Research studies on brand transgression (BT), service failure and recovery (SFR), and product-harm crisis (PHC) appear to have a common focus, yet the three streams developed surprisingly independently and with limited reference to one another. This situation is unfortunate because all three...

To advance understanding of how well different types of brand relationships drive customer brand loyalty and to help companies improve the effectiveness of their relationship-building investments, this article conducts a meta-analysis of the link between five consumer-brand relationship...

The now-popular “cash diet” hails that paying in cash is more painful psychologically than via dematerialized money (e.g., credit cards), which in turn helps citizens save more. Paradoxically, we show cash can sometimes backfire (compared to dematerialized money) and cause consumers to save...

We examine how and why consumers engage in retributional acts directed towards brands that are perceived as harmful. Consumers are shown to lie, cheat, and steal as they attribute lower moral worth to harmful brands and this effect is shown to persist in the absence of any attributable brand...

Research on consumer-brand relationships (CBR) has examined the CBR - brand loyalty link, but surprisingly little is known about the cultural and institutional settings that enable this link. We meta-analyze how and why different CBR constructs (e.g. love, identification) drive loyalty better in...

Drawing from psychological ownership and linguistics theories, we show that compared to a non-possessive brand name, a possessive brand name leads to more favorable brand evaluations and purchase intentions, which is mediated by greater attributions of identity-relevant brand attributes and...

Marketers frequently use individual names as part of their brand-naming strategy. This research investigates how the use of a possessive (indicated by an apostrophe -s) versus non-possessive form in a brand name (Mrs. Smith’s vs. Mrs. Smith) affects consumer brand preferences and choice for...

While prevailing marketing practice is to encourage ever stronger relationships between consumers and brands, such relationships are rare and many consumers are relationship-averse or content with the status quo. The authors examine how marketers can more effectively manage existing brand...

While brand punishment – through either individual or collective action – has received ample attention by consumer psychologists, absent from this literature is that such punishment can take the form of unethical actions that can occur even when the consumer is not personally harmed. Across...

We demonstrate that brand relationships affect perceptions of a brand’s closeness to the self, resulting in mindset congruency effects when matched with an appropriate construal level. Brand relationships that are closer (distal) to the self yield improved evaluations when brand information is...