus, the increasing numbers of symbolic haters are also
strong indicator of successful recruiting capability of haters through uti-
lizing negative WOM.
Overall, it can be indicated that consumer complaining and negative
WOM is not new but consumer belief that things can eventually change
in favor of consumers, and hence consumers can also make an impact on
companies and markets for good is new and is possible now. Consumers
are the one who are controlling the narrative in market messaging pro-
cesses when it comes to negative events in many public outlets. Even a
single person can generate a big wave of effective WOMs that can even-
tually affect company’s reputation, image, and, in fact, its operations
negatively.

Consumer Boycotts
Some of the brand haters might have a deeper belief about the targeted
brand and will not even be settled with complain recovery efforts. They
will simply stop using the brand and involve in boycotting efforts. They
might strongly believe that no matter what this brand does, it is not
going to work out as they believe the brand is serving fundamentally cor-
rupt and wrong philosophy.25
In conventional boycott studies, some boycotts are defined as instru-
mental—they are used to influence the behavior of a firm by refusing to
purchase or make use of its products26—e.g., boycott Nike until it stops
using child labor. Other boycotts are more expressive in nature, allow-
ing for the expression of discontent with a corporation’s actions—e.g.,
cut up Exxon cards after Valdez oil spill.27 The form and degree of con-
sumers’ brand hate, in fact, might determine the shape of the boycotting
behavior.
Conventional boycott research has revealed that significant losses
in stock prices for boycotted companies within a few months after the
announcement of the boycott.28 Findings also show that the most effec-
tive boycotts are those which place the most economic pressure and
94  S. U. KUCUK

image pressure (via publicity) on the target, and when the target has
little commitment to the policies which prompted the boycott.29 The
purpose of a boycott may be to alter the balance of power between inter-
ested parties, be that consumer groups, special interest groups, and/or
corporations.30 Similarly, most scholars have generally concluded that
as boycott participation increases, the economic pressure on the target
increases because of the greater number of severed exchange relation-
ships.31 In this context, anti-brand hate sites can create dramatic pres-
sure on a brand image, can organize consumers not to buy the targeted
brand, and inform consumers about the negative side of the corporate
brands.
The Internet allows for simultaneous interactions and broadcasts to
a huge audience of consumers, making it a highly effective medium for
activism and the business of boycotting. Consumers are able to clearly
broadcast their message and communicate with other like-minded indi-
viduals, which allow them to develop strong group identity and sup-
port for one another. These qualities transform a group of consumers
into a social or political movement.32 Today, consumers have many new
online methods to support both offline protest activities and Internet-
based protests or boycotts. On the Internet, activists can use technol-
ogy to increase the efficacy of their offline demonstration in terms of
organization and mobilization, such as using computerized mailing
lists. Internet-based activism might include more proactive and aggres-
sive online methods of protest such as cyberattacks, Web site deface-
ments, virtual sit-ins, and massive e-mail campaigns.33 Consumers can
also now easily distribute petition against the brands among like-minded
consumers and create social and economic pressure. Furthermore, many
anti-branding hate sites provide detailed information about competitive
alternatives. For instance, starbucked.com provides a list of locally owned
coffee stores in all fifty American states. Microsuck.com lists several free
and open-source alternatives to Microsoft software. Thus, anti-brand
hate sites can be both expressive and instrumental as they channelize
consumers to alternatives from the hated brand.
At this point, the question is which types of hate lead to a specific
response. In other words, does any of the three-dimensional (cold, cool,
and hot) brand hate stimulate any specific consumer reactions toward
hated brand? Is it possible to expect to see voice responses from angry
consumers? Or alternatively, is it possible to see any link between boycott
and any types of brand hate components?
 4  CONSEQUENCES OF BRAND HATE  95

A recent study suggested that there is a link between anger and

complaining, and dislike and negative WOM in consumer brand rela-
tionships context.34 In other words, anger or some kinds of hot hate
features directly lead to immediate negative WOM among family and
close friends. If the level of hate is deeper, then it is possible to see neg-
ative WOM efforts carried to public and hence to everyone to get some
help and satisfy revenge feeling. Whenever negative WOM changes
focus from private in-group conversation to public spaces such as online
review boards or social networking spaces, it means consumer brand hate
is elevated from mild to moderate or perhaps severe levels. Similarly, if
consumers boycott decision goes from instrumental anti-consumption
decisions to expressive, and/or to both instrumental and expressive as in
the case of anti-branding Web sites, that in turn indicates elevated con-
sumer brand hate. These levels and potential links between brand hate
levels and reactions are summarized in Table 4.1 as follows.
Private negative WOM has less capacity to influence other than
consumers close in-groups as this kind of behavior is stuck within the
in-group, and thus it has less powerful and indicates mild level brand
hate. Even though this kind of negative WOM can be supported with
boycotting behaviors, its impact can be limited unless such boycott-
ing behaviors can operate in both instrumental and expressive, thus has
potential and willingness to influence the audiences outside the in-group.
In this context, private negative word might not be as impressive unless
supported with both instrumental and expressive boycotting. That point,
such behaviors can be result of moderate level of consumer brand hate
as indicated in the intersection of the first row and the third column in
Table 4.1.
Mild brand hate can be transformed into moderate brand hate if such
negative emotions reach unbearable levels. The pain and outrage felt is
too much that it can’t be handled only in-groups but should be shared

Table 4.1  Brand hate behaviors

Boycott

Negative WOM Instrumental Expressive Instrumental + Expressive

Private Mild brand hate Mild brand hate Moderate brand hate
Public Moderate brand hate Severe brand hate Severe brand hate
96  S. U. KUCUK

with everybody. This is a typical defense mechanism. If such outrage can

be brought to public, justice can be established by publicly bemoaning
and punishing the hated brand. Thus, once the negative WOM goes
from private to public, this, in turn, is an indication of elevation of con-
sumer brand hate. If negative WOM can be operated with instrumental
and expressive boycotts, it can indicate the moderate level of brand hate
as such actions are on the public level. Similar to the discussion about
private negative WOM behaviors, if negative public WOM is supported
with both instrumental and expressive consumer boycott behaviors, that
could indicate another level elevation in consumer brand hate. That is, in
turn, is the result of a severe consumer brand hate. Consumers who are
under such kind of severe brand hate will try to utilize every behavioral
option to harm and hurt the brand. The behavioral consequences of this
kind of brand hate are indicated at the intersection of the second row
and third column in Table 4.1.
Companies need to decode the meaning of these behaviors and deter-
mine the level of consumer brand hate so that they can develop neces-
sary damage plans. Any behavior goes from private to public and from
just instrumental or expressive to both instrumental and expressive is an
indication of strongly held brand hate or eruption of stronger consumer
brand hate in markets. These consumers who are utilizing all forms of
hateful reactions might be in the boiling or perhaps burning brand hate
stages and should be handled very carefully. There are also some other
consumers who can’t get over their hateful feelings toward the brand
and try to hurt the brand through involving in criminal and unethical
activities.

Illegitimate and Unethical Consumer Reactions

Although most of the consumers follow legitimate way of protesting the
brand they hate, some others might not be able to control their temper
and try to find illegitimate ways to hurt the brand. This kind of brand
punishment goes beyond creating social pressure on brand through
WOM or economic pressure through boycotts and other forms of
anti-consumption movements. Such brand punishment can be harsher as
there is less empathy can be felt toward an object (as brand) than per-
son-to-person hate. These brand haters or I should call “brand crimi-
nals” or “brand vandals” thought that they can emotionally or physically
hurt the brand as brands as an object has no feelings, cannot feel pain,
 4  CONSEQUENCES OF BRAND HATE  97

and can’t fight back. These brand criminals are different than typ-
ical brand attackers or haters mentioned throughout this book as they
go beyond all the social and legal norms. These criminal haters are not
in a mission of developing instrumental nor expressive protest, but in a
personal and vindictive punishment even it means to breaking the law
to hurt the brand.35 Vandalizing everything represented by the brand,
or marketplace aggression in a form of physical attacks to service pro-
viders and anything represented by the brand is common among these
kinds of consumers. This kind of uncontrolled and vicious hate could
also be associated with extreme form of “burning brand hate”. The dif-
ference from the severe brand haters, the level of hate is so strong that
they don’t think that any social or legal rule can comprehend the pain
they feel caused by the brand, and thus the company or brand shouldn’t
eventually be left to run away without punishment. In these consum-
ers’ mind, there could be only one solution; hurting the brand, even it
means to steal from the company or physically attacking the employees
and store features. This is easier than jumping lots of hoops to get their
complaints put into company’s consumer service systems queue and not
to hear from the company days. These consumers might also carry some
passive-aggressive personality traits as they prefer to hurt the brand on
their own terms even though they might not feel severe level brand hate.
Recently, shoplifting and return frauds are also included these kinds of
illegitimate brand punishment behaviors. A research revealed that con-
sumers are tending to shoplift more from the company they think harmful
to the society to punish them.36 This issue is directly related to corpo-
rate social irresponsibility concept which was also discussed as one of the
major company-related brand hate antecedents in the previous sections.
Thus, in general, one could claim that the higher the brand hate gets the
more brand vandalism might also get. Interestingly, the same research
showed that brand punishment in unethical means or consumer cheating
increase even though the company does not even directly harm the con-
sumer. If a consumer morally justifies the brand’s wrongdoings, the hate
he/she feels toward the brand might lead him/her to cross the line and
commit unethical and illegal behaviors no matter if the consumer is buyer
or user of the brand. This is perhaps a valid case for the consumers who
have high level awareness toward social problems and having hard time
controlling their emotions. On the other hand, consumer personality dis-
order could also be another reason behind some of these unethical con-
sumer behaviors as also discussed earlier under consumer-related brand
98  S. U. KUCUK

hate antecedent subsection. Furthermore, consumers with low emotional

stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and intellect; and with higher
in extraversion personality traits might be more accepting shoplifting and
unethical behaviors that aim at hurting companies.37
Although it is believed that brand hate can directly hurt the brand’s
intangible elements such as brand value and brand image,38 these kinds
of brand punishment and brand vandalism also indicate that brand hate
also started to getting steam in hurting company’s tangible elements in
modern shopping environments as well. A research revealed that about
20% of the followers of Wal-Mart anti-branding community is favor of
stealing from Wal-Mart as they believe that Wal-Mart brand is evil and
should be burnt down in hell.39 However, I should point out that major-
ity of brand haters do not follow this path even though we started to
see increase in consumer shoplifting and wardrobing activities. Wal-Mart
recently declared that they are losing 1% of their annual revenue to these
kinds of activities, which equates to 3 billion dollars.40 It is also possible
that some of these consumers might actually love the brand but couldn’t
effort it because of their low income. In other words, brand love could
be another reason behind such shoplifting behaviors, and this issue is
open more explorations. Although it is not clear how much of this loss
are motivated by consumer hate toward brand or brand revenge, the
number is still too big to ignore and gives a concrete example on how
devastating brand hate could get.

Notes
1. http://www.forbes.com/2005/03/07/cx_cw_0308hate.html, visited on
January 5, 2016.
2. Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007).
3. Romani et al. (2013).
4. Gregoire et al. (2010).
5. Gregoire et al. (2009).
6. Kucuk (2010).
7. Gregoire et al. (2009).
8. Carroll and Ahuvia (2006).
9. Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009).
10. Bearden and Teel (1983).
11. Hegner et al. (2017).
12. Singh (1988, 1990).
 4  CONSEQUENCES OF BRAND HATE  99

13. Feick (1987)
14. Gergoire et al. (2010).
15. Ward and Ostrom (2006).
16. Singh (1989).
17. Tripp and Gregoire (2011).
18. Hegner et al. (2017).
19. Mazzarol et al. (2007) and Sweeney et al. (2014).
20. Luo (2007).
21. Hess et al. (2003).
22. Jin et al. (2017).
23. Kucuk (2008).
24. Bickart and Schindler (2001).
25. Izberk-Bilgin (2010).
26. John and Klein (2003) and Sen et al. (2001).
27. Gelb (1995).
28. Pruitt and Friedman (1986).
29. Garrett (1987).
30. Gelb (1995).
31. Garrett (1987) and John and Klein (2003).
32. Roper (2002).
33. Sandor (2003).
34. Romani et al. (2012).
35. Johnson et al. (2011).
36. Rotman et al. (2018).
37. Egan and Taylor (2010).
38. Luo (2007), Kucuk (2008, 2010), and Khrishnamurty and Kucuk (2009).
39. Rotman et al. (2018).
40. Matthwes (2015).

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 PART II

Implications of Brand Hate

 CHAPTER 5

Semiotics of Brand Hate

Abstract  This chapter discusses semiotics of many anti-branding images

created by brand haters. Anti-branding semiotics are strong reflections
of consumer brand hate. In this chapter, I have revealed the tacit semi-
otic rules used by brand haters. The chapter provides a broad theoretical
discussion about the semiotic characteristics of branding and consum-
er-generated anti-branding as well as digital anti-branding discourse. The
chapter then investigates consumer anti-branding semiotics by exam-
ining a sample of anti-branding images targeted at valuable corporate
brands. It seems brand haters usually prefer red and black colors (“fire
and brimstone” a color codification of Hell according to religious ref-
erences), rebranding corporate brand names and slogans by embedding
negative words and signs, thus creating a negative representation of
those brands. I discussed my interviews with consumers and their way of
decoding such brand hate semiotics. The chapter discussions indicated
that anti-branding semiotic representations with dark-humor and clear
messages can create the most impact on consumers, while an aggressive
but intriguing message have some potential to influence consumers.

This chapter is modified from my original work published by Marketing Theory

SAGE Publication as follows: “A Semiotic Analysis of Consumer-Generated
Antibranding.” Marketing Theory, June 2015, Vol. 15, No. 2, pages 243–264.

© The Author(s) 2019 105

S. U. Kucuk, Brand Hate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00380-7_5
106  S. U. KUCUK

Keywords  Brand semiotics · Digital semiotics · Anti-branding

semiotics · Meaning creation · Brand hate semiotics · Consumer-
generated branding

These images are visceral, like punch in the gut! We generally respond if some-
body hits in the sensitive parts of your body, like your eyes. In this sense, these
are visceral and felt attacking my eyes.
Anonymous Consumer

Semiotics is the study of how meanings can be produced and commu-

nicated through different signs and symbols as part of our social life.1
Symbols can easily signify meanings and thus have strong communica-
tion value. Similarly, brand logos and symbols signify and enhance brand
meanings. Such symbols and brand semiotics have strong communica-
tion value in many social and market settings. Put simply, such brand
symbols and semiotics function like a linguistic system when commu-
nicating with consumers. Semiotics and human beings desire to com-
municate with symbols go back till prehistoric times. The pictures and
symbols drawn in the Peck-Merle cave and many other caves around
the world show a strong connection between the prehistoric cavemen
and today’s digital civilization. This pictorial and symbolic evidence
from long ago fills us with curiosity about what our ancestors were try-
ing to communicate. Today’s human beings are doing the same thing
our ancestors did in their time: creating symbols and signs to tell their
story to the world. Whether drawn on rock walls or on a digital screen,
both people are trying to convey meanings to the present and the future.
Thus, our ancestors and modern “homo-digitus” are meaning-makers or,
using Chandler’s term, homo-significans.2
Online consumers, or homo-digitus, are often visually literate con-
sumers of our image-based digital economic systems.3 The building
blocks of our image-based economies are the meanings imbued in vari-
ous digital signs and symbols. The complex and paradoxical interactions
between the production and consumption of semiotic artifacts (also
conceptualized as “consuming representation”) determine the real crea-
tion of economic value in image-based economic systems.4 The valuation
of semiotically enriched artifacts eventually aligns with consumer brand
values. In many situations, brand values are worth more than the paper
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  107

value of the company in today’s markets.5 This shows the importance of

symbolic and semiotic value systems in modern image-based economies.
The role of semiotic value creation is paramount because of increas-
ingly digitalized consumer markets in today’s world. Self-publishing
on the Internet enables millions of consumer-generated symbols and
signs to flow through digital platforms every day.6 Consumers can now
loudly and freely represent themselves, they can easily design their own
versions of symbols and brand logos to broadcast, subvert and re-code
corporate messages, and re-brand a brand meaning with digital media.7
Many consumers are communicating with each other through digital
images, symbols, signs, essentially creating new languages in their dig-
ital consumption and communication. These communication processes
are so fruitful and revolutionary that cyberspace may be the most liber-
atory environment for the expression of identities and ideas about social
issues relevant to the consumption patterns of homo-digitus as discussed
in “Semiotic Democracy”8 and “Semiotic Disobedience”9 in the semiotics
literature.
Symbols and semiotics of consumer brand hate, as in the case of
anti-branding Web sites, are the true reflection of consumer’s hate and
negativity they feel against the brands. Many of the brand haters develop
their version of brand meanings and symbols to reflect their hate and
send hateful messages to market audiences. Many of the anti-branding
haters sometimes use drama and sometimes humor to demonize, crimi-
nalize, and dehumanize such targeted brands with strong anti-branding
images and voices. In my research, I found that many anti-branding hat-
ers use the image of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany’s ideological sym-
bols to associate such hated brands with Hitler’s Nazi Germany. They
use Hitler to demonize the hated brands. I will call this “hitlerization
of corporate brands” in the following discussions. The purpose of such
anti-branding efforts is to influence other consumers’ perception and
create a negative consumption trend in the markets in order to hurt
such brands as they are hated deeply by the anti-branders. Most of the
anti-branding semiotics created by brand haters can be seen as street
gratifies, bumper stickers, t-shirts but mostly on the Internet available in
various digital consumption places. As discussed in the previous section,
the Internet empowered consumers technologically, and now consumers
can easily develop their own version of brand images, slogans, and even
commercials to subvert the corporate creation of brand meanings and
108  S. U. KUCUK

associations. However, these kinds of semiotic emancipation in consumer

markets are never seen before.
Thus, the question at this point is: “what are the fundamental semi-
otic structures of consumer anti-branding designs, advertisements or
‘subvertisement’ and presentations that can potentially impact brand
meanings?” What are the basic semiotic codes used by anti-branding
haters? Also, what is the impact of such hate semiotics on ordinary con-
sumers and their purchase decisions? These questions are needed to be
discussed to give a better perspective of how the brand hate can influence
markets and consumption decisions. In order to answer these questions,
I will start discussing the brand semiotics and then anti-branding semi-
otics and digital anti-branding semiotics with examples and consumer
interviews in the following sections.

Brand Semiotics
Anything can be a semiotic sign as long as it represents something
beyond its sheer meaning or signify something other than its physical
meaning.10 For example, when you look at the Mercedes-Benz car logo,
many people don’t see a sign of a circle split into three equal pieces; but
they say they see expensive car or a social status sign. Thus, semiotics
does not necessarily focus on the imminent meaning of the signs and
symbols (Saussurean semiotics) but also on how the meaning of a symbol
is re-generated by situation in the broader cultural and social contexts
of consumer decisions (Peircean semiotics).11 A Saussurean perspec-
tive indicates a more structural semiotics since it focuses more on pure
text analysis to reveal the actualization process of meaning-making12; a
Peircean perspective focuses on a broader and a more dynamic semiot-
ics by investigating the ways signs are situated in cultural and social con-
texts.13 Clearly, Peircean semiotics benefits from Saussurean perspectives,
but goes beyond the general Saussurean meaning process. Saussurean
semiotics focuses on the sign, a brand logo’s sheer meaning, while
Peircean semiotics examines the placement of a brand logo in an adver-
tisement—examining the relationships between brand identity, brand
slogan, and other possible sign and code systems that will affect commu-
nications with consumers. It follows then that brands can become insep-
arable semiotic entities, icons in a consumption environment. In essence,
this is a metamorphosis of brand symbols and signs into a conveyance of
meaning for a living person or an identity.14 Thus, “branding semiotics”
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  109

are the building of a central meaning system where the brand symbols
work as the letters or words of a consumption language. The more that
brand symbols and branding language can be easily understood and
shared among consumers, the easier it is for brand meaning systems to
become alternative social systems and generate economic value.15 Thus,
“branding semiotics” is a socio-cognitive semiotic process that ties con-
sumers to a common consumption and meaning system.16
Brand logos are combination of many different signs and symbols. For
example, Apple’s brand logo, a bitten apple, signifies a disobedience and
the presence of knowledge, hope, and anarchy, by using a well-known
biblical image—a bitten apple.17 Some brand logos are purely alphanu-
meric signs, such as IBM, 3M, and Coca-Cola; some others are iconic
images or symbols, such as Apple’s bitten apple, or Shell Oil’s yellow
seashell; and many logos are combinations of signs and symbols.18 The
colors and lines used in brand logos also support the recognition and
understandability of the company philosophy embedded in the logos.
Both IBM and Apple used parallel horizontal stripes in early versions of
their logos, stripes which are believed to signify the “fundamental val-
ues of corporate America’s efficiency and commitment”.19 Similarly, the
colors of letters or images can very efficiently send a brand message.20
IBM, for example, is known as “Big Blue” because of the intensive use
of blue, associated with the ocean depths, to signify deep knowledge and
endless information storage. Thus, both IBM and Apple provided early
example of brand connotation examples in the modern branding world.
It is a constant struggle for companies to develop brand semiotics
that unify them with their consumers. During this struggle, consumer
can decode company-generated brand meanings in totally different
ways—positively, negatively, and otherwise.21 This consumer decoding
can reduce the semiotic power of company-generated brand meanings
and lead to meaning deformation. Polysemic re-interpretations can also
appear in subversive forms called “resisting readings”.22 If a decoding
consumer dislikes the brand due to bad experiences resisting reading
can eventually open the door to direct semiotic attacks by the consumer.
A semiotic destruction of company-generated brand meanings is
intended to destroy corporate brand value and identity by dissecting and
re-coding corporate messages with informative and sometimes humorous
subvertisements and/or counter-advertisements.23 This is how consumer
anti-branding haters generate new consumption or anti-consumption
meanings to change the course of the consumption.
110  S. U. KUCUK

Brand Hate and Anti-Branding Semiotics

The idea behind brand hate and anti-branding efforts is to create
noise—a lack of communication or a miscommunication—in the corpo-
ration-to-consumer socio-cognitive semiotic communication processes.
The general media communication literature is a good starting point for
analyzing the effects of consumer brand hate and anti-branding meaning
and communication processes. Hall (2001) classifies media messages in
terms of the modes of interpretation and adaptation patterns used by the
receiver or consumer. In this context, a consumer might fully compre-
hend and adopt the semiotic message, but most of the time they do not
fully comprehend it and blindly enter company-created closed-consump-
tion circles. Alternatively, some consumers prefer to avoid consumption
circles by passively rejecting company-created brand messages, or they
negotiate and modify the meaning in public spaces on the Internet to
express their opposition to the message.
In a traditional marketing environment, brands are viewed as a
firm-provided property.24 Consumers have no, or very limited, input
to meaning creation processes and unconditionally accept the corpo-
rate-created semiotic value systems as if there were no other options. The
purpose behind this process of brand iconization process is to develop a
perceptually closed socio-communicative system between company and
consumer; a process largely mediated by corporate brand symbols and
signs. This brand semiotic system is not a productive communication
process from a consumer point of view.
However, some consumers show their disagreements with corporate
meaning creation systems by leaving the markets (silently or loudly).
Although such brand logos and associations are mostly created and
developed by corporations, the control of brand semiotics is now shifting
from companies to consumers with the advent of the personalized and
empowering digital technology. Now, consumers are negotiating brand
meanings with companies, talk back, and bring negative publicity to the
attention of the company and other consumers via online platforms.
Thus, in digital markets, brand meaning-making started shifting from
marketers to consumer semioticians who feel hate toward specific brand
and digital anti-branding semiotics was born. Thus, digital anti-branding
semioticians are implementing fundamental semiotic rules while develop-
ing negative brand meanings in order to reflect their hate and affect con-
sumer markets.
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  111

Digital Anti-Branding Discourse

In order to understand the semiotic rules of brand hate meaning cre-
ated by digital anti-branding semioticians, I have collected anti-branding
images and signs targeted to the most valuable global brands. The total
value of the brands is described as around 400 billion dollars of intan-
gible value. The average single brand value in the top ten brand list is
estimated as 46 billion dollars; thus, the selected brands are a big por-
tion of the image-based economy. Furthermore, these top ten most val-
uable brands have been at the center of social attention and have deeply
impacted consumption culture since before the last decade. These
brands are often criticized and attacked by anti-branders, perhaps, in
part, because of the enormous image-based economic value they repre-
sent (defined as “Negative Double Jeopardy” [NDJ] previously). I went
through 2600 brand hate images, and I have conducted a brand dis-
course analysis to reveal the messages anti-branding semioticians are try-
ing to narrate.
I first analyzed the individual anti-branding semiotic codes such as
colors, language, and symbols. People (and even animals) are sensitive
to meanings or associations created by different colors (e.g., the com-
mon belief that the color red makes a bull crazy or increases blood pres-
sure). Colors are an effective and expressive tool for affecting individual
feelings, personality, and identity.25 Thus, I try to understand the most
dominant color combinations of all the consumer anti-branding images
and logos used by the brand haters. After the original brand logo colors,
the most used color is “Black” (33% of the time), and the second most
used is “Red” (28% of the time). “Black” is often seen as symbolizing
death, mourning, evil, and opposition (rebellious feelings), while “Red”
is generally seen in Western cultures as symbolizing passion, danger,
anger, and hell (a religious reference). A study, in fact, found that wear-
ing black color makes the person who wears black more aggressiveness
as well as makes others perceive the person who wears black is the source
of aggression.26 Similarly, some other studies claimed that red color
increase person’s metabolic state, and in fact, scarlet can even make peo-
ple’s blood pressure rise.27 Black, red, and brown colors are also asso-
ciated with sadness and are defined as sad colors.28 “Black and Red”
together are also defined as “fire and brimstone”, “the colors of Hell”.29
Interpreting anti-branding colors from a religious point of view sug-
gests that anti-branders conceptualize corporate brands as sinners who
112  S. U. KUCUK

deserve “the ultimate punishment of Hell”. Alternatively, red and black

used haphazardly around the object or painting indicates out of control
emotions and pain (defined as “semiotics of pain” by Oswald 2012), and
people often describe their pain and dark mood by using such colors.
Other interpretations, from both religious and nonreligious perspec-
tives, are possible, desirable, and informative, but, in general, the color
codes used by brand haters demonize corporate meanings and indicate
that these consumers are both passionate about their views and are feel-
ing sad, depressed, and frustrated by the actions of the targeted corpora-
tions. Perhaps, associate such hated brands with the negativity of hell.
Moreover, I also analyzed the anti-branding symbolic codes. This
process provides an approach to determining what anti-branding semi-
oticians are intending to say and reveal about the corporate brands they
target. In order to understand which themes are used most frequently
to unpack the meanings of these anti-branding efforts, I have calculated
the frequency of the signifiers and signified of the symbols used in the
anti-branding images. The percentages indicate that most of the time
anti-branding semioticians are associating the actions of their targets with
“violence and murder”, viewing them as equivalent to murderers and
express their rejection by putting an “X” or a “NO sign” on the brand
logo to indicate that the brand has no place in their life. Among the
brands examined Coca-Cola is seen as an evil and imperialist corporation
poisoning consumers with unhealthy products that lead to diabetes and
obesity. McDonald’s is also seen as an imperialist provider of unhealthy
products that lead to obesity. Microsoft is criticized as a greedy provider
of bad consumer products. Google is seen as yet another greedy corpora-
tion. Overall, consumers tend to express their anger and hate by creating
violent scenes with the brand logos of targeted corporations.
Anti-branding semioticians focus on three major issues: irresponsible
corporate practices that hurt consumers, greed, and an imperialist men-
tality (invading the consumer’s world and destroying their good value
systems). The last one—an imperialist business mentality—is commonly
directly associated with Nazism. The World-War-II Nazi movement was
very destructive of lives, cultural value systems, art, and the intellectual
heritage of Europe. Anti-branders use this context because they per-
ceive corporate actions and practices as too Nazi-like, and/or because
they can generate attention by portraying the corporation as “Nazi-like”.
The red–black color combination, discussed in the previous section, is
also a major Nazi color scheme. Anti-branders may feel like they are
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  113

losing their freedom to dictatorial corporate brands, resulting in a mas-

sacre of their value systems and beliefs. Many anti-branders use swastika
signs next to or onto brand logos to associate the corporate meanings
with Hitler’s fascism. The “Hitlerization” of corporate brand logos and
meanings is an effort to focus the attention of ordinary consumers on
the dark side of targeted brands. Hitler has a strong overt and subliminal
level association with evil in consumer minds and that association clearly
appears in consumer anti-branding processes. Consequently, Hitler is a
building block of modern mythology: a devil-like brand icon active in
consumption markets. Interestingly, no other study has been identified in
the literature that has found images of Hitler used for branding implica-
tions in this way.
I also analyzed the verbal semiotic clues to understand the language of
such brand haters. In general, anti-branding haters create subversions of
brand names and slogans directly associated with the brand. Consumers’
subverted brand names and brand slogans by using general very violent
and vindictive language to verbalize their hate. Consumers embed many
negative words into brand and product names, creating their own ver-
sion of anti-brand names. For example, McDonald’s is subverted into
“McCruelty” and “McDiabetes”; Apple’s iPod and iPhone are sub-
verted into “iFail” and “iCrap”. In addition, anti-branders have success-
fully subverted corporate messages and slogans as follows: McDonald’s
famous “I’m lovin it” slogan is subverted into “I’m hatin it”, “I’m
destroyin it”, and Intel’s “Intel Inside” slogan is subverted into “Evil
Inside”, “Intel Inside, Idiot Outside”, and so on. Clearly, consumer
anti-branding efforts can successfully subvert and mock targeted corpo-
rate brand meanings and slogans while entertaining their followers.
These semiotic codes actually indicated a path for understanding
what digital anti-branding semioticians are trying to say and accomplish.
Brand discourse analysis reveals relationships between the literal mean-
ings of brand signs, symbols, and logos and their cultural references that
explain the overall anti-branding meaning system created by brand hat-
ers. First, single semiotic signs are transferred into sentences to narrate
what is communicated by the brand in the broader cultural discourse
(macro-discourse).30 The macro-discourse covers “brand voice” (how
signifiers and the signified are voiced) and “brand positioning” (where
brand meanings are placed in broader cultural contexts) by the haters.
The goal is to link the brand signs and symbols to the broad myths and
archetypes drawn from consumer brand haters’ culture.31 Thus, brand
114  S. U. KUCUK

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Digital ĞĂƚŚ;ǀͿ
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Fig. 5.1  Digital anti-branding discourse

discourse analysis depicts dialectic implications of the structure of brand

signs on both semiotic and semantic levels to create deductive rep-
resentations of anti-branding meanings as representation of brand hate as
also pictured in Fig. 5.1.
As it can be seen from Fig. 5.1, both visual and verbal codes indicated
that anti-branding semioticians are trying to signify Hell and demonize
the corporate brands. Anti-branding semioticians seem to use this very
powerful visual and verbal semiotic “hell-coding” to redefine brand logos
and influence other consumers by inspiring a reflexive revulsion. The dis-
course analysis also showed similar findings with the extraction of sym-
bolic codes. Symbolic codes also revealed slightly different findings where
guns, murder, and bloody scenes are used to accuse corporate brands of
criminalizing and dehumanizing in the presentation of their consump-
tion worlds. Corporate greed that undervalues human needs and wel-
fare is also signified by associations with Hitler and Nazism. Finally, the
discourse analysis indicated that digital anti-branders use drama, humor,
and exaggeration to create a strong digital anti-branding voice by pre-
senting visual semiotic codes that demonize, criminalize, dehumanize,
and “hitlerize”, positioning themselves as against corporate greed and
wrongdoings.
It seems brand haters are capable to re-brand corporate brands
with negative meanings. But, the question at this point is if such
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  115

anti-branding semiotics are understood by the consumers or decoded

successfully. If so, how do these negative and hateful branding impact
consumers perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs?
So, I have conducted another research and use some sample
anti-barding images to discern how receivers locate a concept in seman-
tic space by asking them their impressions of consumer artifacts. First,
I have asked five professional graphic designers to go through hun-
dreds of images collected on the Internet and identified those which are
highly influential to them from an artistic point of view. These design-
ers are experts who are equipped with knowledge and talent to analyze
the semiotic power and deep meaning systems created by anti-branding
semioticians. The experts are agreed on (agreement levels varied between
80 and 100%) four anti-branding symbols.
All the selected consumer subvertisements are fundamental examples
of how anti-branders view their relationships with the targeted brand and
how they portray their negative feelings about corporate brand mean-
ings. And, I have conducted face-to-face in-depth interviews with con-
sumers for the selected anti-branding images. Most of the consumers
interviewed were not necessarily anti-corporate or anti-branding fans or
supporters, but were aware of these alternative interpretations. My pur-
pose was to develop a basic understanding and interpretative framework
for decoding consumer approaches to negative semiotic meanings. This
is an important test as it reveals if brand haters have reached talent and
impression levels like their corporate counterparts.
The interviews focused around three constructive dimensions: “mes-
sage clarity”, “fact seeking”, and “hostility vs. entertainment”. “Message
clarity” is defined as the consumer ability to decode the semiotic rep-
resentations perceived in the anti-branding images. This measurement
is the semiotic effectiveness of an anti-branding image at successfully
prompting the consumer perception of the anti-branding message. If the
message of the anti-branding image is perceived as true and similar to the
consumer’s experiences, knowledge, and belief systems, the consumer is
less prone to find a way to make sense of the message in a different way.
Alternatively, the interviewed consumers tended to review their memo-
ries trying to find something to justify/verify what the semiotic message
seemed to say. This is directly linked to the credibility and acceptance
of the anti-branding message and is conceptualized in this study as “fact
seeking”. Interestingly, consumers made an effort to explain why a per-
son would be producing these kinds of negative images. Finally, some
116  S. U. KUCUK

consumers were really entertained by the humor in the signifiers and

the signified, and others were offended by them and found them hos-
tile, which is discussed as the “hostility vs. entertainment” component.
Although hostility was easily detected in my earlier study, consumers
were also able to find some humor in the anti-branding images.

Capitalist Coca-Cola (Slogan Subversion)

The creators of the selected anti-Coca-Cola image used the same colors
(red and white) as Coca-Cola, its famous swift sign (the white wavy
line in the middle), and the same basic slogan (“Enjoy”). The creators
subverted and politicized this slogan (“Enjoy-Coca Cola”) into “Enjoy
Capitalism”.
The motive behind this re-branding, attacking Coca-Cola’s “wild cap-
italist approaches and worldwide colonist mentality”, was also accurately
decoded by the majority of consumers interviewed.

Message Clarity:  The majority of consumers interviewed agreed that

Coca-Cola is a symbol of capitalism, and that capitalism is easily seen as a
greedy system, as described by these respondents:

They are making fun of materialism and the negative sides of capitalism—
how Coke can make millions of dollars while little guys struggle. [24,
Female, Social-Media Company Owner]
There is a negative connotation—because (in capitalism), one group of
people dominating others…it is power struggle…upper class is in con-
trol, and look down, say hey little guys (lower and middle class) who drink
Coca-Cola, and control them through Coke. [32, Female, Teacher and
Student MA Psychology]

On the other hand, a few consumers found some ambiguity in the mes-
sage as indicated by this interviewee:

This seems like an anti-capitalism message! Feels actually either way

(depends on who’s car its on) …could be Dick Cheney’s car, or Ralph
Nader’s car. [30, Male, Videographer]

This ambiguity might cause some brand dilution problems since con-
sumers were not able to consistently differentiate between positive
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  117

interpretations of the comment on Coca-Cola’s image and the anti-

brander perspective as revealed by another study participant:

When I saw this first I thought Coke and then I saw Capitalism in there,
that made me feel that this is manipulating. [43, Female, Supervisor]

Fact seeking:  Although some respondents perceived the message as true

and persuasive, some indicated that the message is politically driven and
snide. Most of the fact seeking efforts focused on the definition of cap-
italism and the long-standing ineffectiveness of Coke’s ability to cre-
ate new traditions and knowledge while creating a big economic gap
between incumbent soda manufacturers, as shown by these interview
quotes:

Coke is still around even though they have been challenged by many com-
petitors in the past. They kept strong! However, people don’t have strong
bonds they have used to these days. To be honest, it is like a government
institution, so old, kind a part of an old system and establishment. It is not
a monopoly, but close to it! [53, Male, IT Consultant]
Coke is big-broad sweet drink, something that it is not really good for you,
but it is out there…everywhere…I would probably give a little bit smirks!
[55, Male, Architecture]

Hostility vs. Entertainment:  The majority of the consumers found the

image funny and entertaining, and some found it to be more neutral
than hostile:

Funny, creative…it is sending the message across. Makes me want to

educate myself about Coca-Cola. [32, Female, Teacher and Student-MA
Psychology]
This is like “beating a dead horse” Coke has been a subject of criticism, so
it doesn’t bother me anymore. A little bit amusing, not much! [60+, Male,
Retired-PhD]

Nazi Disney (Mascot Subversion)

The creators of this image used the famous Disney character Mickey
Mouse. Two opposite meanings are integrated into this one image:
Mickey and Hitler. Mickey’s eyes are replaced with swastikas and Mickey
118  S. U. KUCUK

has Hitler’s iconic mustache and hairstyle. This re-branding of Mickey

Mouse strongly associates the company with an incarnation of evil. Here,
the perceived monopoly power of Disney is seen as creating an anti-dem-
ocratic market environment and brainwashing effort leading to the figu-
rative massacre of consumer lives and value systems, a direct analogy to
Nazi actions (also discussed in the hitlerization of anti-branding images
in the discourse investigation).

Message Clarity:  This image is perceived as confusing or disgusting,

hence unclear and a clash of two opposite images, Disney and Hitler.
Interviewee comments included:

It’s conflicting…for me it represents two extremes: extreme happiness

(Disney) and extreme sadness (Hitler). It confuses me…feeling negative
and conflicted. [43, Female, Supervisor]
Mickey Mouse and Hitler. I can’t connect them to each other…the happi-
est place on the world; you don’t want to have any association with Hitler!
[46, Male, Engineer]

Fact Seeking:  Many of the interviewed consumers disagreed with the

message presented in this image. Consumers had a hard time finding
experiences in their lives to support the signified message in this image;
thus, they perceived this image as biased. The image turned off the inter-
viewees even though they were not fans of Disney. On the other hand,
some of the interviewed consumers became intrigued and wanted to
know more about Disney, although they generally found the image really
disgusting, as observed here:

It is more intriguing, I want to know why they are bad. I really want to
know why they do that! [26, Female, Preschool Teacher]

Hostility vs. Entertainment:  Almost all of the consumers interviewed

found this image hostile, disgusting, and offensive. This anti-branding
message was decoded as malicious and creepy by many of the consumers
interviewed:

They are taking my Mickey and turn into something ugly and bad, I don’t
like it! [42, Female, Small Business Owner]
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  119

Somebody got a sick sense of humor, gone too far! There is some clever-
ness in it, but over the top dark humor. [55, Male, Architect]

Satan Intel (Brand Logo and Slogan Subversion)

Creators of this ad used totally different colors (red and black) from
the original logo colors (white and blue). Some consumers were able to
decode the darker and more demonic colors in this image as I discussed
in the demonization anti-branding discourse. The company slogan “Intel
Inside” is here subverted to “Satan Inside”. Thus, this ad has a religious
overtone.
The justification behind this attack focuses not on whether Intel’s com-
puter processors provide high capacity and convenience to consumers, but
instead focuses on whether the company is making it easy for companies
and governments to benefit from stealing the personal information of con-
sumers. Anti-branders are suggesting that Intel’s technology has another
agenda (a “satanic” one, whether intended or not) that consumers are not
aware of and perhaps would not approve of. This is also addressed in the
criminalization anti-branding discourse as discussed earlier.

Message Clarity:  Although some interviewees found the message in this

image to be clear, a majority was confused and unsure what the mes-
sage was. Confusions were generally generated by the use of the word
“Satan” or, since it is not a frequently noticed consumption product, by
a lack of knowledge of the Intel brand. However, most respondents were
able to decode the religion tone:

When someone says “Satan inside” that that means Satan possesses
you! They are trying to say that Intel possess you and makes them
all massed-up. I am not a PC user, I should be agreeing with this! [32,
Female, Teacher-Student MA Psychology]
Reminds me Westboro Baptist church in the South (they protest almost
everything, and a lot of hate bags) Test from God! Satan is corrupting you.
[23, Female, Student]

Fact Seeking:  There was less fact-seeking logic occurring during conver-
sations about this image. This might be because of the fact that the image
used a religious tone, which also implied a conspiracy to a few people:
120  S. U. KUCUK

Conspiracy type of stuff. If you really knew what is going on inside, you
wouldn’t buy the Intel. I don’t know enough about the Intel, their prac-
tices. [40, Female, Small Business Owner]
Anti-capitalist or anti-technology. Somebody who believes in conspiracy
can find this true. [55, Male, Architect]

Hostility and Entertainment:  This anti-branding image was seen as neg-

ative, dark, and malicious by many interviewees:

Very dark, very black, negative side wide. I try not to go there. [60+,
Female, Entrepreneur]

However, a few consumers were able to find some humor in this image:

I found this one funny-caustic humor! Burning-acid humor! Huge corpo-

ration entity they are making fun of Intel. [60+, Male, Broker]

Unhealthy McDonald’s (Brand Name and Logo Subversion)

The creators of this ad used McDonald’s golden arches and a red back-
ground, retaining the color combinations and symbols of the origi-
nal brand image. Concerns about McDonald’s cheap and unhealthy
fast food business model have gained the attention of consumers, mar-
kets, and governments. This ad brings the concerns to the forefront by
embedding the word “diabetes” into the company name, subverting
McDonalds’ name into “McDiabetes”. This image is a typical example
of the dehumanization and criminalization in anti-branding discourse.
The intent behind this subversion is to warn consumers about the health
problems possibly created by McDonalds’ business model.

Message Clarity:  Almost all the consumers found the message very clear
and fair:

Bingo! Somebody hit the nail on the head! Very funny, message is very
clear and perfect—I agree with the creator of this ad. I don’t have to do
too much thinking about this one…I thought it is right…I wish other
people would step up, see it and rebel against it….critical and not really
hostile! [43, Female, Supervisor]
The most straight forward one! Gets the message across! Kind a speaks to
the future of America! I liked it! It is cool! [30, Male, Videographer]
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  121

Fact Seeking:  Most of the interviewees found the image and its message
undoubtedly true. Most of the interviewed consumers already agreed
with this anti-branding image and expressed some association with their
lifestyle:

Everybody in my culture agrees with this…it’s like a cultural norm around

here… [23, Female, Student]
This one you can’t really argue! Other ones were debatable, but this one is
undeniably true. [23, Male, Student-Barista]

Some consumers even showed some anger as they express their agree-
ment with this image:

McDonalds is a part of the institution and over the years developed such a
strength, yet killing America, killing all of us! It is a cheap place, but con-
tributing many health problems and they do nothing about it! They are
creating a lot of pollution. I see their bags and trash everywhere! They are
polluting our bodies and our environment. That makes me angry, so this
logo is just right! [53, Male, IT Consultant]

Hostility and Entertainment:  Most of the consumers found this message

entertaining and funny. In fact, some of them could not resist laughing
and smiling during the interview:

It makes me laugh. Sad but it is true. I rolled my eyes and laughed when I
saw this…so true! [23, Female, Student-Barista]

The McDonalds ad is also a unique example of how negativity and/or

dark-humor can impressively impact consumer perceptions:

This is hilarious! I totally agree with it! Funny! Processed food we eat
destroying our health, causes diabetes, obesity and also addictive… I liked
it this one, it speaks to me! [41, Male, MD-Medical Doctor]

Comparisons of Anti-Branding Images

I presented all the anti-branding images together to the interviewees at
the end of each interview. They were asked to compare the images and
pick their favorite anti-branding images. The interviewee reactions and
facial expressions changed with each anti-branding image they viewed.
122  S. U. KUCUK

They generally looked a little bit puzzled when they saw the Coca-Cola
anti-branding image, shocked and disturbed when they saw the Disney
anti-branding image, confused when they saw the Intel anti-brand-
ing images, and they laughed or smiled when they saw the McDonalds’
anti-branding images.
Almost all of the consumers interviewed were more prone to accept
the McDonalds and Coke anti-branding images, finding the images
funny and friendly rather than satanic or evil; as described by the inter-
viewees below:

Coke and McDonalds have elements of fun. Disney and Intel are not
funny; they have some elements of a very dark side! Coke and McDonalds
have more truth. I can’t even pass the photo (Disney) to see the con-
nection between Hitler and Mickey Mouse connection… Disney and
Intel are making real extreme statements, so I can’t even think what they
are trying to associate. [24, Female, Social-Media Business Owner, empha-
sis added]
If you run into a person who wear t-shirt with this McDonald’s logo you
want talk with him and have fun with him, but if you see a guy wear this
Disney t-shirt you probably want to avoid him, because he is the one likely
carrying gun! [60+, Male, Broker]

During the interviews, many consumers were not able to take their eyes
away from and spent more time thinking about and analyzing the Disney
and Intel images, trying to make sense of the extreme language. Some
consumers also revealed being intrigued by the Disney and Intel images,
even though the images were using aggressive language and religious
and racist themes:

Disney and Intel are over the top, but they make me think more. I don’t
necessarily disregard them, I am curious about them. Disney and Intel are
more thought provoking. It made me think and learn more about them!
[25, Female, Barista]
Disney and Intel, I liked it the least, but the most thought provoking! I
started to think why they are doing that! There is more depth in these two
(Disney and Intel), like a good book! [42, Female, Small Business Owner]

One of the possible reasons that consumers were intrigued by the Disney
and Intel anti-brand images is because these ads shocked the interviewees
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  123

when they first saw them. Since visual environments are populated with
ever more digital images, many images are starting to lose their power.
Developing shocking images can be an effort to attract more consumer
attention32 as explained by one of the interviewees:

Disney message has more shock value because immediately give you some
flash…but it’s not clear or impressive because the message is not clear in
these two (Intel and Disney) …there is no message on Intel and Disney
other than shock value… [46, Male, Engineer, emphasis added]

As a result, consumer responses to selected anti-branding images were

studied. Consumers found some humor (the McDonald’s subvertisment)
in the studied anti-branding images and tried to justify why anti-branding
semioticians use such derogatory and harsh language. This also supports
the findings of the digital anti-branding discourse analysis. Specifically,
consumers definitely indicated a semiotic distaste for the anti-branding
Disney image. Disney was perceived as unfairly victimized and might
receive sympathy from those who see this ad. Disney should be more
worried about intrigued consumers who want to know more about the
issues that prompted the anti-branding images. It seems companies who
are attacked with opinionated and aggressive language should not worry
about that speech because consumers often do not give credence to these
kinds of approaches. The McDonalds image received more interest and
acceptance than the other images in my study, consumers could easily
identify with the image. It is clear that humor disarms people and makes
it easier for consumers to feel compelled by and involved in the message
represented if there is some confirming truth that can be found. In sum-
mation, even though all the messages studied were negative, consumers
tried to perceive positive, clear, and constructive messages.
Brand images and symbols are indispensable parts of modern con-
sumption culture and digitally mediated economic systems. In these
systems, the value of the images is determined by the brand’s ability
to connect cultural and social meaning systems with appropriate semi-
otic codes. The homo-digitus consumer now has the power and ability
to subvert and reject marketer-generated brand meanings that conflict
with their values. Thus, companies who do not talk about and renego-
tiate their semiotic meaning systems with consumers face losing con-
trol of their meaning systems to those same technologically advanced
consumers.
124  S. U. KUCUK

There are signals that homo-digitus consumers are now able to fill
the meaning gaps that result from corporate wrongdoings with neg-
ative brand meanings and semiotics in digital consumption spaces. My
research revealed that consumers easily decode, accept, and willingly
identify with humorous meanings more than with aggressive or malicious
attacks, but that an aggressive and intriguing message has some poten-
tial to influence consumers. If consumers have prior knowledge or beliefs
about what is subverted in the anti-branding ads the persuasion of the
ad seems to increase significantly. Companies who are attacked by clear
and funny agenda-driven messages may find that their brand images and
identities will be hurt more than by aggressively designed negative con-
sumer ads. However, companies should also focus on consumer messages
with intriguing features, even when those features are negative.
In light of these findings, some important managerial and policy issues
can be addressed as follows:
First, the identification of the “good consumer” is changing in mod-
ern markets. Corporations often see brand haters as problem kids, but
what these consumers are really trying to do is bring their disappoint-
ments to the attention of corporations and the marketplace. Thus,
a “good consumer” in this digital age is willing to directly share feed-
back, positive or negative, with the company. It was easy to ignore
negative feedback before the Internet because negative responses were
stuck among in-groups and usually not communicated to the company
or others. As discussed earlier, consumer complaints are changing from
a private experience to a public phenomenon as the number of digitally
interconnected consumers increases. Traditional marketing philosophies
underestimate the value and information richness of negative consumer
feedback and neglect learning from negative feedback and comments.
Some negative branding can be seen as disruptive and even anarchistic,
but this same responsive rebranding can also stimulate market creativity,
protect true expressive diversity, and eventually canalize public meanings
for public benefit. Secondly, search engine companies are developing
ways to search based on pictorial codification systems; understanding the
meaning systems created by symbolic representations of brand images
seems likely to foster the development of still better visual search engines
for consumers to search the Internet with. Consumers are generating
new semiotic codes every day; thus, there is a need to develop a search
system that directs the user to the symbol or symbolic semiotic meaning
she/he is looking for. Moreover, new businesses are emerging in digital
 5  SEMIOTICS OF BRAND HATE  125

image markets, such as Shutterstock and Instagram, which make it eas-

ier to stock and retail to the public billions of photographs, images, and
illustrations, created by both amateurs and professionals.
Finally, companies are trying to increase their brand surveillance and
legal actions against anti-branders in order to prevent the noncommercial
use of their brands under Trademark Laws. Complicating the issue, many
fan sites are filled with unauthorized copies of brand images and videos.
Allowing consumer fan sites to use trademarked symbols freely while
policing anti-branding creations is a significant dilemma for corpora-
tions. This quandary shows there is an urgent need for overhauling tradi-
tional trademark laws as millions of new brand images and semiotic codes
become available every day for digital consumption. The consumption
and production of digital symbols and semiotic images is evolving toward
a strong and democratic digital image economy. By using and developing
new meanings for images, we are creating new communication systems
and consumption philosophies every day on the Internet. The use and
consumption of digital images is increasing, and more research on digital
branding and anti-branding semiotics will enhance the development of
our modern and future image-based digital economy. Thus, the legality
of such brand hate semiotics will be discussed in the following chapter.

Notes
1. Eco (1976) and de Saussure (1983).
2. Chandler (2002).
3. Schroeder (2002).
4. Schroeder (2002), Schroeder and Salzer-Morling (2006), and Oswald
(2012).
5. Schroeder (2002), Klein (2009), Katyal (2010), and Oswald (2012).
6. Wang (2013).
7.  Thompson and Arsel (2004), Thompson et al. (2006), Kucuk (2008,
2010, 2015), and Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009).
8. Katyal (2006) and Spinello (2006).
9. Katyal (2010).
10. Chandler (2002).
11. Mick et al. (2004).
12. Mick (1986), Mick et al. (2004), and Oswald (2012).
13. Mick (1986).
14. Mick et al. (2004), Gaines (2008), and Manning (2010).
15. Mick and Buhl (1992) and Müniz and O’Guinn (2001).
 126  S. U. KUCUK

16. Thellefsen et al. (2007).

17. Floch (2000) and Oswald (2012).
18. Heilbrunn (1997, 1998).
19. Floch (2000).
20. Mella (1988), Floch (2000), and Oswald (2012).
21. Puntoni et al. (2010).
22. Ceccarelli (1998), Kates (2002), and Puntoni et al. (2010).
23. Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009) and Katyal (2010).
24. Kay (2006), Merz et al. (2009), and Manning (2010).
25. Mella (1988).
26. Frank and Gilovich (1988).
27. Singh (2006).
28. Cimbalo et al. (1978).
29. Genesis 19:24 and Revelation 19:20; Quran Chapter 26.
30. Oswald (2012).
31. Oswald (2012).
32. Schroeder (2002).

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 CHAPTER 6

Legality of Brand Hate:

Dilution v. Collusion

Abstract  I have discussed the legality of such anti-branding images and

semiotics from various legal cases in this chapter. I have introduced and
discussed various anti-branding dilution cases and re-conceptualized
brand dilution as a matter of counter-posed brand meaning and associ-
ations in digital markets. I have discussed such anti-branding dilution
cases from both a blurring and a tarnishment dilution basis. I discussed
my interviews with consumers which revealed that anti-branding has less
potential for brand dilution and more potential brand identity for collu-
sion. By addressing both legal and marketing views of the meaning sys-
tems associated with the dilution versus collusion perspectives, this study
provides an approach for understanding anti-branding dilution discus-
sions and a way to develop better functioning branding exchange systems
for digital markets. Consequently, possible changes in future branding
ownership issues for digital markets are also envisioned in this chapter.

Keywords  Brand dilution · Anti-brand dilution · Blurring · Brand

tarnishment · Brand identity · Brand ownership

This chapter is modified from my original work published by Journal of Business

Ethics as follows: “Exploring the Legality of Consumer Antibranding Activities
in the Digital Age”. Journal of Business Ethics, forthcoming, https://doi.
org/10.1007/s10551-015-2585-5.

© The Author(s) 2019 129

S. U. Kucuk, Brand Hate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00380-7_6
130  S. U. KUCUK

I can understand that some people have anti-oil views. I can appreciate that
view. But also, I can understand that we dependent on them.
Anonymous Consumer

Since brands represent everything that corporations have such as iden-

tity, value, beliefs, culture, and philosophy, the brand is a corporation’s
most valuable communication tool for building relationships with con-
sumers. Thus, the negative brand image created by hate sites in the mar-
kets can be extremely harmful to corporations’ intangible assets such as
brand equity. Today’s consumers express their dissatisfaction and anger
through using the hated corporation’s brand name in their domain name
or subvert brand meanings, with the purpose of insulting the corporate
brand and creating erosion in corporate brands’ identities. On the other
hand, the use of brand-linked distinctive marks, logos, or identities by
competing brands is prohibited in the USA1 and many other countries
because such usage can potentially damage the trustworthiness and per-
suasiveness of a brand. Using a similar or identical brand name for sim-
ilar goods usually constitutes “trademark infringement” as the imitation
leads to consumer confusion about the source of the product and then to
a loss of economic value of the brand.2 The law also discusses the poten-
tial for impairing impacts from the usage of characteristics that remind
the consumer of the original or diluted brand, creating a “brand associ-
ation”. This is conceptualized as “brand dilution”; as such semiotics can
potentially dilute the distinctive and unique value of the brand in the eye
of consumers.
The usage of such brand associations is becoming very common
among consumer brand haters on the Internet. Because of the Internet’s
democratic structure, millions of users are able to develop and share new
brand logos, marks, and semiotics for targeted brands in digital spaces
every day. Social networking sites (Facebook and Instagram) and dot-
coms (Shutterstock, Google-Images, etc.) make it easier to distribute to
the public billions of images, illustrations, and photographs.3 Thus, con-
sumers, especially the brand haters, are increasingly an alternate source
of brand dilution in the digital world. Consumers are now independently
structuring their own version of brand meanings by rejecting and sub-
verting company-generated brand meanings. Consumer semioticians
are using brand identifications and/or secondary meanings to raise their
voices about corporate wrongdoings; in response, corporate semioticians
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  131

accuse creators of consumer-generated brand meanings of brand dilu-

tion, revealing a deep divide and controversy about what should be con-
sidered brand dilution in both theory and at the bench.
From a traditional brand dilution perspective, the dilution sources
have usually been competitors; but now independent consumers can
play a significant role in diluting corporate meaning systems. There are
currently neither clear nor constructive measures, nor legal decisions,
for how much, or what sort of, substantial dilution damage is required
in order to claim brand dilution in digital spaces. In both academic and
legal discussions, “dilution” is seen as an imprecise concept that leaves
open many questions about digital brand ownership rights. Another
question is should brand dilution claims be drawn based only on harm
to the brand and whether the critique is being developed commercially,
or should it also consider the truthfulness of the content and the intent
of the commenter when making the comments, as would be considered
under disparagement law? This is not clear at this point.
Furthermore should consumers be defined as separate and independ-
ent creators and thus able to earn reinterpretation rights to consump-
tion symbols even though they overtly use corporate-originated semiotic
systems? Should marketers litigate consumer anti-branding activities with
brand dilution claims, or should marketers re-evaluate and revalue con-
sumer haters’ anti-branding creations in order to build fairer and bet-
ter functioning digital markets? From an anti-brander point of view, the
development of anti-branding meanings is a rejection of marketer-cre-
ated corporate brand meaning systems.4 Thus, the major question is
whether the social and legal systems should treat such hateful anti-brand-
ing semiotics as violations of traditional brand dilution laws or as the
representation of a collision of consumer identities with corporate brand
identities?
Thus, there is a need to determine when brands simply must put up
with criticism and when there is a good basis for challenging the criti-
cism. In this perspective, discussions of the contribution of each market
actor to brand dilution and identity, and thus a definition of the owner-
ship rights of consumer-generated anti-branding symbols, are necessary
in order to achieve a fairer distribution of digital rights among all the
market players. Interpretation of these ownership and speech rights are
also a major ethical question and dilemma. Thus, I will discuss the major
dilemma the markets face with consumer hate and its expression.
132  S. U. KUCUK

Brand Dilution
Trademark infringement and dilution laws look at brand dilution from
the perspective of the unauthorized use of brand meanings. Diluters
reduce the uniqueness of the original brand and the mental associations
and brand value previously created in the minds of consumers by the
original brand.5 A third party can free ride the meanings and associations
that brand owners created by extensive advertisement investments6; thus,
dilution laws focus on protecting the diluted brand’s investment.
Consumer brand knowledge and confusion about the brand source
(failing to associate the product with the owner of the brand7) is one
of the major determining factors in identifying brand dilution. However,
even when consumers can easily discern that the same brand source or
mark can come from totally different manufacturers or sources, and
trademark dilution case can still be litigated.8 Legally, infringement and
dilution issues focus on protecting consumers from misleading brand
information by identifying the source of confusion, distinguishing the
power of the famous brand mark from the imitating and diluting brand.
This is explained in the “Federal Trademark Dilution Act” (FTDA):

the lessening of the capacity of a famous mark to identify and distinguish

goods or services, regardless of the presence or absence of (1) competition
between the owner of the famous mark and other parties or (2) likelihood
of confusion, mistake, or deception. [FTDA 1995, 15 U.S.C. §1125 (c)
(1), emphasis added]

Also, the most recent US Code of 2013 also says “…likely to cause con-
fusion, or to cause mistake or to deceive as to affiliation…” [15 U.S.C.
§1125 (a) (1) (A)], However, there is a little guidance in either the
FTDA or US Code about the definition of dilution; specifically what
is meant by “likelihood of confusion” or “likely to cause confusion”.
Clearly, the conceptualization of brand dilution was on slippery ground
and establishing acts of dilution with concrete evidence needed to be
required. Thus, Congress amended “likelihood of dilution” to “actual
dilution” by passing the “Trademark Dilution Revision Act” (TDRA)
[TDRA 2006; 15 U.S.C. §1125(c)]. This recent amendment was
intended to change the law in light of the Supreme Court decision in
Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc. 2003. That decision no longer has the
force of law because of the statutory amendment.9 However, although
the courts now need to find evidence of “actual harm”, it is not clear
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  133

how much harm is necessary in order to be considered as harm, or how

much consumer confusion is believed to be necessary to litigate brand
dilution claim (e.g., Nabisco, Inc. v. PF Brands, Inc. 1999).
There is a clear need for broader perspectives about what makes for
a likelihood of consumer brand confusion and what concrete measures
and/or indicators can be used to determine when confusion or demon-
strable harm is created by a diluter.

Likelihood of Consumer Confusion

The majority of confusion studies focus on the “stimulus similarity” cre-
ated by the marketing (similar brand logo, packaging, advertisement,
etc.), which eventually leads consumers to incorrectly and unconsciously
select the diluting brand.10 The greater the degree of similarity between
two look-alike competing brands, the higher the likelihood of consumer
confusion about which brand is the original one—ceteris paribus.11
Thus, inferential error sits at the heart of many dilution cases.
The source of consumer inferential error has two major components:
(1) inferential errors created by a marketer to take advantages of con-
sumers or (2) consumer errors generated by their perceptual in/abilities
to distinguish various stimuli.

1. 
Marketers can develop product/services physically similar to
the diluted brand12 or similar advertising messages with ambig-
uous information facilitating message confusion.13 Consumer
anti-branders, who use original brands associations with negative
symbols to construct negative and alternative brand identities to
voice their discontent, can be seen as a source of such inferential
errors. In other words, advertisements creating consumer brand
confusion can also be linked to anti-branding dilution issues
because anti-branding semioticians can be seen as alternative mes-
sage creators in digital markets. A study revealed that consumers
with less knowledge about a product category get confused by
message similarity.14 Because anti-branding images reintroduce
known-brands within a different and negative context, this might
trigger consumer confusion.
Research also revealed that advertisements with emotional
content (humor, eroticism, provocation, etc.) distract consum-
ers more and prompt more brand confusion.15 Furthermore, the
134  S. U. KUCUK

amount of information presented in the advertisement can also

increase consumer confusion.16 Because anti-branding images
use both very emotional content (especially negative content)
and information-rich messaging with very loaded images in their
messages, they can potentially increase consumer confusion about
the targeted brands and can be seen as a brand dilution source.
Emotional content can alternatively increase consumer involve-
ment in the message even if it is very disturbingly negative to the
receiver.17 This can eventually strength the brand damage, and
hence, brand dilution claims.
2. 
Some consumers easily distinguish details between two visually
similar brands (cognitive sharpeners) and are less likely to be con-
fused by similarities.18 Alternatively, some other consumers with
a narrow equivalence range (differentiate high conceptual differ-
ences in stimuli perception) and reflective (tend to carefully inspect
the stimuli and not make impulsive decisions) and field independ-
ent (able to ignore irrelevant stimuli around the brand) show less
brand confusion.19 Similarly, if the brand information or number
of comparable brand attributes exceeds the consumer’s perceptive
capacity (creating information overload) the consumer can easily
be confused by the information load.20 Thus, some consumers are
more vulnerable to some dilution practices. This issue has not been
discussed broadly in the legal literature.

The question is when does consumer confusion lead to consumer harm

or destroy the reputation of the diluted brand. Most of the time, the
diluting brand cannot deliver the value elements it promised by masquer-
ading as the diluted (original) brand. If consumers are dissatisfied with
the diluting brand and do not realize that it is not the original brand
they intended to purchase the value elements of the diluted brand may
be harmed. On the other hand, if consumers are satisfied with the dilut-
ing brand and realize that it is a different brand they may decide to
switch to the diluting brand, creating harm to the original brand.21
A research22 found that diluting exposures decreased recognition
accuracy and increased recognition speed with statistically significant
results. Similarly, dilution exposure can have a damaging effect on a
brand, reducing the recall memory by a third on average.23 A majority
of work indicates that trademark dilution has a strong potential to reduce
preexisting brand meanings and associations by creating new memories
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  135

in consumer minds.24 However, the most damaging results might be

seen if the diluting version of the brand devalues and tarnishes the fea-
tures of the diluted brand.

Blurring and Tarnishment

The distinctiveness and favorability of a brand can be diluted by either
a “blurring” or “tarnishment” of the brand.25 This dilution classifica-
tion is a good starting point for a conceptualization of the actual harm.
Dilution by blurring is defined legally as an “association arising from the
similarity between a mark or trade name and a famous mark that impairs
the distinctiveness of the famous mark” [15 U.S.C. § 1125 (c) (2) (B)]
and could be found “regardless of the presence or absence of actual or likely
confusion, of competition, or of actual economic injury” [15 U.S.C. §
1125 (c), (1)]. Federal laws identify several factors determining whether
there is dilution by blurring: the degree of the similarity between the
original/famous mark and the diluting mark, acquired distinctiveness
of the famous mark, the degree of recognition of the original/famous
mark, whether the infringing brand intended to create an association
with the original mark, etc.26 In other words, blurring indicates a usage
of the same or similar brand name and mental associations to gradually
whittle away brand knowledge in favor of the new/diluting brand.27 In
short, the law defines blurring as a hijacking and/or copying of the suc-
cessful brand features and does not make any specific distinction between
negative or positive whittling in the blurring definition.
On the other hand, if the diluting brand actually tarnishes the mark
and damages the preexisting positive associations in consumer minds,
that is considered “dilution by tarnishment”. When a competitor uses
the same or similar brand name and associations on “unrelated” goods,
“trademark dilution” claims can be a result. An example is that few con-
sumers would think that a Kodak flower shop was somehow associated
with the film and camera company. However, if the Kodak shop also sells
sex paraphernalia the association of the brand name “Kodak” with the
socially controversial product might tarnish the original brand under
“trademark dilution” law. If a competitor dilutes a brand there are strong
legal punishments for the competitor since the competitor is damaging
the perception of a brand instead of competing on the basis of qual-
ity, price, and other forms of “fair competition”. The legal implications
of both trademark infringement and dilution depend on the source of
136  S. U. KUCUK

the dilution being a competitors damaging use of brand meanings and

associations.
The legal definition of dilution by tarnishment focuses more on the
harm that can be created for the reputation of the diluted brand, defined
as follows:

A trademark may be tarnished when it is linked to products of shoddy

quality, or is portrayed in an unwholesome or unsavory context, with
the result that the public will associate the lack of quality or lack of
prestige in the defendant’s goods with the plaintiff’s unrelated goods. [15
U.S.C. § (2) (c), emphasis added]

In dilution by tarnishment, the creation of negative associations about

the diluted brand is at the center of dilution discussions. This issue dif-
ferentiates dilution by tarnishment from simple blurring. The aim in
dilution by tarnishment is to lessen the perceived value of a diluted brand
by associating it with negative connotations. This associating is a precon-
dition of tarnishment, without a blurring tarnishment cannot be claimed.
Although dilution by tarnishment is not specifically mentioned in
FTDA (1996), this issue gained more recognition in the lower courts
(especially with Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc. 2003) and was even-
tually amended in TDRA (2006). In Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc.
2003, it is argued that the “Victor’s Little Secret” brand name was
likely to blur, erode distinctiveness, and tarnish, the reputation of the
“Victoria’s Secret” trademark as the diluted mark is semantically asso-
ciated with a new mark used to sell sex products.28 In another case,
Starbucks Corporation claimed that a local coffee store, Wolfe’s Borough
Coffee, diluted their famous “Starbucks” trademark by selling coffee
with the name of “Charbucks”. Starbucks conducted a field survey with
consumers and based its dilution by tarnishment claim on the results
of this survey because: (1) more than 30% of consumers associated the
Charbucks mark with the Starbucks mark and (2) 62% of those who
surveyed associated the “Charbucks” mark with negative associations—
bitter and over-roasted coffee (Starbucks Corporation v. Wolfe’s Borough
Coffee, Inc. 2009). Although the court ruled that using survey results is
insufficient to establish a likelihood of dilution by tarnishment, and that
Wolfe’s mark is substantially distinctive and not “substantially similar” to
Starbuck’s famous mark,29 this case is currently in its third appeal.
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  137

Furthermore, even parodies of brands can be litigated under brand

dilution laws. For example, although Gemini Rising, Inc. Intended to
spoof and make fun of the easily recognizable Coca-Cola trademark and
its brand message “Enjoy Coca-Cola”, the defendant’s use of the word
“cocaine”, a drug, the possession of which is a felony, implicitly provided
the Coca-Cola trademark with negative connotations and can be con-
sidered a dilution by tarnishment (Coca-Cola Co. v. Gemini Rising, Inc.
1972).30 Similarly, the parody of the famous brand (“Godiva” chocolates
v. “Dogiva” dog biscuits) could also be considered brand dilution as the
infringer benefits economically from the similarity between the brands
(Grey v. Campbell Soup Co. 1986).
However, some tarnishment-based brand dilution activities can be
under the protection of the First Amendment right of free speech—as
long as a person/institution solely comments, criticizes, or makes fun
of the brand, and does not gain any economic benefits.31 It is clear that
jurisdictions can vary and can sometimes be confused by the lack of clear
definitions and measures of tarnishment by dilution, even though TDRA
recently tried to shed some light onto the issue. In the context of this
study, dilution by tarnishment is conceptually linked to anti-branding
activities on the Internet because these anti-branders use negative speech
to destroy a corporate brand identity.

Brand Identity Collusion

The FTDA (1995) defines dilution as “the competition between the
owner of the famous mark and other parties”. In this legal definition, it
is not clearly defined who these “other parties” could be. Can consum-
ers be included in this “other parties” classification? In this traditional
dilution definition, a rival company is implicitly seen as the only source
of a brand, and alternative creators and/or influencers, such as consum-
ers, are overlooked. Consumers may have entered this “other parties”
equation with the recent advent of the Internet. Modern consumers
are empowered by the Internet and are actively modifying and reshap-
ing brand meanings and associations. Thus, consumers acting in digital
environments can be a source of confusion and dilution about branding.
However, all the laws and regulations on brand dilution are based upon
consumer confusion being led by diluters from a rival company; thus,
there is a need for a fresh look at the issue from different point of views.
138  S. U. KUCUK

In general, consumers reinforce their identities by consuming brands

that match their perceptions of themselves. But, some consumers pre-
fer to reject marketer-generated brand meanings that conflict with their
perceptions of themselves or the corporation. This collision between
consumer-generated anti-brand meanings and corporate brand mean-
ings is described in the consumer counterculture resistance literature,32
in the anti-consumption literature,33 and of course in anti-branding
literature.34
For anti-branders and culture jammers, marketing is an imposition
of culturally engineered totalitarian systems created by companies who
manipulate consumer desires and needs with advertising for their own
profit.35 As a result, consumers need to liberate themselves from mean-
ingless company-created consumption cycles,36 and eventually attempt to
go beyond what markets offer to them to create their own solutions and
brand meanings. This eventually pushed companies to generate brand
co-creation platforms in digital spaces, but not all consumers followed
this path because they feel deep hate toward those brands. For some cor-
porations, this is alarming and worrisome because they are losing con-
trol of their own brand meanings to anti-branders. Considering some of
these brands are worth more than what the company is worth on paper,
that worry leads to legal action. Since anti-branders use associations with
the targeted brand in their speech, this issue eventually escalated to a dis-
cussion of anti-branding dilution.
Traditional brand dilution cases focus on a company trying to cre-
ate a similar identity to unfairly benefit from consumer confusion.
Anti-branding dilution, on the other hand, focuses on imitations or
emulations of a brand, and/or its associations, that consumers created
in order to benefit (indirectly, through the satisfaction of expressing their
disagreements and identities) from the deconstruction of the company
identity and/or showcasing corporate wrongdoing. Anti-branding dilu-
tion can also be discussed as “anti-branding dilution by blurring” and
“anti-branding dilution by tarnishment”. Dilution by tarnishment is eas-
ily associated with consumer-generated anti-branding activities because
they openly and publicly portray and associate the targeted brand
with a “lack of quality and prestige” [15 U.S.C. § (2) (c)]. Although
anti-branders do not compete with the targeted business, portraying
them as lacking in quality and prestige might prompt litigation against
anti-branders. This is particularly so if anti-branding efforts create con-
sumer confusion and are deceptive or misleading.
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  139

Anti-Branding Dilution Test

The detection of brand dilution is based on “consumer confusion”
arguments and/or a mental shift in brand associations. The indicators
of confusion or mental shifts can be a damage of consumer brand recall
memory and/or a reduction of preexisting brand messages and associ-
ations by creating new memories and thus decreasing consumer brand
recognition. One alternative indicator of brand dilution is the speed
with which the consumer recognizes the brand and its associations as
discussed earlier. The faster the brand recognition speed is the stronger
the linkages between the brand and its associations are; thus, there is less
consumer confusion during the brand recognition process.
Thus, I picked two distinct anti-branding images for this research.
The first is the Coca-Cola anti-branding image discussed in Chapter 5.
This anti-brand image has some delusionary effects on the viewers. As
you may recall, the Coca-Cola anti-branding image is the replica of
famous Coca-Cola brand logo. The creators of this image replaced the
Coca-Cola name with Capitalism. Since both words start with “C”, the
viewers initially think that they are seeing the well-known image. But,
soon viewers realized that the word is actually “Capitalism” not “Coca-
Cola”. In other words, when you look at this image, the anti-branding
message would already be disseminated to the viewer by the time they
realize the differences. Thus, this Coca-Cola anti-branding image has
more blurring effect than tarnishment effect. The second anti-branding
image is targeting Shell brand. Shell’s famous brand logo oyster shell and
very dramatic looking skull are transparently replaced in the middle of
image. When the viewers look at this image, they can easily see through
the skull onto Shell’s logo, oyster shell. The creators of this image also
color-coded the word of “Hell” in the brand name underneath the fig-
ure. The “S” is left transparent and white, while the rest of the word is
“Hell” highlighted with red color (S-Hell). Thus, this image has more
tarnishment tone than blurring elements aiming at Shell Company.
I tested these images with consumers with an online survey to under-
stand how much confusion they generate in consumer’s recognition pro-
cess. I have focused on consumer’s recognition accuracy of the selected
anti-branding images in the survey. The online survey provided responses
from consumers in different parts of the USA; the locations of the
respondents are almost equally distributed between the West Coast, Mid-
West, and East Coast. A total of 219 consumer responses were collected
140  S. U. KUCUK

(49% male and 51% female, with an almost equal distribution of age
groups).
I asked the consumers if they could recognize the subject of the
images; 94% of consumers successfully associated the first image with
Coca-Cola and 96% of consumers recognized the second image with
Shell. This indicates that these images can successfully be recognized
even though various semiotically rich dilution techniques were imple-
mented. Thus, there was almost no confusion in terms of defining the
target of the anti-branding image. Furthermore, I also asked consumers
about how they feel about the content of the image (negative, neutral, or
positive) to verify which brand images were blurring or tarnishing. Most
of the consumers felt neutral about the Coca-Cola diluting image (47%),
which might be classified as a “dilution by blurring” because the con-
sumers did not totally associate this image with negative or positive con-
notations. The Shell anti-branding image received a 70% negative review.
This image can be classified as “dilution by tarnishment” as it left a very
negative taste.
I also conducted face-to-face interviews in order to better understand
potential dilution problems by using the same anti-branding images.
The purpose of the interview was to develop a basic understanding of
potential consumer confusion and dilution problems created by these
anti-branding objects. Most of the interviews were conducted in a small
town with a middle-class population on the outskirts of a major city in
the Pacific Northwest of the USA. Most of the consumers interviewed
were not necessarily anti-corporate or anti-branding supporters, but were
aware of these alternative interpretations. A total of 34 consumers were
interviewed (50% male and 50% female) in local cafes and public places
in the town. Although respondents were randomly selected in these pub-
lic places, interviewers also kept in mind the necessity of reaching a sam-
ple that can represent every group in the society of the select town.
It was also able to time how rapidly the consumers recognized the
anti-branding images in face-to-face interviews. Consumers success-
fully defined the Coca-Cola anti-branding image in an average 1.5 sec-
onds and 2 seconds for the Shell anti-branding image. The recognition
speed results indicate that there is almost no respondent confusion.
Interviewees were also asked if they knew who might have created the
ads; 94% of consumers indicated that the anti-branding Coca-Cola
image was created by someone other than Coca-Cola itself. Most of the
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  141

interviewees defined the source of the Coca-Cola anti-branding images

as socialist groups, anti-capitalists, political groups, anti-consumption
groups, leftist organizations, Eastern Europeans, and/or Stalinists. It is
interesting to see that some interviewees perceive an out of the country
source for the anti-branding image and justify this as described by one of
the interviewees:

I think anybody outside the US who resists the cultural influence of

America abroad is. [Male, 35+, History Teacher]

When the same questions were asked for the Shell anti-branding images,
all of the interviewees immediately recognize that Shell was not the
source/creator of the anti-branding image; thus, there was no source
confusion from a traditional brand dilution conceptualization point of
view. This indicates that the Shell anti-branding image is extremely nega-
tive, which renders this brand dilution as tarnishment. Most of the inter-
viewees think that the anti-branding images might have been created by
some sort of environmentalist group (62%), Greenpeace, activists, and/
or human rights organizations. Although there were a wide variety of
predictions about the source of both anti-branding images, most of the
consumers successfully discerned the sources as other than the corpora-
tion. These high rates of source recognition can be interpreted as very
minor brand dilution effects.
In order to understand if interviewees successfully decoded the mes-
sage of anti-branding images, I also asked if consumers have any idea
why people are creating these kinds of images. Most of the respondents
think that the creators of the Coca-Cola anti-branding images are trying
to using cynical message to inform consumers about what, in their polit-
ical view, Coca-Cola really represents. Some of the respondents’ com-
ments suggest some very interesting perspectives, quoted as follows:

To remind people that what behind Coca-Cola which is a powerful money

gathering machines of capitalism. [M, 60+, Writer/Entrepreneur]
To show how corporations influence in our lives that we are not aware of
most of the time. [F, 65+, Retired Teacher]
I think it stems from a fear of losing of cultural uniqueness. Some kinds of
cultural imperialism…some critique to consumerism that reflects. [M, 35+,
History Teacher]
142  S. U. KUCUK

They are getting people to stop to think about Coca-Cola. Make people
think that you are not buying a drink but you are buying into system of
capitalism…you have been sold. [F, 35+, Nursing Student]
To show that what have been sold is making them wealthy rather than us.
[M, 55+, Architect]

There were a couple of interviewees who decoded the anti-branding

message differently from the rest of the respondents interviewed:

I don’t know about capitalism…maybe promote the capitalism. [F, 19,

Barista-Student]

It was clear that this respondent’s knowledge and experience was not
rich enough to understand the meaning of the semiotic creation. Thus,
it could be presumed that younger and inexperienced consumers might
be more vulnerable to brand dilution than others. Furthermore, one
respondent also pointed out that this message can have both a positive
and negative meaning:

I don’t know. It depends whether you are pro-capitalist or anti-capitalist…

depends who you are. [F, 45+, Sales Rep]

Finally, one another interviewee thought that this Coca-Cola anti-brand-

ing image could have a positive message after all:

Capitalism is not a bad word…they are branding Coca-Cola. [F, 45+,

Business Owner]

These few responses indicate potential brand dilution blurring problems

for the anti-branders as some respondents see the message as positive.
These answers could also be seen as a confirmation of source recognition
responses, thus an indication of traditional brand dilution source confu-
sion arguments.
Responses reveal more certainty about why the Shell anti-brand-
ing image was created. This message can be seen as tarnishment, and
many of the interviewees showed very negative reactions to the imagery.
Respondents can easily decode the message of hell, destruction, and
death:
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  143

Pretty straight forward-saying that Shell is evil that we will be better off
without Shell. [M, 55+, Architect]
To destroy the name of Shell station and gasoline. [F, 30+, Teacher]
Because they perceive that fuel and oil is negative thing and greedy. [F, 25,
Military Personnel]

Only one respondent had a hard time grasping the message:

I am not sure why they are so against Shell, unless Shell did something
very horrible things. [M, 19, Student]

This is another reason to speculate that young and inexperienced con-

sumers might be more vulnerable to brand dilution from a traditional
dilution perspective. Most of the respondents discussed the motivation
behind such anti-branding image as the negative impact of oil companies
on the environment:

They think that Shell oil is responsible to death of people. They are saying
Shell go to the hell. [F, 60+, Retired Nurse]
Trying to be provocative to educate people about oil-based economy. [M,
55+, Project Manager]
They feel these companies are making money, extracting oil, and they
choose to make money in expense of the environment. [M, 50+, Engineer]

One respondent had another educated guess about this message:

Shell has a poor reputation and bad human rights record in Africa. I
remember reading news about it. Shell destroyed people’s life and their
resources there. [F, 35+, Nursing Student]

Such efforts to find truth in anti-branding images are very common,

and it enhances consumer acceptance of the message if consumers can
find some facts in their memory congruent with the message.37 This is
an affirmation or mental shift—from “uneducated” to “negatively edu-
cated”—about the targeted brands. Thus, how consumers feel about
anti-branding images can shed light on whether the images can be classi-
fied as “blurring” or “tarnishing”.
144  S. U. KUCUK

After asking the interviewees to define the source, message, and tar-
get of the anti-branding images, the interviewer directly asked them if
they found the images confusing or misleading, and whether the images
had a clear and strong messages: 76% of the respondents thought that
the Coca-Cola anti-branding image was neither confusing nor mislead-
ing, 79% found the image clear, and 86% defined it as a strong message.
These results also indicate some minor dilution issues for Coca-Cola.
On the other hand, 85% of the consumers found the Shell anti-brand-
ing image not confusing and 94% found it not misleading. Moreover,
94% of the respondents thought the Shell anti-branding image had both
a clear and strong message. This indicates that the Shell anti-branding
image creates less confusion than the Coca-Cola one. But, the negativ-
ity created by the Shell anti-brand image can be interpreted as prestige
destruction of the Shell Company and can be legally classified as dilution
by tarnishment under [15 U.S.C. § 1125 (c)].
In order to understand the real feelings of interviewees about the
anti-branding images, they were also asked if they found the anti-brand-
ing images negative, neutral, or positive. Positivity or negativity, in this
context, only defines whether a dilution is blurring or tarnishment.
Furthermore, “neutrality” may be used as an indicator of respondent con-
fusion, a passive stance because they are not sure what the message of the
image is. The face-to-face interviewee’s responses are also consistent with
the initial online survey responses reported earlier, suggesting a high relia-
bility for the face-to-face interview sample. In both samples, a majority of
respondents felt “neutral” about the Coca-Cola anti-branding image and
“negative” about the Shell anti-branding image. This indicates that Shell’s
prestige might be hurt more than Coca-Cola. However, this could be an
incomplete conclusion without understanding the root causes of these
emotions. Thus, the interviewees were also asked why they have specific
feelings (negative/neutral/positive) about the anti-branding images.
Most of the consumers felt negatively about the Coca-Cola anti-branding
image, indicating their disagreement with the message:

I disagree that capitalism is a bad thing. [M, 30+, Financial Advisor]

Expression of person’s frustration and represents someone’s disgust and
anger with the system. [F, 55+, Business Owner]
They are taking brand and they modify it to something bad but not an
angry way. It is a play on the brand. Kind an ironic. [M, 20+, Barista]
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  145

Because I don’t know whether I am mislead or not. [F, 45+, Sales Rep]
It is deceiving and it is biased. [M, 25+, Manufacturing Supervisor]

These interviews revealed that consumers felt more negatively about the
creators of the message than about Coca-Cola. Thus, this is not evidence
of a dilution issue. Some other respondents feel neutral as they did not
feel they had enough knowledge or an opinion. Or, they saw the mes-
sage as a joke. On the other hand, some respondents felt positive about
the Coca-Cola anti-branding image message and saw the message as an
affirmation of their own views:

Supporting the cause that I feel okay with it. [F, 60+, Industrial Hygienist]
It is very clever critique this offers some level of legitimacy, amusing,
funny, very clever. [M, 35+, History Teacher]
I think whoever made this is clever and I am proud of them. I see it as
an art piece I think they are trying to get people think. [F, 35+, Nursing
Student]
It is perfect. It is like jujutsu. I can use the power of my opponent to
defeat them. This is such a strong connection. I agree with their basic cri-
tique and they are using in a very creative way. [M, 50+, Engineer]

These responses indicated that these participants (neutral and pos-

itive) see these messages as good things and support the cause. These
responses also indicate that those consumers are decoding the message in
a political perspective. Although there are different responses, there was
less confusion about the message; thus, this might be interpreted as low-
level dilution because consumers can define and decode the source and
the true meaning of the anti-branding image from a traditional brand
dilution perspective.
The Shell anti-branding image, which is classified as brand dilution
tarnishment, generated more negative feelings in a majority of the inter-
views because of the extreme negative imagery (hell coding, skull, etc.):

Very negative. The hell is in it, skull, and the death aspect of it. It is pretty
strong imagery. They don’t need writing, the image stands strong. [M,
60+, Retired Musician]
Because it is over the top. So negative and so strong. I tend to walk away if
I see this on the street. [F, 60+, Retired Nurse]
146  S. U. KUCUK

I can see the environmental concerns. They resonate with me on the same
level. It is so bold that in the line of threatening. It is so strong that I feel
threatened. [M, 35+, History Teacher]
Although I agree with this message, I feel hopeless when I look at this. I
don’t think that change will occur fast enough. [F, 45+, Lawyer]

This imagery left some negative taste in participants’ minds. However,

some respondents felt positively about this anti-branding image as they
believed the message enhanced and reinforced their views about oil com-
panies. Some other found the message to be provocative and forced peo-
ple to think more about these issues. Most of the neutralists interviewed
indicated that they felt stuck between both negative and positive sides
and they worded their dilemmas as follows:

I am kind of both sides. I do purchase gas, on the other hand, I under-

stand the whole money thing. I don’t want them to destroy environment.
[F, 40+, Store Manager]
Because it is not going to stop me filling my car with gas. [F, 50+,
Administrator]
I am conflicted. I drove a car, so I support the industry by driving a car.
But, these guys are right. I am also destroying the environment. [M, 50+,
Engineer]

From another young participant’s point of view, the image has no mean-
ingful value, quoted as follows:

I don’t know enough about Shell to feel positive or negative. To me, it is

gasoline that I put in my car to go. [M, 20+, Barista]

This could be seen as another confirmation that young consumers

might have less knowledge and hence could be more vulnerable to these
claimed dilution symbols. These consumers perhaps have a hard time jus-
tifying the meaning systems created by the semiotics and thus prefer to
stay in the middle.
The majority of dilution issues are raised in both legal and academic
discussions because of the potential economic damage to the company
who owns the brand. Thus, finally, the respondents were asked if the
anti-branding images the interviewer discussed with them would change
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  147

their beliefs or their shopping habits. If interviewees were currently not

using these brands they were asked “if they were using the brand, would
they change their purchase habits based on the anti-branding images”
The findings indicate that most of the respondents are not planning to
change either their beliefs or their purchase habits. However, the results
indicate more impact by the Shell anti-branding image than the Coca-
Cola anti-branding image. Thus, a tarnishment-based anti-brand dilution
might have some minor potential to hurt the company economically.
Although blurring focuses on subtle ways to erode the positive brand
knowledge of a consumer by using similar associations, I found very
minor brand dilution issues (perhaps primarily for younger consumers).
This, in turn, indicates that there was almost no consumer confusion
about whether the images were created by anti-branders or the com-
pany who owns the brand. Rather, confusion came with why and who
could be developing these anti-branding images. This could be defined
as a new confusion source, different from the traditional dilution per-
spective. Furthermore, although some signs of dilution by tarnishment
were found this might be because of a consumers ability to find some
already accepted truth in the message of the image, often an echoing of
an already available public opinion. Legally recognition of prior knowl-
edge cannot be seen as a mental shift about the brand. As tarnishment
is defined as portraying a brand in an unsavory context with negative
connotations the negative phrase and/or words (Shell v. Hell) attached
to the Shell image might be used as a good example of digitally based
anti-branding tarnishment. It is clear that the Shell anti-branding exam-
ple is an image loaded with negative meanings which might have led
to irritation, information overload, and thus confusion. However,
although the Shell anti-branding image can be seen as a severe form of
brand tarnishment, consumers were able to recognize and read the mes-
sage more easily and correctly than the Coca-Cola anti-branding image.
This is another indicator that consumers, in fact, see this message as
true and fair.
Moreover, unlike traditional examples of dilution by tarnishment,
anti-branders do not introduce or produce poor quality products/ser-
vices; in fact, these efforts rarely involve any physical production beyond
the occasional bumper sticker, t-shirt, or other anti-branding swag. Anti-
brander efforts to establish a negative brand identity are also aimed at
developing a public voice that discusses the many social issues famous
148  S. U. KUCUK

brands are involved in,38 a development that is partially the result of

corporate irresponsibility and public relations failures.39 This resistance
explains why some consumers also felt positively about the images.
Although anti-branding images might have some potential to cause
confusion that leads to brand dilution, the major basis for conflict
in this issue is that some companies see themselves as the only creator
and owner of the brands. In contrast, anti-branding consumers overtly
or implicitly believe that the meanings and metaphors created by these
corporate brands are inevitably part of consumer culture and lives. They
believe that corporate meaning and metaphor systems are intended to
dominate consumer behavior even when they do not consume those
corporate brands. In order to get to the heart of this major problem,
the following section focuses on possible digitally expressed conflicts
between consumers and companies about the current approaches to
branding.

Sources of Conflicts Between Brand

Dilution and Anti-Branding
It is clear that there could be some conflicting and complex issues with
using traditional dilution perspectives to examine the current digitally
promulgated anti-branding activities. Without understanding the pos-
sible conflicts, markets cannot achieve a better functioning branding
system in the future. The major root causes of these conflicting views
can be examined as questions about the rights of corporations and
anti-branders in digital media and the marketplace:

Trademark Rights v. Free-Speech Rights

The legality of anti-branding activities lies in a nebulous area between
corporate trademark rights and the free-speech rights of consumers.
Although corporations try to protect their trademarked brands and limit
the use of brand semiotics, consumer anti-branders argue that they are
simply informing society about corporate wrongdoing and practicing
their free-speech rights when using trademarked corporate images. This
issue, in general, divides into two issues: (1) domain name issues and
(2) Web site content or semiotic similarity between diluting speech and
trademarked brands.
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  149

1. Consumers need to know the digital address of their consumption

destinations—hence the domain names of brand Web sites. Web
site domain names are essential online branding tools. Many con-
sumers and third parties use a brand name as part of an anti-brand
Web site domain name in order to hurt corporate brand identity
and express consumer anger and frustrations (e.g., Safeway.com
becomes Shameway.com, and Starbucks.com becomes Starbucked.
com40). These domain names can be seen as obvious examples
of brand dilution cases as they use similar brand names in their
domain names. However, courts have denied these dilution claims
as the anti-brand Web site is not profiting from this usage but is
instead complaining about those brands and exercising their free-
dom of speech rights.41 Even though it is well established that
mere use of a domain name does not establish that it is being used
as a trademark, courts and arbitrators seem willing to presume that
domain name use does constitute trademark use for cybersquatting
and domain name dispute cases. In the USA, the bad faith use of
a targeted brand name with the intent to profit was condemned
by the “Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act” (ACPA)
in 1999 [15 U.S.C. § 1125(d)]. Thus, any economic gain from
using a confusingly similar and dilutive trademark in a domain
name is prohibited. However, in the vast majority of anti-brand-
ing cases, the courts find criticism is a legitimate interest and allow
continued use of domain names that contain an imitation of a well-
known trademark and which are also clearly criticism sites, such as
Walmartsucks.com.
2. Trademark rights aim to provide protection to both company
brands and consumers. Without trademarks, consumers might
not have clues about product quality. From a company point of
view, trademark laws protect their brand semiotics from infringe-
ment and free riding, preventing the unfair use of registered brand
symbols and signs by competitors.42 Although this provides some
protection for a brand against competitors with bad faith (a com-
pany-to-company relationship level), it says little about the possi-
ble protection of a brand in a conflict between the company and
its consumers. Consumers who raise their complaints and concerns
on their own Web sites or in their own social networking spaces
cannot technically be considered competitors; rather, they are
150  S. U. KUCUK

individuals trying to inform fellow consumers and society. Thus, it

seems trademark protection has less to do with consumer protec-
tion than with company brand semiotics.

Further, although anti-branders may intend to hurt a famous mark, they

do not generally gain any financial benefit for themselves. Anti-branding
consumers take these kinds of actions mostly because of altruistic or
other profitless reasons; frequently, they believe that the society they
live in should not have to be challenged by the actions of the targeted
brands and companies.43 Some of them use parody to convey their mes-
sage. Such usage (parodying and criticism) and more (fair usage of mark,
comparison for consumers, all form of news reporting, and noncommer-
cial usage) are also excluded from brand dilution rulings [15 U.S.C. §
1125 (c) (3)] to protect free-speech rights. However, there are still some
dangers in front of consumer voice and free-speech rights. Because of
the Internet’s democratic architecture, it is sometimes difficult to figure
out who is behind these anti-branding images. It is always a possibility
that competitors of the targeted brand could be behind an anti-brand-
ing image development process, intending to bully the targeted brand
even though there is no legitimate reason (examples of “paid-blog-
gers” or “paid consumers”). And, there is no mention about this issue
in the related US code about exclusions. Although the FTC’s Guides
Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising
(16 C.F.R. Part 255) require the disclosure of the full names of
paid-bloggers and advertisers, this might not be applicable to anti-brand-
ers. Clearly, this should not mean that consumer voice and free-speech
rights should be taken away.
In other words, the actions of anti-branders should not be challenge-
able under trademark or dilution laws as they are practicing their First
Amendment rights and they do not gain any economic benefits44 as long
as they have no direct and indirect competitor support.
In general online, anti-branding activities are indicators of major con-
flicts in a market, as described by Katyal (2010, p. 836): “a major con-
flict between two different kinds of markets; the market of economic value
(goods and property), and the market of meaning and metaphor”. Many
anti-branders argue that trademark laws give corporations too much cul-
tural power and control45 and that corporate semiotic power in modern
markets should be reduced or shared with everybody for the sake of a
well-balanced semiotic democracy. With the power-equalizing effects of
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  151

Table 6.1  Evolution of brand ownership

Company domain Consumer domain Public domain

Commercial Company owned Company owned Company owned

ownership
Cultural ownership Company owned Consumer owned or Shared with
Negotiated everybody
Ownership elements Physical and Emotional Emotional
emotional
Personhood Company generated Consumer generated Publicly generated
generation (positive or negative)
The way to possess By initiating By forming By sharing

the Internet, companies are now forced to learn to share their brands
with consumers (as “ownership” of a brand evolves from company to
consumer and finally to the “Public Domain”, as indicated in Table 6.1).
Understanding the relationships between semiotic democracy, free-
speech rights, and philosophies of trademark ownership is essential for
effectively discussing this issue.
Although recent court decisions supporting anti-branding activities,
unless they directly profit from the anti-branding activities, are a very
positive development for free speech; these rulings also lead corporations
to do more brand surveillance for possible trademark infringements.46
The main corporate argument is that the misuse of trademarked sym-
bols might cause consumer confusion, enabling this issue to be handled
as a dilution issue.47 Moreover, if corporations fail to prosecute trade-
mark infringements that failure is considered evidence of abandonment
of that trademark.48 Complicating the issue, many fan sites are filled with
unauthorized copies of brand images and videos. Allowing consumer fan
sites to freely use trademark symbols, while also policing anti-branding
efforts, is a significant legal dilemma for corporations. Logically, it would
seem that corporations should either protect their brand rights in both
fan and anti-brand sites, or they should do neither (if they want a con-
sistent policy). Free speech is established for the benefit of all in soci-
ety; thus, a corporation cannot (or should not) attack sources practicing
their free-speech right only when it does not agree with them. Although
recent court decisions continue to protect free-speech rights, it is clear
there is still a need for legal changes that re-balance property and free-
speech rights.
152  S. U. KUCUK

Brand Dilution v. Consumer Creativity

Trademarks are believed to provide brand information that facilitates the
consumer decision-making process and reduces consumer search costs
and confusions by semiotically distinguishing brands from each other.49
Differential distinctiveness among alternative brands is generally created
by building a distinct brand identity. This is described by Beebe (2008,
p. 63) as follows:

…consumers communicate with each other by the objects they consume…

The trademark system has developed as an alternative language of con-
sumption, and its development has been rapid indeed. No other language
in history, and certainly no other language of distinction, has experienced
such explosive growth, both extensively and intensively, in so short a time.

Although corporations invented, the current brand language consum-

ers are the ones who are more actively developing and generating brand
literature, especially through the Internet. Anti-branders differentiate
themselves from their target brands by using creative counter-semiotic
branding tactics to propagate their conception of the brand identity.
Corporate ownership and total control of brands might kill the creativ-
ity behind these counter-semiotic brand meaning and identities, which
might eventually bring the original brand to an end through a “last-re-
sort” consumer refusal to engage with it. Trademark laws give corpora-
tions too much cultural control, denying the consumer a contribution or
response to the brand meaning creation process. Clearly, questions can
be raised as to how and why consumer anti-branding activities should be
considered brand dilution-confusion, brand creativity, or both.
Although trademark laws aim to protect a brand from free riders and
counterfeiters who copycat unique brand symbols and blur corporate
brand meanings50; anti-branders take the stance that they are protect-
ing consumers by informing the public about corporate wrongdoings.
However, the current legal system empowers, even obligates, corpora-
tions to preserve trademarks at all costs, and is closing the door to better
consumer protections in rapidly evolving digital markets.
When a brand becomes generic the court assumes the brand is leaving
the company domain and entering the public domain, thus dilution can-
not be an issue for generic brands. At that point, corporate brands shift
most of the brand rights to the whole society (as indicated in Table 6.1,
“Brand Ownership and Identity” rows).
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  153

Such “dilution v. Creativity” issues have opened some very heated

court discussions about domain name usage. As discussed in previ-
ous sections, every Web site has a unique domain name, essentially a
brand, and a unique identifier of the ownership of that digital platform.
However, some anti-brand domain names can be seen as misleading and
thus dilutive.
At this point, it is necessary to make a distinction between cyberpi-
rates and cybersquatters that attract traffic from branded Web sites
by registering similar domain names. The cyberpirate goal is to redi-
rect Internet traffic to their Web sites to sell their version of a product
or service. Anti-branders are neither cyberpirates nor cybersquatters,
even though some people use these strategies to attack targeted brands.
Anti-branders do not use similar domain names with a bad faith intent
to profit, but instead for criticism and parody. Similarly, US courts have
decided that complaint or anti-branding sites are not likely to confuse
consumers since the site is not run on a bad faith use of domain names
(TMI, Inc. v. Maxwell, 368 F. 3d 433—Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit
2004),51 thus dilution claims are not fully supported. Furthermore, cre-
ativity is used with good faith and could not be seen as dilutive. Yet, the
current law is not clear on how to differentiate anti-branders from oth-
ers, and thus how to differentiate dilution intent from consumer creativ-
ity—a differentiation aimed at protecting consumer rights and enriching
market democracy. The current legal system needs to be updated to pro-
tect market creativity and not just company creativity and to find a bal-
ance between market creativity and property rights that does not damage
consumer creativity.

Creator’s Rights v. Attributor’s Rights

Corporations develop brand identities that match or at least approximate
the identities of targeted consumers. If the brand identity does not fit
consumers, they either switch brands or try to adjust the company-gen-
erated identity to fit it to theirs; alternatively, consumers may also mod-
ify their own identity to fit the brand meanings. When consumers adjust
or change the cultural meanings and codes of company-generated iden-
tity, they are, in fact, claiming ownership of the cultural meanings. Thus,
there is a link between consumer identity and consumer ownership.
Applicable here is Friedrich Hegel, a philosopher who discussed just
such a link between ownership and identity/personhood. A Hegelian
154  S. U. KUCUK

point of view links property rights, specifically intellectual property

rights, with personhood (hence “personality” and “identity”), and
defines the property of embodiment or personification as the expres-
sion of a free self, as indicated in the “Cultural and Brand Ownership
Elements” rows in Table 6.1.52 Hughes (1997, p. 153) discusses this
connection as follows: “the relationship between object and creator is where
personality is visible”. This is how anti-branders “own” a brand identity
or claim cultural ownership of the brand. A Hegelian perspective, in gen-
eral, grants ownership rights to the creator. The more the ownership of
something is connected with the personality of its creator, the stronger
the ownership and entitlement.53 This is described by Hegel (1952,
p. 51) as:

“Property is the embodiment of personality and the first embodiment of

freedom. It is only when one possesses property that one can act freely and
independently in an objective sphere outside the self”.

In modern digital markets, the corporate value of brand building activi-

ties is generated in direct partnership with consumers, which eventually
gave birth to the Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic) conceptualization
in modern marketing.54 Market value can only be created by interact-
ing with consumers; thus, it can only be co-created by resource (corpo-
ration) and consumer together55 (see the “The way to possess” row in
Table 6.1). Production and consumption traditionally play distinct roles
for both consumers and companies in older economic systems, but such
distinct roles have started to converge and mix in a new way in which
consumers and companies can unite, working and creating together.56
But, as yet consumers receive little recognition even though companies
greatly benefit from this partnership. Although this kind of ownership
sharing is more legitimate for intellectual copyrights, in light of the
Hegelian perspective, companies can be seen as the original creators of
a brand, and consumers, through their personhood rights, transform the
original brand with their active involvement in the digital marketplace.
Similarly, in the traditional corporate understanding bad consumers
are defined as those who provide negative feedback or agitate against
the company and its brands. However, in modern digitally mediated
markets bad consumers should be defined as the ones who do not share
any feedback with a company—not even negatively and publically. Not
responding to critics or neglecting possible modification opportunities or
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  155

collaborations with consumers might bring a brand to an end.57 Thus,

in an anti-branding context consumers are a necessary feedback source
and serve as secondary creators of targeted trademark signs and symbols.
Anti-branders are expressing and exercising their personhood through
claiming counter-cultural ownership of the targeted brands. In summary,
a company can be the original creator or initiator of a brand idea and
identity, but the consumer is the one who consumes those created mean-
ings, reshaping and re-forming the meanings and symbols through their
consumption (as indicated in “The way to possess” row in Table 6.1).
Thus, anti-branders can be considered as secondary creators or attrib-
utors—people who contribute to the existing work and develop their
own versions through using innovative meanings and codes. In terms of
creating collective brand meanings and communications, the Internet is
the biggest cultural melting pot ever. Although corporations have legal
and financial control over their brand meanings consumers are gaining
more emotional and cultural ownership (as also indicated in the “iden-
tity/cultural ownership” row in Table 6.1). Kay (2006, p. 747) describes
this as: “Brands are social or cultural “property” (rather than company
property) to the extent that consumers incorporate elements of “brand
meaning” into their lives”. There is currently no legal basis for granting
ownership rights to these re-creating consumers. This is a major dilemma
consumers are dealing with now that they communicate digitally. At the
basic level of individual rights and freedoms, blocking or banning con-
sumer efforts and creativity can lead to a devaluation of creative expres-
sion and democratic society, or to the advent of even more subversive
semiotics. This is what anti-branders are trying to bring to the attention
of society. This is the “conscious and deliberate (re)creation of property”
by anti-branders. This will, eventually, enrich and foster market creativity
and democracy. Although this re-creation of property can be seen as dis-
obedience, anarchy, or rebellion, there is also a reality behind all of these
consumer efforts that can bring fresh voices to markets and society.
In general, ownership grants all rights to the creator, or, in this study’s
context, company, and secondary creators or attributors have little or
no ownership rights. Companies are the initiators, but from a Hegelian
perspective consumers become attributors or owners by re-forming
codes and consumption values (“The way to possess” row in Table 6.1).
The ownership earned by forming or re-forming a concept or item also
embodies the creative will and personality of consumers exercising their
free expression rights. In a negative way, anti-branders can be seen as a
156  S. U. KUCUK

main attributor to the brand meaning creation process. They are also
adding their own values and perspectives to an initially company-created
item/object/concept; thus, their creative efforts should be recognized.
From a Hegelian perspective, the more a consumer contributes to the
identity development processes the stronger the ownership claim can be
for consumers.58 Consumers can even be seen as the initiators in some
cases, yet companies are viewed as the true owners of whatever was cre-
ated by consumers if it relates to the brands that company owns. From a
consumer perspective, this seems unfair and might also negatively affect
market creativity and development.
In copyright law, the concept of a secondary or attributor creator is
based on a more legitimate platform called “fair use”. Katyal (2010,
p. 815) discusses this as follows: “Within copyright law, works that assim-
ilate previous texts are considered derivate; works that transform previous
texts are considered to be fair uses”. The fair use concept does not say that
if your work has negative notations it cannot be considered as fair use.
Thus, anti-brander creations and attributions can be evaluated as a “fair
use”. In copyright theory, as Haase and Kleinaltenkamp (2011, p. 149)
indicate: “neither a resource nor its attributes are of importance; rather, it
is how an actor makes use of the resource or how the attributes serve him or
her that is important”. This puts both creator and attributor in the same
shoes: a focus on usage. In this context, anti-branders are not taking the
rights of the brands, symbols, etc.; thus, they do not take ownership of
the brand and resource, although they change the meanings by blending
it with their own views and personalities.
It also needs to be further explained that straightforward derivative
works such as a translation of a book into another language are consid-
ered derivative because there is little creativity or originality in creating
the new work. In contrast, a parody used by anti-branders often does
have creativity and originality and therefore constitutes a transforma-
tion rather than a mere copy of the original work. The parody pokes
fun at the original through its own originality. This re-creation might
not have market value, but it is still an original expressive work able
to be valued for its creative merit regardless of whether it has market
value. Diminution of market value is one of the four factors in the US
analysis of copyright fair use, but it is based on whether the second
work substitutes for sales of the first and not whether the market value
of the first is lessened because of the criticism embodied in the deriva-
tive work.
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  157

As a result, it is clear that traditional brand ownership understand-

ing needs a new and transforming perspective, especially if we are to
have better functioning digital markets. Although most anti-brand-
ing activities are seen negatively by corporations and as unethical by
some members of society, these activities create a forum for cultural
and ethical experimentations in the markets. Understanding conflict-
ing consumer and company rights and interests in the intersection of
brand dilution and anti-branding will help brand managers and public
policy makers to discern and implement fairer and better functioning
approaches to the mechanisms of market relationship in digital environ-
ments. Fundamentally, the decisions should be based on whether digital
anti-branding dilution claims eventually threaten consumer welfare and
well-being. Any anti-branding that does not threaten consumer welfare
and well-being—and even some which is—can be mined for creativity
and the more efficient achievement of corporate goals.

Notes
1. Lanham Act (1956) and Federal Trademark Dilution Act (1995).
2. Loken et al. (1986), Loken and Roedder-John (1993), Morrin and
Jacoby (2000), Pulling et al. (2006), and Morrin et al. (2006).
3. Kucuk (2015).
4. Kucuk (2008), Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009), and Kucuk (2010,
2015).
5. Morrin et al. (2006).
6. Pullig et al. (2006).
7. Loken et al. (1986).
8. Morrin and Jacoby (2000).
9. Lovejoy (2011).
10. Loken et al. (1986), Foxman et al. (1990), and Kapferer (1995).
11. Foxman et al. (1992).
12. Morrin and Jacoby (2000) and Pullig et al. (2006).
13. Poiesz and Verhallen (1989) and Brengman et al. (2001).
14. Brengman et al. (2001).
15. Gelb and Zinkhan (1986) and Severn et al. (1990).
16. Brengman et al. (2001).
17. Kucuk (2015).
18. Foxman et al. (1992).
19. Foxman et al. (1990, 1992) and Balabanis and Craven (1997).
20. Foxman et al. (1992), Mitchell et al. (2005), and Brengman et al. (2001).
21. Foxman et al. (1990).
158  S. U. KUCUK

22. Morrin and Jacoby (2000).

23. Morrin et al. (2006).
24. Morrin and Jacoby (2000) and Morrin et al. (2006).
25. Morrin and Jacoby (2000).
26. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1498342.html.
27. Pullig et al. (2006).
28. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-1015.ZO.html.
29. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1498342.html.
30. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tmcases/coca.
htm.
31. Lovejoy (2011).
32. Klein (1999), Lasn (2000), Holt (2002), and Harold (2004).
33. Cherrier (2009) and Hollenbeck and Zinkham (2010).
34. Kucuk (2008) and Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009, 2010, 2015).
35. Holt (2002).
36. Kozinets and Handelman (2004).
37. Kucuk (2015).
38. Thompson et al. (2006), Kucuk (2008), and Krishnamurthy and Kucuk
(2009).
39. Sweetin et al. (2013).
40. Bailey (2004), Kucuk (2008), and Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009).
41. Kopp and Suter (2000).
42. Spinello (2006).
43. Thompson et al. (2006).
44. Kopp and Suter (2000), Katz and Carnahan (2001), Katyal (2006), Kay
(2006), Spinello (2006), Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009), and Katyal
(2010).
45. Spinello (2006).
46. Kucuk (2008), Katyal (2010), and Petty (2012).
47. Katz and Carnahan (2001).
48. Kopp and Suter (2000).
49. Spinello (2006), Beebe (2008), and Manning (2010).
50. Spinello (2006).
51. Petty (2010).
52. Lubochinski (2003) and Spinello (2006).
53. Radin (1982) and Spinello (2006).
54. Vargo and Lusch (2004), Vargo (2009), and Haase and Kleinaltenkamp
(2011).
55. Lusch and Webster (2011).
56. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004).
57. van Noort and Willemsen (2012).
58. Hughes (1997) and Spinello (2006).
 6  LEGALITY OF BRAND HATE: DILUTION V. COLLUSION  159

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 CHAPTER 7

Managing Brand Hate

Abstract  This chapter proposes ideas on how to detect brand hate,

engage in brand hate speech, and negotiate with brand haters and
anti-branders in order to find solutions for market peace. Brand hate
management process is discussed in three distinct steps: (1) Listen;
(2) Engage; and (3) Negotiation. A specific decision algorithm when
dealing with brand haters taking in account of the origin of hate (either
company-related or consumer-related brand hate). Tone and t­iming
of company engagement with brand haters as well as select ­ channel
of engagement are all discussed with cases in detail. Monetary and
non-monetary compensation technics as negotiation practices with brand
haters are discussed. Thus, this final chapter introduces some solution
ideas on how to build better and healthier functioning market commu-
nications and to reset the relationships with brand haters for the benefits
of all.

Keywords  Brand hate · Brand hate management · Market listening

Consumer engagement · Negotiation · Monetary compensation
Timing of engagement

© The Author(s) 2019 163

S. U. Kucuk, Brand Hate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00380-7_7
164  S. U. KUCUK

I do about 50% of my shopping online, and this was easily one of the worst
experiences I had. I hate the feeling of being ripped off and you probably do,
too. Do yourself a favor and shop somewhere else. I wish I had.
Anonymous Consumer

Hate is a natural feeling, like love, and brand hate is as common as brand
love in consumer markets, especially with the advent of empowering dig-
ital communication tools. Thus, either you like it or not, every brand has
haters. Although many companies see haters as a big problem, actually
ignoring them is the bigger problem.1 Interestingly enough, the root
cause of such brand hate is mostly miscommunication between con-
sumers and companies, and most of these problems are predominantly
created by companies’ mismanagement. A study revealed that 80% of
companies think that they deliver superior customer services, while only
8% of consumers think that the same companies deliver superior ser-
vices.2 It is clear that consumers’ expectations and focuses are different
than those of companies, and that difference fuels the hate in markets.
Sometimes it feels like as if consumers are from Venus but companies are
from Mars.
Although brand hate has been ignored and neglected in the past, as
most haters prefer to be silent and unheard, today, consumers’ voices
have started to influence and redefine the relationship between consum-
ers and companies as a result of the digital emancipation of consumer
markets. We have discussed many issues regarding brand hate in pre-
vious chapters. But, there is still a need for constructive discussion on
how to manage consumer brand hate and, in fact, how to transform
that hate into love for the sake of peaceful consumer–company rela-
tionships. Although there is no golden rule for how to transform every
single brand hater into a brand lover, companies should, at least, learn
from these consumers how to manage hateful feelings so that we all can
observe more constructive, fair, and healthy relationships and commu-
nications within the markets. I worry that if the consumers’ hate is not
detected and understood in a timely manner and dealt with properly, the
consumer markets might even fall into a self-destructive mode in our
consumption world. That would be the end of digital markets and econ-
omy as we know it.
No consumer gets mad at a company or brand without a reason.
There is always a problem created either by the misperception of con-
sumers or by the processes of the company. Or, simply, brand could
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  165

ƌĂŶĚ
ŽŶƐƵŵĞƌ ŽŵƉůĂŝŶĞƌ
,ĂƚĞƌ

ϭƐƚ KƉƉŽƌƚƵŶŝƚLJ ϮŶĚ KƉƉŽƌƚƵŶŝƚLJ

ƌĂŶĚ&ĂŝůƵƌĞ ŽŶƐƵŵĞƌ^ĞƌǀŝĐĞ&ĂŝůƵƌĞ

Fig. 7.1  Metamorphosis of brand hater

not deliver the promised values to consumers (as depicted with “Brand
Failure” box in Fig. 7.1). In other words, no consumer will turn into a
complainer all of a sudden. With complaints, consumers are simply tell-
ing you that they are not happy with your operations or business phi-
losophy even though they might still kind of like you. Otherwise, they
wouldn’t waste their time to communicate with you. If the complaining
behavior is not managed well, then you can end up with a hater who
attacks you and your brand in different consumption places (as indicated
with “consumer service failure” box in Fig. 7.1).
In other words, you have already disappointed them twice, and now,
they are standing on a strong base to believe that you deserve their
vicious hate. Furthermore, it is easier to prevent complainers being brand
haters as they have relatively lower level hate and mostly feel low or mild
brand hate. The goal is to fix everything before consumers reach incon-
trollable brand hate levels.
Thus, no complainer turns into hater overnight. If they are treated
unfairly during the complaining process or the process of searching for a
solution fails, either through the help of company or not, they will really
become haters who are seriously willing to take you down. The research
revealed that only 14% of complainants had their problems resolved on
the first contact.3 In other words, 86% of your complainants are ready
166  S. U. KUCUK

to morph into be your hater. Furthermore, complainant satisfaction con-

tinues to decrease to teens.4 If you don’t do something about it, your
unsatisfied complainant soon will be your hater. This is generally the fail-
ure of company’s consumer service department or hence the complaint
response systems. If you don’t know how to handle your complain-
ants’ problems, you are creating haters with your own customer service
department. The importance of consumer service/relationship man-
agement is getting so paramount that some scholars even predict that
marketing as a discipline will eventually have no option but should pre-
dominantly be converging into “consumer service/relationship manage-
ment” concept in the future. Although this can be found as a very bold
statement, some practitioners already claim that “customer service is the
new marketing” (Baer 2016, p. 33).
Although scholars have provided very helpful strategies and tech-
niques for how to deal with increasing consumer complaints in the past,
there are no clear suggestions and strategies for how to handle brand
hate such as this. Companies actually have two important opportunities
to deal with complaining consumers before they turn into brand haters,
as depicted in Fig. 7.1. If the company cannot handle initial complaints,
then consumers will become real complainers and perhaps start talking
with others about their experiences. If the company does not catch these
first signs, the complaining consumers can eventually transform into
brand haters.
From that point when the consumer has their first real feelings of
brand hate, he or she tries to do everything to destroy the brand. In
order to benefit from such opportunities and see the signals that are
coming from consumers, companies must develop advance listening
tools with the help of technology to detect hateful feelings and speeches
before they are deployed into markets. Failing to satisfy consumer com-
plaints means that you are accepting the animosity from the consumer.
Listening tools should focus on both internal listening and initial con-
sumer complaint processes as indicated at the first opportunity, as well
as whole markets if consumers prefer to complain to masses as indicated
with the second opportunity in Fig. 7.1. If you miss the second chance
to fix the problems, perhaps you are accepting that you will have to deal
with the most lethal sort of consumer. Clearly, such a brand hater is not
created overnight. And, now he or she will recruit new followers who are
ready to hate your brand even though they might have loved the brand
if they had option. Thus, taking advantage of these two opportunities is
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  167

very important and is highly dependent on a company’s ability to listen

to markets and detect the hate early.
Once hateful speech is detected, the companies need to develop the
right communication styles to engage in a conversation with their con-
sumers so as to understand the root causes of the hate. Such a conver-
sation can mostly happen on social networking sites in front of other
audiences; this sort of candid and direct communication style will be
more valued. If the communication style does not fit the legal require-
ments of markets, this, in turn, can change the shape and the end results
of communication and engagement efforts. If companies are really trying
hard to get down to the problems and clearly define their and consum-
ers’ misconceptions and miscommunications, they need to develop the
right approach to fixing such problems in order to eliminate the hateful
relationship with their consumers. At this last stage, companies need to
create justice or find fairground where both sides can easily negotiate on
how to fix all the potential emotional and physical damage. Companies
need to understand how consumers perceive justice in their transac-
tional relationships. As discussed in Chapter 1, consumers feel happy
and willing to work with you if justice is served by eliminating all per-
ceived unjust elements at the negotiation stage. The goal at this stage
is to reach a reasonable and a peaceful relationship and a resolution that
provides some level of satisfaction and positivity to both sides. In fact,
the company might then be closer to starting a new and refreshed loving
relationship stage with its consumers. Finally, all these listening, engag-
ing, and negotiating stages are influenced by many external factors such
as technological, social, legal, and economic ones, as pictured in Fig. 7.2.

Listening
Many relationship problems start when you lose communication with
the other side. You have a feeling that the other side is not even listen-
ing. Often, you may feel like you are talking to yourself or talking to a
wall. Everything you say has no meaning and every word comes back
to you without any resolution. In these situations, some people get very
angry and start to fall into a deep hatred if the communication is not
re-established and the problem is not resolved. You cannot help your
consumers if you do not know what they need or with what they are
struggling. Thus, the first step to find out who really talks about you and
hates you, and understand why they do so is to listen to them. Many
168  S. U. KUCUK

LISTEN ENGAGE NEGOTIATE

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Fig. 7.2  Brand hate management process

consumers who are struggling with a brand are in an emotional need to

be heard and they talk. In today’s consumption places, it is now possible
to listen to wider segments of markets to see who is talking negatively
about you and your brands.
There are more people talking on the Internet than in physical envi-
ronments today. They get very vocal about their bad experiences and dis-
satisfactions in remote corners of the Internet or in open public places.
Thus, there are a lot of consumer-initiated conversations happening in
the arenas of digital consumption, both in private and in public review
spaces. In order to understand what your consumers are saying about
you and your brand, it is necessary to develop technologically advanced
listening systems. Companies can search for negative words and sen-
tences appearing with their brand name to see if there is any negative
talk is going on regarding their brands. Some companies are doing this
listening from within their organizations, developing new units under IT
(information technology) departments. Others hire specialist contractors
or companies that have expertise in listening to the markets.
Although some companies do listening manually, simply putting neg-
ative words into search engines to detect negative and hateful conversa-
tion regarding their brands, today’s digital technology allows companies
to listen with automated systems. Companies can now easily collect
information regarding consumer dissatisfaction with advance intelligence
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  169

systems. Consumer intelligence systems, such as speech tracking and

text analysis tools, allow companies to get insights about consumer hate
and common satisfaction problems. In addition to keyword searching,
you can also use Geofeedia to find the geographic location of the neg-
ative speech. Companies definitely need some sort of tracking system in
place in order to follow the evolution of consumers’ brand hate in real
time. The earlier the hate is detected, the better the chance for compa-
nies to build a meaningful communication with consumers to eliminate
all the negativity before it moves from cold hate to cool hate and hot
hate. Analogically speaking, hateful speech is like cancer cells. If they
spread to the whole body, the body eventually collapses. Technologically
agile companies can quickly detect hate targeted to them and start a
communication with the hateful consumer to stop the fire before it
spreads throughout the market. Without technologically advanced mar-
ket intelligence and listening systems in place, companies will be blind
and deaf, and hence find themselves in the darkness with their haters.
Furthermore, such listening efforts can help you see that if the hate is
actually coming from a real person or from a troll or from a review-
farm or from a competitor-associated source such as a paid-blogger.
Authentication of the negative voice in early stages of listening process
will eventually help you to determine either you need to help a disgrun-
tled consumer or deal with some sort of illegal information dissemination
effort targeting your brand.
On the other hand, some consumers will come to the company with
a complaint and ask for help. If the company does not handle such com-
plaints and fix the problems in real time, consumers leave the company
behind, and, in fact, their anger might eventually turn into deeply burn-
ing hate. Thus, companies need to develop strong relationships with
consumers. Every company needs to use good quality “consumer rela-
tionship management” (CRM) systems. You need to upgrade your CRM
systems regularly to maintain depth in your relationship with consumers.
CRM will help you to develop understanding and a strong communi-
cation culture with your consumers. Consumer service personnel should
be trained to truly understand the results of their misbehavior during
communication with returning consumers. Companies that struggle
with hateful consumer remarks and behaviors need to develop a con-
sumer-centric business culture to eliminate all sorts of mishandling and
miscommunication with regard to consumers. You need to analyze each
returning consumer in detail. Why are they complaining? How do they
170  S. U. KUCUK

bring their complaint to you? What types of communication style do

they like? What kinds of additional tools and solutions do you need to
fix potential problems? How can you help consumers in a quick and dil-
igent way? How can you make consumer experience with the company
smoother and easier? You cannot answer these questions if you do not
know your consumers. Thus, having analytically strong and state-of-the-
art CRM systems will help you to understand the changes in consumers’
emotional needs!
Many companies act quickly and integrate new technologies into their
systems. Companies need to be one step ahead of consumers. They need
to talk with consumers all the time, even though there may be no com-
plaint and when there are signs of positive consumer experiences. You
need to eliminate any communication barriers between your consumer
and your brand. In the past, marketing listening was like listening to
your friends and peers, but in today’s digital age, you need to listen and
understand your consumers like you listen to your kids. This kind of lis-
tening will open the door to a better relationship and socialization with
your consumers, engaging with them and figuring out the root causes of
any problems.
Although listening can be very helpful for a company, it should not
be invasive. Consumer privacy should be always a top priority and under-
stood well by the company. Some consumer haters might carry out very
violent and criminal actions targeting the company and the brand, as
described with the anarchist haters; the company might need to start
legal action against such haters. Thus, there is always a legal side to lis-
tening to consumers. In general, technology used to listen for consumer
haters will eventually help companies to build positive social relationships
with consumers in a legal and moral way (indicated with dark arrows in
Fig. 7.2), which will eventually open the door to peaceful market com-
munications and relationships.

Engagement
Listening is only the first step in engaging your consumers and under-
standing what is bothering them. Starting an engaging conversation with
disappointed consumers will help you to understand the potential ante-
cedents and reasons for the hate the consumer feels about you and your
brand. So, engagement means not only listening to your consumers but
also talking with them so as to understand their problem and to figure
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  171

out the reasons for their dissatisfaction, anger, and hate. The first rule of
engagement is to be sincere and to be willing to understand and solve
the consumer problem. But, how to engage to the consumer who’s been
burning with negative feelings about you and your brand is very difficult
duty. It is clear that reactive engagement with these kinds of consumers
will have limited and short-lived effects, while proactive and considerate
engagement will have stronger and perhaps long-term positive effects
on the consumer. Thus, it is very important to determine the right code
of engagement tone through right communication channels at a timely
fashion on the base on the level of consumer brand hate. In other words,
such an engagement process can be discussed in threefold: “tone of
engagement”, “channel of engagement”, and “timing of engagement”.
In short, the question is “in which capacity”, “through which chan-
nel” and “when” should a company engage into its potential and actual
haters.

Tone of Engagement
Listening is a one-sided function, but engagement is a social process and
it happens between two or more sides. Every hater needs to be heard
and expects some sort of response. But, the question is how to introduce
the most appropriate, comforting, and helpful response to consumer
before the hate progresses and reaches uncontrollable levels. Some con-
sumers are perhaps searching for answers regarding their perception of
unfairness and truth, while some others are already passed those levels;
thus, they further are looking for revenge. Thus, the tone of engagement
with consumers can vary depending on consumer’s level of brand hate,
and this, in turn, determines the nature of the engagement process and
the future of the relationship with the consumer.
I will discuss the engagement process in four major elements. First,
you always need to show some empathy to complainant and potential
hater in early stages. Most of the haters complaint that nobody really
tries to listen to and understand them. Thus, every hater cries for dialec-
tic communication and empathy. Furthermore, even a reasonable person
can sometimes fall into their anger and hate, and can’t realize how hurt-
ful and unreasonable they become. You might consider mirroring their
hate to them to waken the good inside them. If there is more bad than
good inside them, you might want to drop them, especially the ones
who are compulsive complainers and constant problem creators without
172  S. U. KUCUK

a reason. One way to do is to verify the authenticity of information used

in haters’ rhetoric to make sure that such feelings are genuine and not
coming from your competitors or any other third party.

Dialectic Empathy
The engagement process is not like a high school debate where you try
to prove to your consumers that you are right, and they are wrong. No
matter if the consumer is in mild, moderate, or severe brand hate level,
engagement communication should not be authoritative and demand-
ing. Your engagement effort should be carried out in a mutually respect-
ful manner. Do not blame your consumers. Try to understand what is
really the problem is. They have every right to think the way they want
to think. You need to focus on consumer’s own bad experience and try
to understand the consumer’s point of difference from your brand mean-
ings and business policies. Using catch phrases that lack understanding
will not be received well by the hater. They are not your ordinary con-
sumers and they won’t be settled with simple phrases such as “sorry,
that’s our policy”. Majority of the complainants expect the company to
listen to them sincerely and show some effort to understand the prob-
lem and be treated with dignity.5 Complainant and/or potential hater
wants the company to see the problem in his/her shoes, and company
should show some empathy to really learn from the consumer. Most
importantly, where they see unfairness with the brand during their rela-
tionships, 58% of the consumers say that they just want to express their
anger and tell their side of the story to the company.6 Thus, don’t forget
the fact that they are angry with you and you can’t fix the anger with
anger. Furthermore, showing empathy doesn’t mean that your consumer
is right. There will be times that you might think that your consumers
perhaps wrong about their outcry, complaints, and hateful feelings. But,
if you don’t show empathy and try to understand their problems, either
caused by the consumers or you, you will end up losing the communica-
tion control which will plant the seeds of progressing brand hate in the
future.

Hate Mirroring
When the conversation progresses with your hater, you might consider
engaging them through mirroring their behaviors so that they can also
see where they are in terms of hateful feelings.
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  173

Your hater, in this way, might come to a realization and/or some level
of wakening and awareness regarding their negative feelings. Mirroring
shouldn’t focus on how to embarrass your consumer, but should focus
on how to make them realize that they are leaving the norm. They could
be totally right or justify their anger, but you can’t learn more about the
root causes of their hate if you at some point can’t lower the heat. For
example, recently, the actor Shia LaBeouf got really tired of the negativ-
ity and hate that is targeted at him on social media and invited all of the
hateful or angry people to meet with him and talk about such negativity.
In a café, he put a paper bag on his head on which was written “I am
not famous anymore”. He wanted to talk with these people in a one-on-
one situation and he printed out all the malicious and hateful tweets and
put them into a bowl. He asked some people to just come and read the
comments while he sat there with a very broken and apologetic manner.
Although he expected that some people would come there and be very
mean to him because of what he had been reading about himself, he was
surprised to see that everything changed when people got into the café.
He said people stopped looking at him as an object but started to see
him as a normal human being. He indicated that the whole thing turned
into a very loving situation. His analysis is interesting, as he thinks the
other people were also in the same situation as him and they had people
who hated them. They wanted to make a mark and make online com-
ments because they suffer the same thing, and they try to be noticed
and singled out from others. This, in fact, indicates a lack of attention
and love, according to Mr. LaBeouf.7 This simple experiment also shows
that once you have had a chance to find a way to engage in such haters’
worlds, you might be able to find some human touch and loving rela-
tionship with the people. Thus, companies need to focus on how fair-
ness is perceived in consumer–brand relationship during the engagement
process, and should train their employees about the meaning and value
of tolerance for their business accordingly. If employees reveal empathy
and listen to consumers in an engagement process, this somewhat pain-
ful process opens new avenues to positive and likeable consumer–brand
relationship.
Alternatively, you can also reflect some positive relationship examples
with your favorite and loyal consumers to your hater. Although the well-
known cliché, “love is the medicine of hate”, might not provide a solu-
tion all the time, this could be a persuasive approach for the haters who
174  S. U. KUCUK

are at the early stages of brand hate hierarchy such as mild brand hate.
Company can highlight the positive relationship with its loyal consum-
ers with examples when it is dealing with its haters so that company can
also develop a road map to positive relationship with its haters. This kind
of positive reflection should be in a mentality and tone that tells your
hater that “positive relationship is possible so why don’t we work on our
relationship together” rather than creating sharp and jealousy stimulat-
ing mind-set such as “see we have nice consumers too, thus your hate
doesn’t bother us”. The second one can, in fact, increase the hate more
than it is necessary when it is not to handle well as it is based on jealousy
rather than positive reflection.

Authenticity Verification
There is always a danger that some of the hateful messages are circulat-
ing in the markets perhaps disseminated by trolls, review-farms, or from
paid-blogger who works for your competitors or your adversaries. If you
can’t determine the source of the negativity targeting your brand, that
could mean that there is someone out there and seeding hate targeting
you. At this time, we don’t know how much of the targeted hate gen-
erated in today’s markets is genuine and coming from original sources
or from machines or another company or paid consumers. The 2016
Presidential Election in the USA is the best example of this. It is believed
that one foreign adversary of the USA purposely disseminated negative
and false information regarding the candidate they think that can be
more hurtful to their national agenda. Most of the hate speech and hate
semiotics are developed in digital format and deployed in the Facebook
and other social media to target specific demographics who are unde-
cided as well as who are also more receptive to this kind of hateful rhet-
oric to influence their choice. Although it is, at least at this point, not
clear how much of this kind of hate-farming affected the election, it is,
however, clear that such targeted hate can easily get raised exponentially
and artificially to raise to uncontrollable levels.
For example, companies that are in aggressive competition can use
anti-branding activities against each other directly and indirectly because
negative consumer voices can spread to whole markets in a heart-
beat. Unsurprisingly, companies can secretly support the anti-­branders
of a rival, potentially receiving economic benefits from the possible
damage to their rivals. From a legal point of view, this can be treated
as economic sabotage. Legally, consumers who receive cash or in-kind
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  175

payment to review and talk about products and brands must disclose
such endorsements (FTC 16 CFR Part 255, “Guides Concerning the
Use of Endorsement and Testimonials in Advertising”). Thus, the FTC’s
recently revised guidelines are intended to eliminate the chance of bad
faith and unethical usage of anti-branding activities in the markets. But,
the companies’ close watch of unsubstantiated negative information is
the only option to detect and deter these kinds of damaging competition
in the digital markets. Thus, companies need to verify the authenticity
and the source of each negative claim and information, and go after such
artificially generated hate so that they can protect their reputation which
is unfairly under attack. This also helps companies to focus on right
issues rather than fake and unrelated complaints without wasting any
more effort. In any scenario, the company can take legal actions against
such bullying efforts targeting their brand.
As also discussed earlier, many anti-branding hate images are claimed
to be believed by the companies that focus on brand dilution efforts;
thus, they are the case of brand identity infringement. But, this is seen
as an expression of social and political issues of disgruntled consumers,
rather than an imitation or corruption of corporate brand meanings.
Many corporations try to control the creation of brand meanings, but we
are living in a sharing economy, and in today’s reality, it is essential that
corporations share such meanings and understand the easily blurred line
between intellectual property rights and free speech during their interac-
tions with disgruntled and hateful consumers. Companies need to study
these differences carefully. Otherwise, they are in jeopardy of being seen
as a major source of aggression in the marketplace.
On the other hand, it is also possible that some anti-branding efforts
might not reflect the actual truth about the company which is the tar-
get of negative criticism. It is possible that the information presented
by some of the anti-branders could be intentionally or unintentionally
biased and misleading. Companies should follow up on these communi-
cations and find out the ways in which anti-branding images are, or are
not, true. This pursuit of truth and accuracy will eventually help digital
markets to achieve a clean and ethical consumer voice and to be healthy
communication platforms. Companies should also examine whether the
anti-brander is using diluting behaviors for their profit or whether they
are instead raising their voice in order to inform society. Companies also
need to realize that even though they might create or initiate a brand,
consumer attributes will give them valuable information, even when a
176  S. U. KUCUK

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Fig. 7.3  Algorithm of brand hate management

response is negative. A constant struggle for companies is how to convert

negative publicity into positive communication. Thus, a company should
analyze the level and nature of the dilution (tarnishment or blurring) and
examine the consumer creativity. A company should focus on developing
strategies to benefit from anti-branders, just as they benefit from their
brand fans.
As a result, fact-checking and authenticity verification through talking
with your hater will tell you either you are dealing with a real person/
hater and a real problem or you are dealing with fake or unsubstantiated
negative claims (as also pictured with “verification” box in Fig. 7.3). In
either way, you should not leave your haters alone and hence take all the
precautionary legal and operational steps to protect your brand as you
never know when these fake haters can blow you down like a sea mine
left unattended.

Lunatic Discharging
While some problems are fixable, some others are not. When they are
dealing with haters, companies need to prioritize the fixable problems
with their consumers and clearly explain why they cannot fix the one that
might play a role in consumer hate. Companies need to accept the fact
that the most company-related hate antecedents are actually fixable in
the eyes of consumers, and thus that could be the battle the company
should focus on. Thus, there is a need to analyze the consumer person-
ality traits in the early stages of consumer hate to determine how much
of the problem caused by company and how much of them are coming
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  177

from the consumer. As discussed in the brand hate antecedents chapter,

consumer brand hate can also be generated by consumer personality-­
related factors. It is almost impossible to win with narcissistic consumers
as they think that their hate is justified no matter what. Represent your
facts in a professional and effective way, and hope that your narcissistic
hater understands what is going on, but that won’t be the case in most
of the time. Thus, if the company realizes that the hate is a result of con-
sumer’s personality disorders, then the company might stop engaging
with these consumers in a professional manner as that is most likely not
the company’s fault but rather the consumer’s own personal problems as
also illustrated in Fig. 7.3.
Similarly, Jay Baer, the author of the “Hug Your Hater”, discusses
this issue in his book with an interview with Matt Gentile, who is
Century21’s global director of social media. Mr. Gentile discusses how
they handle these kinds of consumers as follows:

If the conversation online takes a turn that is unacceptable and beyond

pale, we’ll do research into person. We’ll try to find out a little bit about
them and understand what they are saying on their Facebook pages and
Twitter. Are we dealing with somebody who’s kind of a serial complainer?
Is it something where there’s not a lot of validity in terms of the complaint
right out of the gate? If you can see what they’ve made complaints to fifty
other brands in the past thirty days, well, that’s good indication that you
are probably prioritize that person in a different manner. (Baer 2016,
p. 50)

Thus, it is also clear that you cannot fix consumers’ personality prob-
lems; thus, you need to find a way to leave the conversation peacefully
without letting down your audiences as some of your own and potential
consumers are watching what is going on. In this context, dashed lines
in Fig. 7.3 indicate the limited engagement effects. Limited engagement
means less involvement with the consumer but a situation nonetheless
of watching closely in case they or the consumer group/s create nega-
tive effects unfairly, so that the company can take legal and social action
before such problems reach unexpected and undesired levels in the mar-
ket. Or, alternatively, the company can drop the whole relationship with
the consumer. Recently, Tesla canceled an unreasonably complaining and
somewhat hateful consumer’s order, justifying its decision by saying that
if our company is that terrible why do you keep buying stuff from us?8
Even this example is a good case which shows that your haters perhaps
178  S. U. KUCUK

need your attention and at some point your love during your relationship
with them.
However, dropping a hateful consumer could be a case where the
brand is in high demand, and there are fewer alternatives as the company
is perceived as very innovative and pioneering entity in the market. But,
it might not be the case for all other brands. Thus, the company should
be very careful and realistic about how much of the hate is created by
them and how much of it comes from consumers themselves, or perhaps
from competitors. However, it is possible that calculation of the magni-
tude and reasons of brand hate can be misleading or biased by the com-
pany, as such hate can be generated by a company’s misperception of the
problem. Either way, it is the company that should initiate the discussion
and find a negotiation and resolution pattern to eliminate such hateful
feelings.

Channel of Engagement
If you do not know how to engage through a right communication
channel, everything you have said will eventually backfire. Thus, the
choice of communication channel can eventually set the tone of your
conversation as well. A research revealed that 75% of consumers use
three or more communication channels to interact with companies
regarding their complaints.9 Thus, responding to consumers through
every channel they use increases your chances to engage to their lives
and problems they are dealing with. Although complainants actively use
telephone as a primary channel to complain, consumer complaining in
digital world as a form of posting negative reviews in public platforms is
steadily increasing.10
Every communication channel has different impact and role on con-
sumers’ perception on company’s sincerity on the complained issue. For
example, reaching out to an angry and hateful consumer with an email
or telephone call right after service failure has different impacts on the
consumer than talking with her/him on publicly in an online forum
later in time. Following up a hateful consumer remark on Twitter with
a telephone call right after a bad consumer experience will be perceived
as a sincere and an honest effort, rather than sending an apology email
or posting a comment in social media after a week. In general, email
and telephone calls are private communication tools, and if you use
these tools with your consumers upon a personal complaint through
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  179

a public channel, you could be perceived as sincere and understand-

ing. Communicating through these private channels, at least, indicates
that you care and willing to work with the consumer (assuming that
the company try to work with consumer together to fix the problem at
the heart of the hate). Responding to the same consumer’s complaint
through public channels and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter,
might not be seen as sincere as private channels. Although you can con-
tinue talking or discussing the complaint issue of disgruntled consumer
and other consumers might think that you perhaps are transparent and
trustworthy, the hater who is the subject of this communication might
find this kind of code of engagement not suiting. If you are wrong and
you are communicating through social media, accept the responsibility
through a public channel where the issue is raised, and perhaps com-
municate with the consumer through private channels as well to regain
your hater. If you are engaging through public channels and if you
found some evidence points out that the complaining consumer might
have some repeating behaviors and extreme personality differences, you
should never put such sensitive information out in public and embrace
them publicly. Embarrassing a complaining consumer in a public chan-
nel is like throwing gas on fire even though consumer is wrong. Your
audience will not like this, and you could be seen as mean and perhaps
abusive. If you receive disgruntled consumers’ message through pri-
vate channels, and you didn’t do your job and hope that the issue goes
away and forgotten, you are making a mistake, because you will be sur-
prised by the disgruntled consumer’s public notices and attacks in vari-
ous online platforms, or at least their negative WOM. If your haters are
unreasonable and disrespectful but you still keep your cool, the audience
will see it and respect you and in fact your consumers’ loyalty could get
stronger. Perhaps, they will see the viciously complaining consumer as an
unreasonable and hateful consumer in your favor.
In other words, if the communication with complainer goes beyond
the private channels such as personal email or telephone call to public
communication tools such as social media, this is an indication that the
complainer is about to morph into a potential hater. In other words, if
the problems could be fixed within private communication channels,
the consumer’s belief in and loyalty to brand could increase. However,
if the needed help came perceivably short through private channels, then
the person can easily morph into a hater and perhaps declares his/her
hate publicly. In this situation, the hater is not only looking for answer
180  S. U. KUCUK

and help regarding the problem but searching for revenge. In the mild
brand hate levels, consumer is probably looking for answers and help,
and hence, the communication stays in private channels; but this could
not be enough for the consumers who are at the moderate and severe
brand hate levels as they are more interested in revenge and public back-
lash targeting the brand. They would probably organize boycotts and
develop anti-branding Web sites to attract more like-minded consumers.
You could analyze these haters’ Web sites and posts in their social media
pages and perhaps try to develop communication through private chan-
nels. Or, alternatively, you can develop your own Web sites to defend
your views and reveal your version of justifications perhaps with a socially
conscious approach to influence the negative public view tried to be
established by these haters. Not every issue is related to service failures,
but social issues as discussed in corporate social irresponsibility anteced-
ents. Carefully handling these issues with your hater on your domain
requires extra work. If you show sincere, factual, and trustworthy
efforts to respond to such hateful remarks, you can even get a chance to
broaden your base of consumers. A professional public relation’s under-
standing and effort will be the key for success.

Timing of Engagement
Timing of engagement with disgruntled consumers is very important as
60% of customers feel waiting to get help during service recovery creates
the greatest harm.11 Similarly, 40% of consumers expect the problem to
be resolved quickly and 30% of them also want to see the resolution in
a single interaction.12 Furthermore, although about 40% of consumers
expect a response in an hour in social media, average company response
time is around five hours.13 Wade Lombard emphasizes their response
time during an interview with Joy Baer as follows: “If we’re talking
about negative stuff, we do have a set response time, and that’s immedi-
ately” (Baer 2016, p. 138). In other words, the later the response gets,
the bigger the consumer hate grows, and it gets costlier for company to
recover from an unsatisfactory consumer–brand relationship. Each prod-
uct and complaint has different time of tolerance in a service failure or in
any type of consumer inquiries. In some industries, an immediate help
and response can be seen as the standard; in some other industries, a
couple of days of delay can be even seen as normal. Although many con-
sumers understand that company needs time to get to the bottom of the
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  181

problems, some consumers can easily get angry and in fact feel betrayal
if the help doesn’t come within their expected period. Thus, compa-
nies should set reasonable time standards to respond to consumers and
resolve the problem before a complainer turns into a hater. One way to
fix this problem could be surveying with consumers to determine limits
of the time of tolerance or any kind of inquiries so that they can update
their consumer relationship management tools accordingly.
Furthermore, recovery time can also influence disgruntled consumers
compensation expectations. A research showed that consumers’ expecta-
tion first increases after a service failure but decreases in the long run.14
Literally, time is money when you are dealing with disgruntled consum-
er’s problems before the complainer morphs into an explosive hater.
Consumers’ time of tolerance can vary depending on the strength of the
consumer–brand relationship. A research showed that first-time consum-
ers have shorter time of tolerance and expect higher compensations while
relational consumers (such as regular or loyal consumers) tolerate longer
waiting time after a service failure.15 The same research found that if the
company passes the relational consumers’ grace period, anger and frus-
trations can be very severe as these consumers feel betrayal. In short, the
first-time consumers need a quick fix while regulars can tolerate delays
better as long as it does not exceed their grace period.
However, there are also consumers and, in fact, investors who are
watching how your company/brand is handling potential consumer–
brand relationship problems in markets. A recent United Airlines scandal
is a good example of how consumer brand hate can spread the mar-
kets like a brush fire. On April 9, 2017, United Airlines (UA) forcefully
removed David Dao, a pulmonologist, from Flight 3411 because the
airlines overbooked his seat. Dr. Dao has nothing to do with this prob-
lem, yet the airlines used very extreme measures and forcefully dragged
him out from the flight. Other passengers who witness this unacceptable
treatment recorded the whole event with their phones. The next day,
the story was everywhere in the social media and in major cable news
as everybody expressing their unbelief and hate toward UA. Dr. Dao’s
voice and screams literally haunted me all day long since there was no
escape from this scene as I saw the video over and over again everywhere
I turned my head. My shock was transformed anger when I actually real-
ized that I could be the one who is dragged forcefully from my seat even
though I paid my ticket and did nothing wrong. To make things worse,
the reason behind this violent act was to open a space for one of the
182  S. U. KUCUK

UA’s own employees. This is an astonishing example that shows how

things can get out of control in a short period and consumer brand hate
and outrage can reach surprising levels.
The video even created an outrage and furor in international markets
specifically in China where most of the international flights directed to
by UA. Millions of people all around the world watched this video over
and over again, and every time people hear the voice of this unlucky pas-
senger’s scream, the stock prices of UA is dipped further. UA’s stocks
nosedived and it is claimed that UA lost $1.4 billion worth of stock value
in a day or so.16 Things happen in a very fast way that UA totally lost
control of its own brand message. Every time people hear this passen-
ger’s helplessness either on TV or in a social media video, a new boycott
and protest site is opened, and millions watched this horrific event by the
end of the day. Every time people saw this passenger’s bloody face on
the screen, UA lost another loyal passenger of own. The CEO’s apolo-
gies and promises were late compared to how fast consumer negativity
disseminated into the markets. A few days later, UA offered $500 travel
vouchers to passengers of the flight but that didn’t ease the fire, as this is
perceived very insincere. This transactional approach is seen as denial of
the seriousness of the problem and is perceived as a cold-hearted busi-
ness approach. In a few weeks, United CEO finally publicly promised
major policy changes. Airport and enforcement authorities also promised
to investigate their policies and overhaul their procedures to create better
and fair consumer experiences for all. But, these are all $1.4 billion late.
Thus, if a company/brand engages with its current and potential
future consumers in a right tone and develops a positive and understand-
ing communication through right channels at the right time, then the
company/brand is in a better position to find a way to control and/or
to stop spreading the hate speech to the whole market, and can also start
discussing potential solutions or negotiation with consumers on how to
fix the problems before turning into hateful feelings. This issue will be
discussed in the following negotiation stage.

Negotiation
Economics of hate is at the heart of negotiation with consumers. This
also has legal aspects, as some compensations are mandated by law (as
also indicated by the “economic” box and arrows in Fig. 7.2).
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  183

Today’s economic systems are defined as a “sharing economy”.

Consumers share their experiences, emotions, feelings, ideas, and their
creation of meaning systems on the Internet. This includes negative
experiences and feelings about corporate brands, as discussed in this
book. Furthermore, our economic systems are becoming more affected
by increasingly expressive and negative consumer emotions, and hence,
I want to define this new economic influencer as “emotional economy”.
But, the question remains: What is the economic value of these negative
experiences and consumer hate in today’s economic structure? I think
the answer to this question is that the economic value of these consumer
creations is equal to the amount of brand equity they take away from
the brand they hate. As indicated in negative double jeopardy research,
brand value erosion created by anti-branders through impacting an orig-
inal brand’s reputation and image might have some economic impact on
the targeted brands.17 This emotional brand erosion sometimes can have
a greater damage to the brand’s intangible assets rather than brand’s
book value or the company’s tangible assets.
In other words, if companies do not understand the impact of hateful
feelings on the brand and company, they can’t develop the right cop-
ing strategies to recover from this hate. All of the approaches discussed
in the above engagement processes require investment into the develop-
ment of functioning compensation systems. Otherwise, company might
pay the big price as loss of brand value. Companies need to save money
and develop compensation systems to fix the potential hate problems as
outcomes of engagement efforts. It is wise to use such systems to nego-
tiate recovery efforts with consumers. If consumers had a bad experience
and did not receive some sorts of compensation for their emotional and
physical loss, and if they were not left alone, eventually you will be deal-
ing with loss of brand value through negative WOM and potentially loss
of sales value. In today’s technological advancement, now even a single
consumer has capacity to influence vast numbers of existing and poten-
tial consumer negatively, which, in turn, leads to brand value erosion.18
Thus, the company that cannot or is not willing to fix these problems
through negotiating the right economic value is putting itself in a vul-
nerable position, as such brand hate eventually will find some audience
in the digital consumption places. It is in company’s hands to accept
your mistakes and compensate a consumer’s loss for the sake of higher
brand value. Research revealed that 63% of complainants feel that they
184  S. U. KUCUK

WƌŽĐĞƐƐ ĂŶĚWŽůŝĐLJ ŚĂŶŐĞ

SEVERE
DŽŶĞƚĂƌLJŽŵƉĞŶƐĂƟŽŶ

MODERATE
MILD
WƌŝǀĂƚĞͲWƵďůŝĐƉŽůŽŐLJ

Level of Brand Hate

Fig. 7.4  Brand hate negotiation

got nothing, not even an apology.19 This means, most of your complain-
ants simmering their hate and perhaps they are ready to burst. Similarly,
a recent study also indicated that a positively or neutrally started con-
sumer–brand relationship can dip into negativity and hate as a result of
consumer’s bad experience, and can come back to loving relationship
level if company can be able to compensate the perceived value of what is
lost in the transaction.20
Thus, the next question is how to negotiate the consumers’ per-
ception of lost value and compensate that value accordingly and hence
reverse consumer brand hate into satisfactory relationship. Companies
can either propose non-monetary solutions such as apologizing or revis-
iting their policies and change them problematic policies or compensate
consumers financial loss with monetary awards or you can do both. Each
tactic has different capacity to influence consumers depending on their
hate level as also pictured in Fig. 7.4.
I will discuss these issues in detail in the following sections as follows.

Non-Monetary Compensations

Apology
A private apology with an email or phone call to a complainant will show
that you care about them; 75% of complainants expected an apology
from the company, but very small portion of them gets the apology.21
If your apology follows a fixation of the problem, it means that you just
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  185

save your consumer falling from a cliff to ocean of hate. Openness and a
sincere apology can be helpful with your hater, if you are wrong. Sincere
apology lowers the tensions and helps you get into a manageable base
communication with your hater in any level of brand hate. The first goal
is to reach a reasonable communication and get rid of the issues prevent-
ing you to communicate with your consumer. An apology is a great tool
in the short term. It is the first bucket of water you throw into fire. You
can buy a time with your apology until you really figure out what’s going
on with your complainant and hater in the mild or early stages of brand
hate. An apology can also be used as the first step to lift to situation into
better negotiation mood with your hater. A simple apology could be
enough especially in mild brand hate levels. But, if the problem is unad-
dressed or poorly handled with simple apology, it is highly possible that
consumers can quickly reach the medium and severe brand hate levels
by time and not accept any types of negotiation and settlement attempts
coming from you. If the hate is very deep and strong, you might need
to develop some negotiation plan in addition to your initial apologetic
engagement. In this case, it is highly possible that your apology might
not have expected the impact on these kinds of consumers (who are
generally in the medium and severe brand hate levels). You might need
to use more facts and get slightly into adversarial communication with
them, once you build a reasonable communication with your initial apol-
ogy. These kinds of consumers have more complex and puzzling hate
structure as already discussed in previous chapters. And, they won’t be
settled with a simple apology and expect more.
You might also think that “all consumers complaint some point, so
who cares?” Or, you might think that “showing regret publicly could
give too much from your pride”. However, the research showed that a
sincere apology can increase consumers’ satisfaction.22 Also, you need to
remind yourself that everybody is watching you and how you are han-
dling a simple complaint in the digital world will eventually affect even
your followers’ decision in the future. If you can’t even handle a simple
apology to a returning consumer, others might think that you are not
showing an empathy and they would prefer to engage in other availa-
ble options instead of complaining to you. Thus, you do not hesitate to
apologize to your consumer if it’s necessary. That’s a plus on your part,
not a weakness. Furthermore, if you apologize both publicly and pri-
vately to your complainant, this generates positive WOM23 and greater
synergy effects on reaching positive relationship with your complainant
186  S. U. KUCUK

as well as stronger relationship with your followers. However, if the

problem is scandalous in nature and affects most of the consumers in the
market, you need public apology, and that sometimes could lead to unfa-
vorable reactions of your investors as your public apology would poten-
tially lead lawsuits.24 If an apology is not delivered in a right way at the
right time, thus if it is perceived as cold, distance, and missing sincerity,
that would create more public outrage and anger.25 In other words, if
it is not managed well, apology can do bad rather than good to you. In
fact, it might create more potential haters than you needed to. In other
words, your bucket of water turns into a bucket of gas that inflates the
fire of hate more than needed.

Policy and Process Improvement

An assurance that the problem, which is the subject of complainant’s
outcry, is not going to happen again would help you to regain your
consumer on your side; 80% of consumers expect that their product
repaired/service fixed, and 81% of complainants asked an assurance from
the company that the problem would not be repeated.26 These are big
percentages, and it also indicates that consumers are saying to company
that “I like you and I expect you to fix my problems, and furthermore
I don’t want you to repeat the same mistake. If you do, you will make
us mad and deserve our hate”. You need to take this very important
consumer feedback to improve your processes, products/services, and
policies. This is actually a gift given by consumers to you to fix your
problems, and it shouldn’t be perceived as a negative criticism aiming at
you and your business.27 In fact, you need to use this valuable feedback
to change what is not working and thank your consumers for their con-
tribution. In fact, you can even covert a complaint into a help. Jay Baer
empathized an interesting view with a recent interview with Erin Pepper,
director of marketing and guest relations at Le Pain Quotidien (LPQ),
about a complaining consumer as follows: “You know, sir, you are a dis-
cerning patron. You notice deficiencies in our business that, frankly, most
customers never see. What we’d like to do with your permission, sir, is digi-
tally load funds onto a PLQ gift card. And what we’d like you do is, any-
time you’d like, please go different Le Pain Quotidian location near you.
After your visit I would ask you to complete a short online survey, and send
me an email detailing your observation about how we’re doing, because
you see things other people don’t” (Baer 2016, p. 21). This tactic, per-
haps, works fine with mild brand hate levels as these consumers might be
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  187

willing to volunteer for you. But, the problem can be difficult to handle
in medium and severe brand hate levels as these consumers are mostly
coming after your major policies rather than simple procedural problems.
Thus, policy improvement speaks more to medium and severe haters
as they want to see some major shift in companies’ policy. They are not
interested in short-term tactics such as apology but rather permanent and
long-term strategic shift from the company. In fact, my research revealed
that some die-hard haters of a brand actually had worked in that com-
pany in the past and perhaps they know a lot of things about your business
operations and philosophy than anybody else. These consumers, hence,
develop very strong social responsibility agenda against you as they have
high expertise in your policies and procedures, and hence know potential
systematic loops better than anybody else outside your company. These
consumers perhaps feel a boiling and burning hate levels and dedicated
themselves to their hate of the brand. In some point, these consumers actu-
ally love their hate, and it is almost impossible to convert them into brand
advocates; thus, you may need to monitor them closely to control the
brand hate contamination and to make sure that they are not sponsored by
your rivals. Closely study their claims and try to develop counter-argument
to stop potential bullying and misinformation if you are right.
Most of the policy problems have some sorts of corporate social
responsibility (CSR) implications. Thus, you need to get to the bot-
tom of these major CSR problems as they can generate more severe and
long-lasting hate in the markets. You can alternatively promote your
other CSR initiatives you feel you proud of while re-evaluating your pol-
icy that caused this problem in first place. You really need to polish your
CSR strategies for these kinds of consumers. All you can hope to do is to
convert your relationship and communication with these consumers into
a reasonable level.

Monetary Compensations
Majority of the consumers feel happy if their emotional and phys-
ical damages are compensated as a result of service failures or compa-
ny’s socially irresponsible behaviors, although this is mostly the case in
product/service failures as consumers suffer financially. The research
showed that 57% of consumers expect money back, 44% of them want
to receive a free product/service, and finally, 42% of them expect finan-
cial compensation for their lost time, inconvenience, or injury created
188  S. U. KUCUK

by the company.28 Although some companies think that the disgruntled

consumers might be trying to defraud them with monetary compensa-
tion requests (e.g., free product/service, gift cards, etc.), these kinds of
monetary rewards could be less expensive and effective than marketing
campaigns not only regaining the trust of returning consumers but also
providing better consumer acquisition opportunities.29 Monetary com-
pensation can work better for consumers on the mild and medium brand
hate levels. Consumers who are in severe hate level are too ideologic
and deeply believe in their cause that they won’t settle with monetary
rewards. The research also showed that complainants’ satisfaction can be
doubled if non-monetary and monetary compensations used together.30
Thus, companies should follow this path and try to fix problems with
disgruntled consumers with sincere apology following with some sort of
monetary compensation. That would increase your chance of preventing
your consumers to morph into haters, but there are no guarantees that
they will not continue their hateful path.
If we revisit the United Airlines case I have discussed in this chapter,
we can see that United Airlines was not able to understand the sever-
ity of the situation quickly enough, or UA was not fast enough to use
right negotiation techniques to solve the problem. Clearly, every product
and service is different, and thus, response time to major product/ser-
vice failures or major company wrongdoings can vary from one industry
to another. But, it took a couple of weeks for United Airlines to real-
ize how severe the problem is as they caught by surprise the overwhelm-
ing protests in the markets. It was clear from the beginning that the fix
of the problem is not as simple as by offering dry apologies or grant-
ing flight vouchers to passengers, which were United Airline’s initial
approach. But, the problem was too big to be fixed with only an apol-
ogy or a couple of hundreds worth of travel vouchers, which can only be
used in United Airlines. It’s ironic to see that such free vouchers offered
to all passengers in the flight. This is perceived by consumer that United
Airlines does not really care about the passenger they kicked out from
the flight, but the other consumers who are viewing this tragic event.
This was a shocking show put money or business above consumers or
human being. Thus, the problem is bigger than United Airlines manage-
ment thought at that time.
Analogically speaking, United Airlines tried to stop a major forest
fire with a garden hose. They didn’t make timely major decisions and
changes before the fire eats up the whole house. United Airlines fell
 7  MANAGING BRAND HATE  189

short in understanding the problem and focusing on structural and pro-

cedural issues. This mistake led to extreme consumer anger and hate tar-
geting United Airlines brand, which costs millions and some estimates
billions of dollars to the company. One could claim that this was really
an unexpected and an extremely difficult event that nobody could save
United Airlines from this big scandal in real time. That’s true, but in a
brand hate situation, especially if it’s happening in front of the public,
the company always gets punches at the beginning and falls back. The
success of the brand management is measured on how quickly the com-
pany senses the severity of the problem, engages with consumers with
right tone, and fixes the problem with right negotiation techniques.
Otherwise, brand hate can spill all around you in the digital markets.
Although consumers want you to compensate their loss and fix their
problems, what they really ask is an understanding and a helpful touch.
Perhaps that’s more important than simple compensation. Even though
you failed to deliver the right compensation or solution for them, they
might appreciate your effort if you make them feel that they are your
priority, especially if the returning consumer is one of your loyal consum-
ers. The most determined haters are perhaps the ones who were loyal or
loved you sometimes in the past, either you didn’t hear them when they
need you or some other reasons they got really upset with you. They
wanted to talk with you and you didn’t listen to them and their love
turns into everlasting hate. There are also the ones who hated you from
the beginning. No matter what you do, you can’t earn their sympathy. It
is funny, but I have heard many stories that when people first met with
their best friends they did not like them at all or in fact felt dislike or
even hate toward them initially. I had a similar experience, too. The truth
is, if we hate somebody or something we hate something that is already
inside us. I want to believe that it is possible to love someone no matter
how much hate you feel toward them. I hope that companies can see this
way too and be able to reach their consumers and transform their brand
haters into brand lovers.

Notes
1. Baer (2016).
2. Tschohl (2013).
3. Customer Rage Survey (2015).
4. Customer Rage Survey (2015).
190  S. U. KUCUK

5. Consumer Rage Survey (2015).

6. Consumer Rage Survey (2015).
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw3rIjzEuaY.
8. http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/a-customer-was-so-annoy-
ing-that-tesla-decided-not-to-sell-him-a-car/ar-BBp2gSK?li=BBnb7Kz&
ocid=HPCDHP.
9. Baer (2016).
10. Consumer Rage Survey (2015).
11. Consumer Rage Study (2015).
12. Parature (2014).
13. Baer (2016).
14. Hogreve et al. (2017, forthcoming).
15. Hogreve et al. (2017, forthcoming).
16.  http://fortune.com/2017/04/11/united-airlines-stock-drop/.
17. Kucuk (2008).
18. Kahr et al. (2016).
19. Consumer Rage Survey (2015).
20. Zarantonello et al. (2018)
21. Consumer Rage Survey (2015).
22. Gelbrich and Roschk (2011).
23. Gelbrich and Roschk (2011).
24. Robbennolt (2003).
25. Zechmeister et al. (2004).
26. Consumer Rage Survey (2015).
27. Barlow and Moller (2008).
28. Consumer Rage Survey (2015).
29. Baer (2016).
30. Consumer Rage Survey (2015).

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 Index

A Anti-cybersquatting Consumer
Agentic, 77
Aggression, 7, 42, 43, 70, 71, 74, 97,
111, 175
Aggressive impulses, 8
Aggressiveness, 71, 111
Agreeableness, 71, 74, 76, 98
Anarchist consumers, 37, 39
Anarchistic, 32, 124
Anger, 5, 12, 14–16, 25, 27, 29, 32,
35, 50, 60–63, 71–74, 76, 87,
95, 111, 121, 130, 144, 149,
169, 171–173, 181, 186, 189
Anti-branding, 24, 26, 32, 34–40,
51, 55, 57, 60–62, 64, 66, 74,
90, 91, 94, 95, 98, 109–116,
118–125, 133, 134, 137–153,
155, 157, 174, 175, 180
Anti-branding dilution, 129, 138
Anti-branding semiotics, 106–108,
110, 111, 115, 131
Anti-consumption, 62, 90, 95, 96,
109, 138, 141
Anti-corporate, 35, 115, 140
Protection Act (ACPA), 149
Antipathy, 33
Anxiety, 32, 75
Apology, 71, 178, 184–188
Attitudinal brand hate, 33
Attributor’s Rights, 153
Authenticity, 35, 172, 174–176
Authenticity verification, 174
Avoidance, 12, 25, 30, 62, 75, 89, 90
B
Behavioral brand hate, 33, 41
Belittling, 41
Big-Five, 50, 73, 75, 77
Blurring, 130, 135, 136, 138–140,
142–144, 147
Boiling brand hate, 33
Boiling hate, 16
Boycott, 31, 35, 38, 88–90, 93–96,
180, 182
Brand activist(s), 33
Brand attachment, 25

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), 193

under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
S. U. Kucuk, Brand Hate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00380-7
194  Index
Brand aversion, 25, 27, 29, 30
Brand bullying, 41, 43, 44
Brand coding, 51, 105
Brand consistency, 39, 40
Brand criminals, 30, 96, 97, 170
Brand dilution, 116, 129–134, 137–
139, 141–143, 145, 147–150,
152, 157, 175
Brand disaster, 73
Brand discourse, 111, 113
Brand divorce, 26
Brand equity, 26, 130, 183
Brand failure, 165
Brand hate, 18, 24–30, 32–34, 36, 37,
40–44, 50–68, 70, 72–78, 90,
92–98, 106, 108, 110–115, 124,
125, 129, 130, 164, 166, 168,
169, 171, 172, 174, 176–178,
180, 181, 183–187, 189
Brand hate dilution, 129
Brand hate expressionism, 30, 31, 33,
35, 41, 75, 94, 96, 97, 131
Brand hate management, 164
Brand hate negotiation, 184
Brand iconization, 110
Brand identity, 30, 65, 130, 137, 147,
149, 153, 154, 175
Brand identity collusion, 129, 137
Brand injustice, 27–29, 53
Brand interrogation, 43, 44
Brand logo(s), 106–114, 130, 139
Brand love, 25, 27, 30, 65, 76, 98,
164, 189
Brand ownership, 131, 152, 154, 157
Brand punishment, 96–98
Brand rank, 39
Brand retaliation, 51
Brand semiotics, 106, 108–110,
148–150
Brand slogans, 35, 107, 108, 113, 116
Brand symbols, 106, 108–110, 149,
152
Brand value, 26, 39, 40, 53, 54, 64,
66, 88, 98, 106, 109, 111, 132,
183
Brand value unfairness, 52, 54, 57, 58
Brand vandals, 96–98
Brand voice, 113
Bully/Bullied, 41–44, 150,
175, 187
Burning brand hate, 33, 36, 96, 97
Burning hate, 16, 169, 187
C
Channel of engagement, 171, 178
Cognition, 4, 15
Cognitive sharpeners, 134
Cold brand hate, 24, 29–32, 36, 37,
57, 72, 75
Cold hate, 14, 15, 57, 169
Collective movements, 88
Communion, 50, 77, 78
Company-related antecedents, 50, 65,
67
Complainer(s), 39, 40, 60, 66, 90,
165, 166, 171, 177, 179, 181
Complaint(s), 24, 26, 33, 35, 38, 39,
53, 55, 59, 65, 66, 88–92, 97,
149, 153, 165, 166, 169–172,
175, 177, 178, 180, 185, 186
Conscientiousness, 74, 76, 98
Constructive punitive actions, 88, 89
Consumer boycott, 93, 96
Consumer complaining, 88, 90, 91,
93, 178
Consumer complaints, 55, 59, 60,
63–66, 70, 72, 89, 92, 124, 166
Consumer complaint sites, 60
Consumer confusion, 130, 133, 134,
137–140, 147, 151
Consumer creativity, 152, 153, 176
Consumer deception, 132
Consumer liberation, 31

Consumer-related antecedents, 50, 55,
67, 73
Consumer relationship management
(CRM), 169, 170, 181
Consumer retaliation, 51, 55, 60, 88
Consumer revenge, 36, 38
Consumer review sites, 38, 60
Consumer service failure, 165
Consumer welfare, 157
Consuming representation, 30, 106,
131
Consumption language, 109
Contempt, 13, 29
Cool brand hate, 24, 29, 31, 33, 57,
63
Cool hate, 14–16, 169
Corporate Social Irresponsibility
(CSI), 50, 52, 56–59, 61, 63–66,
89, 92, 97, 180
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR),
58, 59, 61, 62, 64–66, 187
Corporate wrongdoings, 38, 50, 57,
61, 66, 76, 114, 124, 130, 138,
148, 152, 188
Corrupt, 16, 36, 67, 93, 175
Counter-advertisements, 109
Criminalization, 119, 120
Cultural backlash, 35
Cultural ownership, 154, 155
Cyberpirate, 153
Cybersquatting/Cybersquatter, 149, 153
D Entitlement, 50, 68, 70–73, 154
Dehumanization, 8, 62, 107, 114, 120
Demonization, 16, 119
Deservingness, 70
Destructive punitive actions, 88, 89
Devaluation, 12, 14, 15, 29, 31, 54,
155
Devil, 16, 41, 113
Dialectic empathy, 172
Index   195
Die-hard haters, 37, 187
Digital anti-branding, 62, 108, 110,
111, 113, 114, 123, 157
Digital semiotics, 106
Diminution, 14, 15, 29, 156
Direct revenge, 60, 89, 90
Direct revenge behavior, 60, 89
Disconnecting, 29, 64
Disgruntled, 36, 91, 169, 175,
179–181, 188
Disgust, 4, 12, 14, 15, 27, 29, 31, 63
Dislike, 4, 26, 31, 34, 95, 109, 189
Displeasure, 31
Dissatisfaction, 31, 32, 36, 51, 55,
59–61, 64, 70, 89–92, 130, 168,
171
Distancing, 31, 33, 75
Distributive injustice, 28, 31, 53
Domain name, 34, 35, 38, 87, 130,
148, 149, 153
Doppelganger brand, 35
Dual hate model, 33
E
Easy action, 90
Email, 88, 178, 179, 184, 186
Email campaign, 94
Emotional stability, 74, 75, 98
Engagement, 164, 167, 170, 171,
173, 177, 179, 183, 185
Engaging, 167, 170, 172, 177, 179
Entitled consumer, 72, 73
Environmentalism, 62
Equality, 62, 72
Escape, 24, 31, 60, 181
Experts, 39, 40, 51, 115, 168, 187
Expressive, 31, 38, 75, 93, 95, 96,
111, 124, 156, 183
Extraversion, 74–76, 98
Extreme individualism, 70
196  Index
F Hostility vs. entertainment, 115–118,
Fact seeking, 115, 117–119, 121
Faint-hearted hater, 17, 37, 38
Fairness, 27, 89, 173
Fair use, 156
Fear, 13, 14, 16, 69, 141
Fire and brimstone, 105, 111
First amendment, 41, 137, 150
Free riding, 132, 149, 152
Free-speech rights, 41, 148, 150, 151
Freud, Sigmund, 5, 6, 15, 18, 69
Friedrich, Nietzsche, 8, 9
Frustration, 26, 32, 35, 50, 55, 59,
71, 73, 75, 87, 88, 144, 149, 181
FTC, 150, 175
H Illegal/Illegality, 8–11, 97, 169
Happy ending syndrome, 4, 5
Harassment, 41, 42
Hard action, 90
Hate, 3–18, 24–44, 50–70, 72–78,
88–98, 107, 108, 110–114, 119,
125, 130, 131, 138, 164–189
Hate mirroring, 171, 172
Hater, 6–8, 15–17, 29, 30, 35, 36, 40,
58, 61, 72, 92, 93, 96–98, 105,
107, 108, 113, 131, 164–166,
169–174, 176, 177, 179–181,
185, 186, 188, 189
Hegel, Friedrich, 153
Hell, 98, 111, 114, 139, 142, 145
Hell coding, 114, 145
Helplessness, 10, 32, 182
Herd-man, 9
Hirschman, Albert, 45
Hitlerization, 107, 113, 118
Homo-digitus, 106, 107, 123, 124
Homo-significan, 106
Horizontal NDJ, 40
Hostility, 12, 16, 25, 50,
72, 116
120, 121
Hot brand hate, 29, 32, 33, 56, 57,
63, 75
Hot hate, 14–16, 33, 95, 169
Humiliation, 41, 92
I
Identity, 6, 8, 24, 27, 28, 36, 38, 39,
43, 58, 67, 94, 107–109, 111,
124, 129–131, 133, 137, 138,
152, 153, 155, 156
Identity avoidance, 30
Identity clashers, 52–54, 58
Ideological dissatisfaction, 51
Ignorance, 18
Image-based digital economy, 106,
125
Image-based economy, 106, 111
Indifference, 25
Indirect revenge, 88–90
Information overload, 134, 147
Injustice, 8, 26, 50, 52, 59, 61, 71, 73
Insincere brand, 65
Instrumental, 93–97
Insulting, 35, 89, 130
Intense hate, 10
Interactional injustice, 26, 28
Internet based activism, 94
Interpersonal hate, 24–26
Intimating, 43
Intrinsic, 32
Irrational emotions, 8
L
Listening, 166–171
Love, 4–6, 9, 11–13, 25, 27, 52, 54,
55, 63, 69, 73–75, 77, 92, 98,
164, 173, 178, 187, 189

Lunatic discharging, 176
M 184
Malicious attacks, 124
Mascot subversion, 117
Medium brand hate, 188
Message clarity, 115, 116, 118–120
Message similarity, 133
Mild brand hate, 165, 185
Mild hate, 16, 17, 33, 95, 172, 174,
180, 185, 186, 188
Moderate brand hate, 95
Moderate hate, 11
Monetary compensation, 188
Moral exclusion, 61, 62
Moral inclusion, 62, 63
Moral judgment, 61
N Personality, 6–8, 17, 41, 44, 50, 52,
Narcissistic/Narcissism, 7, 15, 50,
68–71, 73, 74, 77, 177
Nation of priests, 8, 9
Negation of intimacy, 14, 15
Negative brand images, 39, 130
Negative Double Jeopardy (NDJ), 39,
40, 54, 111, 183
Negative feeling, 10, 30, 41, 56, 59,
74, 88, 115, 171, 173
Negative message dissemination, 38
Negative self/Negative selves, 7, 8,
30, 67
Negative Social Jeopardy (NSJ), 54
Negative WOM, 88–93, 95, 96, 179,
183
Negativity, 4–6, 15, 18, 24, 26, 28,
35, 63, 69, 107, 112, 121, 144,
169, 173, 174, 182, 184
Negativity bias, 4
Negotiating/Negotiation, 110, 164,
167, 178, 182–185, 188, 189
Index   197
Neurotic attachment, 5
Neuroticism, 74–76
Non-monetary compensation, 164,
Numbness, 25
O
Object hate, 24, 25
Online complaining, 60, 61, 72
Openness, 74–76, 185
Opportunists, 39, 40
Oppositional loyalty, 54
P
Paid-bloggers, 150, 169, 174
Paranoia, 17
Peircean, 108
Perceived Injustice, 3, 7, 8, 10, 26, 51
53, 66–70, 73–78, 90, 97, 98,
111, 154, 155, 177, 179
Personality disorder, 50, 68, 70, 177
Personalization, 70
Policy improvement, 187
Political movements, 94
Polysemic, 109
Positive self, 7, 30, 69
Positive thinking, 5
Power, 6, 12, 13, 37, 40, 41, 44, 50,
53, 54, 67, 72, 73, 91, 94, 109,
115, 116, 118, 123, 132, 145,
150
Power inequality, 10
Prejudiced hate, 8
Private apology, 184
Private response, 59, 90
Procedural injustice, 26, 28
Product/service failure, 51, 52, 55,
57–60, 63–65, 71, 78, 92, 187,
188
198  Index

Protection, 4, 67, 137, 149, 150, 152 Service recovery, 51, 180
Protest, 38, 62, 64, 94, 97, 119, 182, Severe brand hate, 96, 97, 172, 180,
188 185, 187
Psychopathic hate, 8 Severe hate, 3, 17, 37, 187, 188
Public apology, 186 Shoplifting, 97, 98
Public domain, 151, 152 Signified, 112, 114, 116, 118
Signifiers, 112, 113, 116
Silent distancing, 31
R Simmering brand hate, 33
Raw hater, 17, 37 Simmering hate, 16
Reflexive revulsion, 114 Skull, 39, 139, 145
Rejection, 10, 75, 89, 112, 131 Slogan subversion, 116, 119
Repel, 12 Social signaling, 54
Resent, 31, 53, 118 Sovereign consumers, 31
Resolution, 29, 59, 88, 89, 167, 178, Sternberg, Robert, 14
180 Stimulus similarity, 133
Return frauds, 97 Subvertisement(s), 35, 91, 108, 109,
Revenge, 7, 13, 15, 32, 60, 61, 68, 115
73–75, 89, 95, 98, 171, 180 Sullivan, Andrew, 13, 18
Revengeful WOM, 90 Swastika, 39, 113, 117
Revolt, 31 Symbolic codes, 112, 114
Symbolic hater(s), 37, 39, 40, 93

S
Saussurean, 108
Scope of justice, 61, 62
Seething brand hate, 33
Seething hate, 16
Self-awareness, 17
Self-esteem, 7, 10
Self-identity, 6, 30
Selfishness, 69, 77
Semiotic democracy, 107, 150, 151
Semiotic disobedience, 107
Semiotics, 35, 38, 62, 91, 106–111,
113–115, 123–125, 129–131,
142, 146, 148, 150, 152, 155, 174
Semiotics of pain, 112
Service-Dominant logic (S-D Logic),
154
Service failures, 32, 36, 40, 50, 51, 55,
60, 92, 178, 180, 181, 187
T
Tarnishment, 130, 135–139, 141,
142, 144, 145, 147
Telephone call, 178, 179
Third-party response, 90
Threatened egotism, 3, 6, 7, 69
Threatened self, 6
Timing of engagement, 171, 180
Tolerance, 59, 173,
180, 181
Tone of communication, 171, 178
Tone of engagement, 171
Trademark infringement, 130, 132,
135, 151
Trademark rights, 148, 149
Transactional dissatisfaction, 51
True haters, 37, 38
Typosquatting, 35
 Index   199

U Violence, 7, 16, 32, 60, 71, 112

Ultimate brand hate, 33 Visceral prejudice, 15
Ultimate punishment, 112 Voice response, 89, 90, 94
Unethical consumer, 68, 96, 97
United Airlines (UA), 35, 181, 188,
189 W
Wholehearted hater(s), 17, 37
Willingness to punish, 32
V
Verification, 174, 176
Vindictive, 60, 89, 90, 97, 113