BRAND HATE: A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON THE EXTREME NEGATIVE EMOTION TOWARD THE BRAND

This paper aims to explore the concept of brand hate among consumers in an emerging country: Tunisia. Brand hate is the extreme negative emotion toward a brand which has an impact on both the consumer attitude and behavior. Researchers have recently begun to take an interest in this concept, as a manifestation of recent postmodern phenomenon such as anti-consumption and consumer resistance behaviors. A qualitative study is led based on in-depth interviews in an emerging country context. Main findings suggest that utilitarian factors, identity factors, cultural and ideological factors explain brand hate. Moreover, the seller behavior is pointed out as a relevant driver of brand hate. In terms of outcomes, our results suggest that brand hate can lead to behaviors like complaining, negative word of mouth, boycott and avoidance.