IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v107y2020icp153-161.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When accidents are good for a brand

Author

Listed:
  • Gaustad, Tarje
  • Utgård, Jakob
  • Fitzsimons, Gavan J.

Abstract

In this research we demonstrate that negative press about accidents caused by users can counterintuitively improve brand evaluations. In two studies, we find an interaction between the brand diagnosticity of the user accident and the degree to which consumers identify with the brand. Following negative press about a user accident, low brand identifiers decrease their brand liking and high brand identifiers increase their brand liking, but only when the accident is brand diagnostic (e.g., a fast car brand in a speed-related accident).

Suggested Citation

  • Gaustad, Tarje & Utgård, Jakob & Fitzsimons, Gavan J., 2020. "When accidents are good for a brand," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 153-161.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:107:y:2020:i:c:p:153-161
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.10.040
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296318305216
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.10.040?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Folkes, Valerie S, 1984. "Consumer Reactions to Product Failure: An Attributional Approach," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 10(4), pages 398-409, March.
    2. Herr, Paul M & Kardes, Frank R & Kim, John, 1991. "Effects of Word-of-Mouth and Product-Attribute Information on Persuasion: An Accessibility-Diagnosticity Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 17(4), pages 454-462, March.
    3. Trump, Rebecca K., 2014. "Connected consumers' responses to negative brand actions: The roles of transgression self-relevance and domain," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(9), pages 1824-1830.
    4. Vanitha Swaminathan & Karen L. Page & Zeynep Grhan-Canli, 2007. ""My" Brand or "Our" Brand: The Effects of Brand Relationship Dimensions and Self-Construal on Brand Evaluations," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(2), pages 248-259, May.
    5. Folkes, Valerie S & Koletsky, Susan & Graham, John L, 1987. "A Field Study of Causal Inferences and Consumer Reaction: The View from the Airport," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 13(4), pages 534-539, March.
    6. Dawar, Niraj & Lei, Jing, 2009. "Brand crises: The roles of brand familiarity and crisis relevance in determining the impact on brand evaluations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 509-516, April.
    7. Christopher R. Knittel & Victor Stango, 2014. "Celebrity Endorsements, Firm Value, and Reputation Risk: Evidence from the Tiger Woods Scandal," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 21-37, January.
    8. Dutta, Sujay & Pullig, Chris, 2011. "Effectiveness of corporate responses to brand crises: The role of crisis type and response strategies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(12), pages 1281-1287.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yang, Zhiyong & Freling, Traci & Sun, Sijie & Richardson-Greenfield, Pam, 2022. "When do product crises hurt business? A meta-analytic investigation of negative publicity on consumer responses," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 102-120.
    2. Amélie Guèvremont & Bianca Grohmann, 2018. "Does brand authenticity alleviate the effect of brand scandals?," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 25(4), pages 322-336, July.
    3. Zhao, Taiyang & Ran, Yaxuan & Wu, Banggang & Lynette Wang, Valerie & Zhou, Liying & Lu Wang, Cheng, 2024. "Virtual versus human: Unraveling consumer reactions to service failures through influencer types," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    4. Tom Joonhwan Kim & Youjae Yi & Jongan Choi, 2020. "The boomerang effect of brand personality congruency in a product-harm crisis," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 45(4), pages 645-661, November.
    5. Ali Besharat & Kimberly A. Whitler & Saim Kashmiri, 2024. "When CEO Pay Becomes a Brand Problem," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(4), pages 941-973, April.
    6. Arora, Swapan Deep & Chakraborty, Anirban, 2021. "Intellectual structure of consumer complaining behavior (CCB) research: A bibliometric analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 60-74.
    7. Khalifa, Dina & Shukla, Paurav, 2017. "Me, my brand and I: Consumer responses to luxury brand rejection," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 156-162.
    8. Alokparna (Sonia) Basu Monga & Deborah Roedder John, 2008. "WHEN DOES NEGATIVE BRAND PUBLICITY HURT? The Moderating Influence of Analytic Versus Holistic Thinking," Working Papers 0044, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    9. Scheidler, Sabrina & Edinger-Schons, Laura Marie, 2020. "Partners in crime? The impact of consumers' culpability for corporate social irresponsibility on their boycott attitude," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 607-620.
    10. Myung Ko & Kweku-Muata & Carlos Dorantesa, 2008. "Planning Technology Investments For High Payoffs: A Rational Expectations Approach To Gauging Potential And Realized Value In A Changing Environment," Working Papers 0040, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    11. Ilaria Baghi & Veronica Gabrielli, 2021. "The role of betrayal in the response to value and performance brand crisis," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 203-217, June.
    12. Mansur Khamitov & Yany Grégoire & Anshu Suri, 2020. "A systematic review of brand transgression, service failure recovery and product-harm crisis: integration and guiding insights," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 519-542, May.
    13. Kalamas, Maria & Laroche, Michel & Makdessian, Lucy, 2008. "Reaching the boiling point: Consumers' negative affective reactions to firm-attributed service failures," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(8), pages 813-824, August.
    14. Marleen Hermans & Néomie Raassens & Kathleen Cleeren, 2024. "What is the impact of a conflict delisting on firm value? An investigation of the role of conflict and firm characteristics," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 240-259, January.
    15. Khalifa, Dina & Shukla, Paurav, 2021. "When luxury brand rejection causes brand dilution," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 110-121.
    16. Shannon W. Anderson & L. Scott Baggett & Sally K. Widener, 2009. "The Impact of Service Operations Failures on Customer Satisfaction: Evidence on How Failures and Their Source Affect What Matters to Customers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 11(1), pages 52-69, November.
    17. Gayle, Philip G. & Yimga, Jules O., 2018. "How much do consumers really value air travel on-time performance, and to what extent are airlines motivated to improve their on-time performance?," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 31-41.
    18. Béatrice Parguel & Florence Benoît-Moreau & Fabrice Larceneux, 2011. "How Sustainability Ratings Might Deter ‘Greenwashing’: A Closer Look at Ethical Corporate Communication," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 15-28, August.
    19. Hansen, Nele & Kupfer, Ann-Kristin & Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten, 2018. "Brand crises in the digital age: The short- and long-term effects of social media firestorms on consumers and brands," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 557-574.
    20. Marta Pizzetti & Lucia Gatti & Peter Seele, 2021. "Firms Talk, Suppliers Walk: Analyzing the Locus of Greenwashing in the Blame Game and Introducing ‘Vicarious Greenwashing’," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 21-38, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:107:y:2020:i:c:p:153-161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.