When Consumer Brand Advocacy Goes Bad: A Study of Key Drivers of Extreme, Negative Activism

Abstract

This paper uses an active, two-party political landscape in the U.S. as a testing ground to study the effects of an individual’s level of perceived political identification, fantasy proneness, and conspiracy mentality as possible antecedents of extreme, negative activism (e.g. attacking a police officer) undertaken to protect one’s brand community. Two independent, national surveys conducted one week prior to the November 2020 presidential election (N=481) and again in March 2021 after the presidential transition (N=465) allowed us to study the relationship between the three variables among U.S. citizens with liberal or conservative perceived political identifications, and measure likelihood to engage in extreme, negative activism. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), findings indicate fantasy proneness was overwhelmingly the single largest predictor of negative activism. Implications for political brand managers are discussed and new nomenclature is introduced into the area of consumer brand advocacy research to help advance future investigation.

Keywords

• consumer brand advocacy
• fantasy proneness
• conspiracy mentality
• perceived political identification
• negative activism