EXPLORING THE INFLUENCE OF ONLINE CONSUMER BRAND BOYCOTTS ON BRAND EQUITY

Abstract

When something detrimental to consumer’s principles occurs, they tend to criticize the situation and to take up action, using the Internet to virally spread their opinions and adopting a resistance behavior, thus punishing the company and refusing to buy its brands. On social media platforms consumers can become increasingly vocal through boycotts and consumers dissatisfactions spread almost instantaneously on the Internet. Such consumer-led boycotts can affect a company’s long-term branding efforts. In this context, the management of brand equity, and especially of brand trust, brand affect and brand loyalty, poses a challenge for companies that do not act or communicate in a suitable way. This paper tries to identify the types of consumer boycotts, the reasons why boycotts can occur, their impact on brand equity and it aims at presenting some reccomendations for managing consumer boycotts.

Keywords

• brand trust
• brand affect
• brand loyalty
• boycott
• social media