Brands we love to hate
Published 29 September 2008
LUMS staff worked on a major European project designed to discover more about the reasons behind consumers’ dislike for certain brands.
Professor Margaret Hogg, Dr Emma Banister (now at Manchester Business School) and Dr Mandy Dixon from the Marketing Department collaborated with two European universities (Pisa, Paris 12) on the project.
The ‘Brand Dislike’ study examined negative aspects and feelings towards brands and their images using The Brand Dislike Scale developed by the Italian team based in University of Pisa, headed by Dr Simona Romani and Prof Daniele Dalli.
This scale was translated from Italian into both French and English. It was administered via a web-based survey in both France (under Professor Dominique Roux’s leadership) and the UK (led by the LUMS Marketing Department team).
Dr Banister said: “Branding undoubtedly has an important role in today’s marketing landscape. However, we know that consumers can form really strong negative perceptions about brands for a variety of reasons - for example personal animosity, political beliefs, affordability, environmental concerns or media influence. These negative attitudes can be based on personal experience with the brand, but can sometimes involve very little contact with the brand itself.”
“We are aiming to find out more about the negative emotional ties that consumers develop with brands, and this international project will enable a cross-cultural comparison of negative attitudes towards well-known brands.”
This study was the second project based within the Marketing department as part of an international French/Italian/UK collaboration entitled ‘Consumer resistance: a proposal for multi-level and cross-cultural approaches of an emerging phenomenon’, financed by Agence National de Recherche (the French government funding body equivalent to the ESRC in the UK). The first research project examined women’s experiences and consumption decisions during their transition to first time motherhood (see http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/news/marketing/consumer-resistance/).
