Research on brand transgressions and negative consumer responses in online contexts: an overview
| Source | Aim of the researcha | Theoretical foundation: consumer–brand relationshipsb | Conceptual focus (online vs. no specific focus) | Examination of real-life brand transgression | Research design | Key dependent variable/s | Main findings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aaker et al., 2004 | The authors investigate the evolution of relationships between consumers and an online photography brand in response to brand personality (sincere vs. exciting) and transgression manipulations | Y | No specific focus | N | Quantitative (longitudinal, experimental study) | Relationship strength indicators: Commitment Intimacy Satisfaction Self-connection Partner quality | Consumer–brand relationships evolve differently based on brand personality: sincere brands deepen bonds but suffer after transgressions, while exciting brands thrive despite them |
| Hansen et al., 2018 | This study proposes a conceptual framework to identify which social media firestorms harm short- and long-term brand perceptions and become part of consumers’ long-term memory | N | Online | Y | Quantitative (event study approach using secondary and survey data) | Brand perceptions (short-term, long-term) Consumer memory (aided recall, correct reason) | Social media firestorms are mainly caused by vivid prompts, high tweet volumes, and product/service or social failures. They significantly harm short- and long-term brand perceptions and consumer memory and are particularly impactful if they last longer |
| Fox et al., 2018 | The authors investigate the impact of service failures on consumer arousal and emotions | N | No specific focus | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Emotional arousal Online consumer review reader anger Service quality perceptions | Negative online reviews intensify arousal. Service failure severity leads directly and indirectly via anger to negative service quality perceptions |
| Wang and Zhang, 2018 | The authors examine the effect of online service failure on online customer satisfaction and offline customer loyalty, and the moderating role of brand strength | N | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Offline customer loyalty Online failure severity Online customer satisfaction | Severe online service failures lower online satisfaction but do not affect short-term offline loyalty. These effects are not influenced by brand strength |
| Kuchmaner et al., 2019 | The authors investigate the role of network embeddedness, specifically network centrality and network density, and psychological ownership in consumer responses to a brand transgression | Y | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Likelihood to punish the brand Likelihood to help the brand | Central consumers experience a conflict between punishing and supporting the brand, with network density enhancing support in online communities. Firms can reduce negative responses by fostering dense virtual brand communities and by fostering psychological ownership |
| Li, 2019 | The author investigates how psychological empowerment affects consumers’ likelihood of publicly punishing a company with whom they had negative experiences through online complaining behaviours | N | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental study) | Likelihood to complain online | (Low) interactional empowerment positively impacts revenge-motivated complaining |
| Mishra and Sharma, 2019 | The authors examine the brand crisis faced by Maggi and analyse the extent to which a health-related crisis can impact consumer response on social media (Facebook) for a strong and trusted brand | Y | No specific focus | Y | Quantitative (text mining and sentiment analysis) | Consumer sentiment Brand associations | Positive support from loyal customers helped mitigate the negative impact of the Maggi crisis on social media, emphasising the need for brands to address both loyalists’ emotional needs and sceptics’ concerns with targeted communication strategies |
| Jung et al., 2020 | The authors examine the determinants of corporate hypocrisy and investigate the potential negative impact on the consumer–brand relationship, specifically on trust, switching, and resilience intentions | Y | No specific focus | N | Quantitative (experimental study) | Switching intention resilience intention Corporate hypocrisy Trust | Corporate hypocrisy, caused by mismatches between a brand’s sustainability goals and actions, harms trust, leading to higher switching, and lower resilience intentions |
| Powell et al., 2021 | By building on existing anti-branding, brand hate, and word-of-mouth literature, the authors explore the factors that lead individuals to engage in the transmission of negative brand-relevant information on social media | Y | Online | Y | Qualitative (netnography, interviews) | Brand-related antecedents Self-related antecedents Social antecedents Motivations to transmit negative brand-relevant content | Negative brand content spreads on social media and is driven by self-enhancement and social comparison rather than brand hate. Understanding these motivations can help brands manage and mitigate negative content |
| Reinikainen et al., 2021 | The authors examine how the relationships between social media influencers, brands, and individuals are intertwined on social media and analyse the spillover effects of feelings of betrayal | Y | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental study) | Brand trust Brand attitude Parasocial relationship Influencer coolness Purchase intention | Brand and influencer betrayals on social media negatively affect influencer coolness, parasocial relationships, brand trust, and purchase intentions. It highlights the spillover effects between brands and influencers in a “double betrayal” scenario |
| Legocki et al., 2022 | The authors analyse and segment UGC created and shared during three different brand transgression events, to identify which type of inflammatory message is most likely to be widely shared | N | Online | Y | Quantitative (sentiment and cluster analysis) | Tweet virality | Three types of messages are explored: ash, sparks, and embers. Rational, call-to-action messages are more likely to go viral and contribute to online firestorms. This offers insights for managing digital consumer activism and brand crises |
| Youn, 2022 | The author examines the role of moral emotions and concerns (i.e., perceived spillover) caused by different moral transgressions and investigate consumers’ anti-brand behaviours (i.e., negative word Of mouth and patronage cessation) | N | No specific focus | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Negative WOM Patronage cessation intention Perceived spillover | Moral emotions and perceived spillover in response to ethical and social transgressions drive consumer anti-brand behaviours, with moral disengagement influencing patronage cessation in response to social transgressions |
| Yadav et al., 2023 | The authors investigate the antecedents and consequences of negative consumer engagement in virtual communities using expectancy-disconfirmation, social exchange, and equity theories | Y | Online | Y | Quantitative (survey) | Brand switching Brand revenge Public complaining Negative brand experience Negative brand engagement | Negative consumer experiences, caused by service, information, and system failures, lead to negative brand engagement in virtual communities. It results in actions like brand switching, brand revenge, and public complaints |
| Gerrath et al., 2023 | The authors investigate how consumers react to service failures on social media during the pandemic and whether brand strength impacts eWOM emotionality | N | Online | Y | Quantitative (automated text analysis) | Emotionality of eWOM | In the context of tweets, consumers’ eWOM emotionality is lower during the pandemic vs. previous years. Tweet tone changed from rather joyful before to sad during crisis |
| Mosley et al., 2024 | The authors examine how consumers who vary in their relationship to brands react to different types of brand crisis through the lens of consumer posts on brands’ Facebook pages | Y | Online | Y | Quantitative (event study approach using social media data) | Anger (before, after) Brand familiarity (before, after) Self-referencing (before, after) Comments (before, after) | Consumers’ reactions to brand crises on social media are influenced by their prior brand interactions and the nature of the crisis. Non-interacting consumers use more familiar language and self-referencing after value-related crises, while those with prior interactions express more anger |
| Davvetas et al., 2024 | The authors examine how a brand’s origin affects consumer reactions and brand performance following a transgression and how post-transgression brand recovery should be managed at home and abroad | Y | No specific focus | Y (study 1, 2); N (study 3, 4a, 4b) | Quantitative (longitudinal twitter data, quasi-experimental and experimental studies) | Consumer sentiment consumer anger Willingness to purchase Consumer forgiveness Brand reputation Net brand value | Consumers react more negatively to misconduct by domestic brands (traitors to their home country), which leads to greater and longer-lasting damage to brand reputation in domestic markets compared with foreign markets. Ethnocentric consumers show a weaker reaction |
| Mazzoli et al., 2024 | The authors investigate the repercussions that social media marketing campaigns as brand transgressions have on brands | Y | Online | Y (study 1, 2); N (study 3) | Mixed-method design (interviews, content analysis, experimental study) | Brand sympathy Brand hate Negative eWOM Brand avoidance Protest behaviours Attitude towards the ad | Brand transgressions in social media advertising, particularly those violating diversity, equity, and inclusion values, lead to negative e-WOM. It results in brand avoidance and protest behaviours, with sympathy towards the offended parties |
| Shao et al., 2024 | The authors examine the effect of celebrity attributes on customer-brand relationships in live streaming commerce by extending a Stimulus-Organism-Response theory | Y | Online | N | Quantitative (survey) | Brand hate (disgust, contempt, anger) Brand revenge Brand avoidance Brand retaliation Brand switching Brand complaint Brand betrayal | Celebrity attributes such as negative reputation can lead to brand betrayal and brand hate in live streaming commerce, with brand hate generating more severe consumer actions (e.g., avoidance, switching, retaliation) than brand betrayal |
| Seth and Soch, 2024 | The authors examine whether the big five personality traits are associated with brand hate and investigate their moderating role on the relationship between brand hate and brand forgiveness, which in turns triggers coping responses | Y | Online | Y | Quantitative (survey) | Brand hate Brand forgiveness Negative WOM (coping) Brand switching (coping) | Extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness correlate with brand hate. Brand forgiveness reduces negative WOM and switching behaviour. Extraversion and conscientiousness moderate the brand hate–forgiveness link: extraverts are more forgiving; conscientious consumers are less so |
| Tosun et al., 2024 | The authors investigate how symbolic and ideological consumer–brand incongruity – triggered by negative past experiences – drives negative WOM | Y | Online | Y | Quantitative (survey) | Negative WOM | Negative past experiences encompass problems of the product, service, and technology. Symbolic and ideological incongruity lead to negative WOM and are negatively influenced by brand trust and CSR |
| Verma and Nayak, 2025 | The authors examine how consumers emotionally respond with comments to corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) incidents exposed on social media, and how these discrete emotions influence supportive behaviours of others (e.g., likes on comments) | N | Online | Y | Quantitative (automated content analysis) | Supportive behaviour | Consumers express various emotions towards CSI incidents, but only anger, trust, sadness, and anticipation encourage supportive actions, while disgust, surprise, and joy reduce them |
| Pecot et al., 2025 | The authors explore how historical brand transgressions (HBT) impact current brand evaluations | N | No specific focus | Y | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Brand evaluation Purchase intention/behaviour Approach behaviour Willingness to sign a petition | HBT involving ethical misconducts lead to a decrease in present perceived brand warmth. Brand warmth is identified as a mediator between HBT and several DVs |
| Shin et al., 2025 | The authors examine the impact of corporate digital irresponsibility (CDiR) on brand perceptions, and whether corporate digital responsibility (CDR) communications serve as recovery measures | Y | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Brand attitude Brand credibility Switching intention | CDiR has a negative impact on brand attitude leading to heightened switching intentions. Specific (vs. abstract) CDR communications can reduce negative effects of CDiR on brand perceptions |
| Present study | The authors explore how consumers experience everyday brand transgressions in the online environment by investigating consumers’ immediate emotional and coping responses | Y | Online | Y | Qualitative (semi-structured interviews) | Negative emotions Immediate coping responses (cognitive, behavioural) Brand relationship consequences |
| Source | Aim of the researcha | Theoretical foundation: consumer–brand relationshipsb | Conceptual focus (online vs. no specific focus) | Examination of real-life brand transgression | Research design | Key dependent | Main findings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The authors investigate the evolution of relationships between consumers and an online photography brand in response to brand personality (sincere vs. exciting) and transgression manipulations | Y | No specific focus | N | Quantitative (longitudinal, experimental study) | Relationship strength indicators: | Consumer–brand relationships evolve differently based on brand personality: sincere brands deepen bonds but suffer after transgressions, while exciting brands thrive despite them | |
| This study proposes a conceptual framework to identify which social media firestorms harm short- and long-term brand perceptions and become part of consumers’ long-term memory | N | Online | Y | Quantitative (event study approach using secondary and survey data) | Brand perceptions (short-term, long-term) | Social media firestorms are mainly caused by vivid prompts, high tweet volumes, and product/service or social failures. They significantly harm short- and long-term brand perceptions and consumer memory and are particularly impactful if they last longer | |
| The authors investigate the impact of service failures on consumer arousal and emotions | N | No specific focus | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Emotional arousal | Negative online reviews intensify arousal. Service failure severity leads directly and indirectly via anger to negative service quality perceptions | |
| The authors examine the effect of online service failure on online customer satisfaction and offline customer loyalty, and the moderating role of brand strength | N | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Offline customer loyalty | Severe online service failures lower online satisfaction but do not affect short-term offline loyalty. These effects are not influenced by brand strength | |
| The authors investigate the role of network embeddedness, specifically network centrality and network density, and psychological ownership in consumer responses to a brand transgression | Y | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Likelihood to punish the brand | Central consumers experience a conflict between punishing and supporting the brand, with network density enhancing support in online communities. Firms can reduce negative responses by fostering dense virtual brand communities and by fostering psychological ownership | |
| The author investigates how psychological empowerment affects consumers’ likelihood of publicly punishing a company with whom they had negative experiences through online complaining behaviours | N | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental study) | Likelihood to complain online | (Low) interactional empowerment positively impacts revenge-motivated complaining | |
| The authors examine the brand crisis faced by Maggi and analyse the extent to which a health-related crisis can impact consumer response on social media (Facebook) for a strong and trusted brand | Y | No specific focus | Y | Quantitative (text mining and sentiment analysis) | Consumer sentiment | Positive support from loyal customers helped mitigate the negative impact of the Maggi crisis on social media, emphasising the need for brands to address both loyalists’ emotional needs and sceptics’ concerns with targeted communication strategies | |
| The authors examine the determinants of corporate hypocrisy and investigate the potential negative impact on the consumer–brand relationship, specifically on trust, switching, and resilience intentions | Y | No specific focus | N | Quantitative (experimental study) | Switching intention resilience intention | Corporate hypocrisy, caused by mismatches between a brand’s sustainability goals and actions, harms trust, leading to higher switching, and lower resilience intentions | |
| By building on existing anti-branding, brand hate, and word-of-mouth literature, the authors explore the factors that lead individuals to engage in the transmission of negative brand-relevant information on social media | Y | Online | Y | Qualitative (netnography, interviews) | Brand-related antecedents | Negative brand content spreads on social media and is driven by self-enhancement and social comparison rather than brand hate. Understanding these motivations can help brands manage and mitigate negative content | |
| The authors examine how the relationships between social media influencers, brands, and individuals are intertwined on social media and analyse the spillover effects of feelings of betrayal | Y | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental study) | Brand trust | Brand and influencer betrayals on social media negatively affect influencer coolness, parasocial relationships, brand trust, and purchase intentions. It highlights the spillover effects between brands and influencers in a “double betrayal” scenario | |
| The authors analyse and segment | N | Online | Y | Quantitative (sentiment and cluster analysis) | Tweet virality | Three types of messages are explored: ash, sparks, and embers. Rational, call-to-action messages are more likely to go viral and contribute to online firestorms. This offers insights for managing digital consumer activism and brand crises | |
| The author examines the role of moral emotions and concerns (i.e., perceived spillover) caused by different moral transgressions and investigate consumers’ anti-brand behaviours (i.e., negative word | N | No specific focus | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Negative | Moral emotions and perceived spillover in response to ethical and social transgressions drive consumer anti-brand behaviours, with moral disengagement influencing patronage cessation in response to social transgressions | |
| The authors investigate the antecedents and consequences of negative consumer engagement in virtual communities using expectancy-disconfirmation, social exchange, and equity theories | Y | Online | Y | Quantitative (survey) | Brand switching | Negative consumer experiences, caused by service, information, and system failures, lead to negative brand engagement in virtual communities. It results in actions like brand switching, brand revenge, and public complaints | |
| The authors investigate how consumers react to service failures on social media during the pandemic and whether brand strength impacts eWOM emotionality | N | Online | Y | Quantitative (automated text analysis) | Emotionality of eWOM | In the context of tweets, consumers’ eWOM emotionality is lower during the pandemic vs. previous years. Tweet tone changed from rather joyful before to sad during crisis | |
| The authors examine how consumers who vary in their relationship to brands react to different types of brand crisis through the lens of consumer posts on brands’ Facebook pages | Y | Online | Y | Quantitative (event study approach using social media data) | Anger (before, after) | Consumers’ reactions to brand crises on social media are influenced by their prior brand interactions and the nature of the crisis. Non-interacting consumers use more familiar language and self-referencing after value-related crises, while those with prior interactions express more anger | |
| The authors examine how a brand’s origin affects consumer reactions and brand performance following a transgression and how post-transgression brand recovery should be managed at home and abroad | Y | No specific focus | Y | Quantitative (longitudinal twitter data, quasi-experimental and experimental studies) | Consumer sentiment consumer anger | Consumers react more negatively to misconduct by domestic brands (traitors to their home country), which leads to greater and longer-lasting damage to brand reputation in domestic markets compared with foreign markets. Ethnocentric consumers show a weaker reaction | |
| The authors investigate the repercussions that social media marketing campaigns as brand transgressions have on brands | Y | Online | Y | Mixed-method design (interviews, content analysis, experimental study) | Brand sympathy | Brand transgressions in social media advertising, particularly those violating diversity, equity, and inclusion values, lead to negative e- | |
| The authors examine the effect of celebrity attributes on customer-brand relationships in live streaming commerce by extending a Stimulus-Organism-Response theory | Y | Online | N | Quantitative | Brand hate (disgust, contempt, anger) | Celebrity attributes such as negative reputation can lead to brand betrayal and brand hate in live streaming commerce, with brand hate generating more severe consumer actions (e.g., avoidance, switching, retaliation) than brand betrayal | |
| The authors examine whether the big five personality traits are associated with brand hate and investigate their moderating role on the relationship between brand hate and brand forgiveness, which in turns triggers coping responses | Y | Online | Y | Quantitative | Brand hate | Extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness correlate with brand hate. Brand forgiveness reduces negative | |
| The authors investigate how symbolic and ideological consumer–brand incongruity – triggered by negative past experiences – drives negative | Y | Online | Y | Quantitative (survey) | Negative | Negative past experiences encompass problems of the product, service, and technology. Symbolic and ideological incongruity lead to negative | |
| The authors examine how consumers emotionally respond with comments to corporate social irresponsibility ( | N | Online | Y | Quantitative (automated content analysis) | Supportive behaviour | Consumers express various emotions towards | |
| The authors explore how historical brand transgressions ( | N | No specific focus | Y | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Brand evaluation | ||
| The authors examine the impact of corporate digital irresponsibility (CDiR) on brand perceptions, and whether corporate digital responsibility ( | Y | Online | N | Quantitative (experimental studies) | Brand attitude | CDiR has a negative impact on brand attitude leading to heightened switching intentions. Specific (vs. abstract) | |
| Present study | The authors explore how consumers experience everyday brand transgressions in the online environment by investigating consumers’ immediate emotional and coping responses | Y | Online | Y | Qualitative | Negative emotions |
The articles are listed in chronological order; eWOM = electronic word-of-mouth; UGC = user-generated-content; n/a = not applicable; aSome entries in the “Aim of the research” column contain direct quotes from the respective sources; bTheoretical foundation: Y (= Yes) indicates that the article applies consumer–brand relationship theory as a theoretical lens. N (= No) indicates that the theory is not applied in the study; Criteria for article selection: based on a literature search using terms related to brand transgression (e.g., brand misconduct, brand crisis, corporate wrongdoing), English-language journal articles in business administration and economics (time period: Jan 2004 to June 2025; online first articles considered at the time of June 2025) were included if they met scientific standards, focused on negative consumer responses to brand transgression, and empirically examined a brand transgression event in an online setting (i.e., the event under investigation occurred at an online touchpoint)
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