See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/340487043

Brand hate: a multidimensional construct

Article  in  Journal of Product & Brand Management · April 2020

DOI: 10.1108/JPBM-11-2018-2103

CITATIONS READS

0 176

2 authors:

Chun Zhang Michel Laroche

University of Dayton John Molson School of Business, Concordia University
7 PUBLICATIONS   15 CITATIONS    224 PUBLICATIONS   11,911 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Chun Zhang on 15 April 2020.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Brand hate: a multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang
Department of Management and Marketing, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, USA, and
Michel Laroche
John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to examine the emotional components of brand hate and the variation of emotions across different levels of brand hate.
Design/methodology/approach – Study 1 uses in-depth interviews and data triangulation. Studies 2-5 make use of quantitative methods to test
and validate the multidimensional structure of brand hate and the variation of its composing emotions.
Findings – Study 1 suggests that brand hate is a multidimensional construct comprised of anger-, sadness- and fear-related emotions; possible
antecedents and consequences are discussed. The quantitative results from Studies 2-5 confirm the findings in Study 1. A three-factor scale
consisting of nine items is developed. The proposed model is tested among different samples and is compared with the currently available brand
hate models. In addition, the findings show that emotions weigh differently for different brand hate levels.
Research limitations/implications – This study contributes to the brand hate literature and provides a structure to understand brand hate more
thoroughly.
Practical implications – Companies can benefit from the research through a better knowledge of brand hate. Managers can use the
multidimensional measurement to detect brand hate and better cope with it.
Originality/value – This study is among the first few attempts to examine the multidimensionality of brand hate and to investigate the variation of
emotions in different brand hate levels. This study contributes to a more precise description of the brand hate construct and improves understanding
of consumer-brand relationships.
Keywords Consumer-brand relationship, Measurement, Multidimensional scaling, Anti-Branding, Brand hate
Paper type Research paper

Introduction consumer culture (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006; Fournier, 1998;

A video featuring a customer being dragged off a United
Airlines plane went viral after its first exposure on social media.
Many people claimed to hate United Airlines after watching the
video and shared their similar overbooking experiences. Online
comments that hashtagged hate United Airlines and boycott
United Airlines were widely shared. The hate was fueled to a
higher level after its CEO’s zero apology email was released,
making the scandal one of the better-known marketing
blunders of 2017. United Airlines suffered from both the
negative publicity and its losses in the stock market. This
scandal taught United Airlines and many other companies a
lesson that consumers’ emotions can be devastating, which can
easily cause extreme reactions such as brand revenge, brand
sabotage and customer retaliation (Grégoire and Fisher, 2008;
Grégoire et al., 2009; Kähr et al., 2016).
Brand hate, a phenomenon that is prevalent in the
marketplace, yet has not been widely discussed in academic
studies, is catching researchers’ attention (Hegner et al., 2017;
Kucuk, 2016, 2018a, 2018b; Zarantonello et al., 2016, 2018).
Positive brand emotions have consistently captured the interest
of researchers given that managers can use them to cultivate
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-11-2018-2103]
Thomson et al., 2005). Yet, studying the antitheses of positive
consumer-brand interactions can be more effective, as the
analysis of diseases rather than health often leads to better
recovery results (Lee et al., 2009a, 2009b). In the case of brand
hate, studying negative brand emotions can be beneficial for
preventing possible losses, providing better service quality and
improving consumer well-being. However, research on brand
hate is scarce. Only a few studies have discussed the
multidimensionality of the brand hate construct; however, the
validation of its multidimensional structure is yet limited
(Fetscherin, 2019; Kucuk, 2018b, 2019; Zarantonello et al.,
2016). Kucuk (2018b) stated that brand hate “covers various
layers of different negative emotions” (p. 29). Zarantonello
et al. (2016) reported negative emotions associated with brand
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the School of
Graduate Studies of Concordia University and the helpful comments from
thesis committee members, colleagues, reviewers and editor. The authors
also want to express the gratitude to Dr Rajeev Batra and Dr. Aaron
Ahuvia for their comments and help on the qualitative study design at the
very early stage of the project. Send correspondence to Chun Zhang
(corresponding author), Department of Management and Marketing,
University of Dayton, 300 College Park, Dayton, OH 45402, USA,
czhang4@udayton.edu
Received 7 November 2018
Revised 5 April 2019
26 July 2019
3 December 2019
22 February 2020
Accepted 22 February 2020
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
hate. However, they did not discuss whether the emotional
manifestation differs across brand hate levels. Fetscherin
(2019) examined the emotional dimensions of brand hate.
However, they only focused on three emotions, namely, anger,
contempt and disgust. In this article, we build upon the models
of Zarantonello et al. (2016), Kucuk (2016, 2018b, 2019) and
Fetscherin (2019) and examine the variations of emotions
across brand hate levels.
This article contributes toward filling this gap by answering
some core questions as follows: What basic emotions are
included in brand hate? How do emotions vary across brand
hate levels? With these questions in mind, the authors examine
the multidimensional nature of the brand hate construct and
how the brand hate construct is associated with other well-
established constructs in the larger brand nomological network.
With five studies, the current research contributes to a better
understanding of the sub-dimensions of brand hate at each
level, and the interactions of anger-, sadness- and fear-related
emotions for moderate and strong brand hate. The
decomposition analysis of brand hate illustrates a more
accurate presentation of brand hate sub-dimensions, which
enriches the research of brand hate functionality at different
levels. The model testing antecedent-brand hate-consequence
structure in Study 3 discusses the non-behavioral reactions of
brand hate, an aspect that has not been widely examined by
brand hate scholars. In summary, our study contributes to a
more thorough understanding of brand hate in different ways.
Brand hate research and gaps
Based on the psychology literature, Kucuk (2016) puts forward
three levels of brand hate, namely, cold brand hate, cool brand
hate and hot brand hate. Zarantonello et al. (2016), Garg et al.
(2018) and Fetscherin (2019) use psychological terms and
outline a scale to measure brand hate. Finally, Fetscherin
(2019), Hegner et al. (2017) and Kucuk (2018a, 2019) present
the determinants and outcomes of brand hate. A summary of
these studies is presented in Table I. Studying interpersonal
emotions does provide insights into brand hate research.
However, interpersonal hate and object hate are different
(Kucuk, 2018b). Studying brand hate solely based on the
psychology literature misses the context of consumer-brand
interactions and the unique characteristics of brands. Thus,
research conducted in this burgeoning field would benefit from
not being constrained by the psychology literature.
Literature review
Interpersonal hate
The authors first review the literature on emotions to serve as a
guide to capture the main attributes of the brand hate
construct.
Hate as a primary emotion. Regarding the interpersonal hate,
there are two schools of thought. One school, holding a more
traditional interpretation of hate, believes that hate is a primary
emotion associated with extreme dislike, aggressive impulses,
individual emotional rejection and group hatred (Arnold, 1960;
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1973). According to Brewer (1999), hate is
due to in-group and out-group biases. The prejudice toward
the out-group best describes hate emotions. In line with this
Journal of Product & Brand Management
school of thought, Storm and Storm (1987) simply treated
hatred as a sub-category emotion similar to hostility and detest.
Hate as a multidimensional emotion. Another school of
thought, a more widely accepted interpretation of hate among
psychology and marketing researchers, believes that hate is
comprised of three dimensions, namely, the negation of
intimacy, passion and commitment (Sternberg, 2003).
According to Fitness and Fletcher (1993), hate comprises
dimensions including events, cognitions, verbal expression,
urges, physiological symptoms and associated emotions. This
hate emotion could be accompanied by disgust and unfairness.
The prevalently considered dimensional emotions of hate are
anger, contempt, disgust and fear (Fetscherin, 2019; Kucuk,
2018b; Sternberg, 2003). Specifically, anger may result from a
service failure and is associated with high coping potential
(Bougie et al., 2003; Johnson et al., 2010; Nyer, 1997; Park
et al., 2013). Disgust, often manifested as distancing, is usually
associated with strategies to avoid further harm (Kucuk,
2018b). Some scholars believe that hate is a combination of fear
and anger or a combination of anger and disgust (Kemper,
1987; Kucuk, 2018b; Plutchik, 1991). Built upon the
multidimensional interpretation of interpersonal hate, brand
hate is better interpreted as a multidimensional construct. The
rationality of the multidimensionality is discussed in the
conceptualization of brand hate section.
Hate vs love. Love, mostly defined as a strong emotional
attachment and regarded as a prototypical emotion (Fehr and
Russell, 1991; Goode, 1959), shares an intricate relationship
with the emotion hate (Jin et al., 2017). Although some
researchers claim that hate and love are polarized emotions,
hate is never simply the opposite or absence of love (Sternberg,
2003). Instead, an individual may experience both hate and
love toward their partner (Sprott, 2004) and hate and love may
coexist (Zarantonello et al., 2018). Jin et al. (2017) explained
the strongly associated hate and love using another emotion,
jealousy. The positive relationship between love and jealousy
and the strong association between jealousy and hate can
explain the association between hate and love (Jin et al., 2017).
In fact, in Plutchik’s (2001) three-dimensional model, love and
hate-related emotions (i.e. anger and contempt) are almost
orthogonal. Thus, scholars should never use the reversed love
scale to measure hate.
Brand hate
Definition. Defined as follows:
[. . .] a psychological state, whereby a consumer forms intense negative
emotions and detachment toward brands that perform poorly, and give
consumers bad and painful experiences on both individual and social levels
(Kucuk, 2016, p. 20), brand hate is associated with self-relevance and
critical incidents (Johnson et al., 2010).
Similar to the interpersonal love-hate relationship, brand hate is
never the simple opposite of brand love (Batra et al., 2012;
Kucuk, 2018b; Zarantonello et al., 2018).
Brand hate levels and multidimensionality. Based on the cold,
cool and hot brand hate levels (Kucuk, 2016, 2018b), Kucuk
(2018b) extends the original three levels into cold, cool, hot,
simmering, seething, boiling and burning brand hate. Different
from being perceived as only associated with strong and
confrontational manifestations, scholars denote that brand
hate varies from passive/mild to active/severe levels
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

Table I Review of brand hate research

Brand hate
Published work Methodology Brand hate type measurement Key findings
Kucuk (2016) Qualitative Attitudinal and behavioral NA Brand hate comprises cold, cool and hot brand hate
brand hate Antecedents include company-related and consumer-
related reasons
Brand hate consequences include consumer complaint
and boycott
Zarantonello et al. (2016) Survey Active and passive brand hate 18 items A measurement scale with 18 items was presented
Hegner et al. (2017) Survey NA 6 items Negative past experience, symbolic incongruity and
ideological incompatibility cause brand hate
Brand hate can have outcomes including brand
avoidance, negative WOM and brand retaliation
Garg et al. (2018) Survey NA 27 items Brand failure causes brand hate
Brand hate causes negative WOM and brand rejection.
Kucuk (2018a) Survey Macro-level brand hate NA CSR is negatively related to brand hate
The level of consumer complaints about PSF is positively
related to brand hate
Kucuk (2018b) Qualitative Attitudinal and behavioral NA Brand hate comprises cold, cool, hot, simmering,
brand hate seething, boiling and burning brand hate
Antecedents include brand value unfairness, product/
service failures and corporate social irresponsibility
Brand hate consequences include consumer
complaining, negative WOM and consumer boycotts
Zarantonello et al. (2018) Qualitative Trajectories of brand hate NA Negative all the way
Down-up
Downward slope flattens
Roller coaster
Steady decrease
Kucuk (2019) Survey True brand haters and regular 13 items True haters follow a “boiling brand hate” structure,
brand haters while regular haters have a “seething brand hate”
structure
Conscientious, self-confident and competitive
consumers are more prone to brand hate
Fetscherin (2019) Survey Cool hate, hot hate, 29 items Three components of brand hate: anger, contempt and
simmering hate, burning hate disgust
and boiling hate Consequences include brand switching, private
complaining, public complaining, brand retaliation and
brand revenge

(Kucuk, 2016, 2018b; Zarantonello et al., 2016). In addition,
scholars have discussed the multidimensional nature of brand
hate and have indicated that brand hate consists of various
layers of negative emotions (Fetscherin, 2019; Kucuk, 2016,
2018b; Zarantonello et al., 2016). Kucuk, (2019) investigated
the true haters and regular haters and associated the two types
of haters with the “boiling hate” and “seething hate.”
Zarantonello et al. (2016) state that active brand hate contains
anger, contempt and disgust emotions, whereas passive brand
hates consists of fear, disappointment, shame and
dehumanization emotions. Although it is understandable that
certain emotions are related to a certain brand hate level (e.g.
fear in relation to passive brand hate), one cannot be certain
that one emotion (e.g. fear) is exclusively associated with one
brand hate level (e.g. passive or mild brand hate). For instance,
Fetscherin (2019) demonstrates that different combination of
anger, contempt and disgust results in different levels of brand
hate. However, contempt and disgust are sub-emotions of
anger (Shaver et al., 1987), thus it is of great importance and
necessity to examine the brand hate emotions beyond anger-alike
emotions. The current research aims to examine the variation of
the emotional components of the multidimensional brand hate
construct. To be specific, this study investigates how negative
emotions are manifested at different brand hate levels.
The conceptualization of brand hate. According to the
triangular theory of hate (Sternberg, 2003), three components
define hate, namely, the negation of intimacy – disgust,
passion – anger/fear and commitment – devaluation/
diminution. The study of interpersonal hate sets a good
foundation for the study of brand hate, and most of the brand
hate scholars rely on the triangular theory of hate for their
brand hate construct (Fetscherin, 2019; Kucuk, 2019;
Zarantonello et al., 2016). Of the three components of the
triangular theory of hate, two components are easily
categorized as emotions, namely, disgust and anger/fear.
According to Sternberg (2003), the variation of the
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
combination of the three components generates different
consequences (Fetscherin, 2019). It is commonly seen in the
brand hate literature that scholars investigate various anger-
related emotions and include them in their measurement;
surprisingly, fear and one important component of the
triangular theory of hate was left underexplored. Furthermore,
referring to Shaver et al. (1987), most studied brands hate
emotions actually fall under the anger category of the six basic
emotions, namely, love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear.
For example, three brand hate emotions (i.e. anger, contempt
and disgust) introduced by Fetscherin (2019) are in fact all
anger-related emotions (Shaver et al., 1987; Storm and Storm,
1987). To advance the knowledge of brand hate construct, this
research uses Sternberg’s (2003) triangular theory of hate and
integrates the research of Shaver et al. (1987), to propose a
more complete investigation of brand hate by incorporating all
possible basic negative emotions in Shaver et al. (1987),
namely, anger, sadness, fear and (negative) surprise.
Antecedents and consequences. Some of the extant brands hate
studies have investigated the antecedents and consequences of
brand hate (Garg et al., 2018; Kucuk, 2016, 2018a, 2018b,
2019; Zarantonello et al., 2016, 2018). According to the brand
hate research, the physical object, symbolic cultural object and
consumers’ dissatisfaction can cause brand hate (Japutra et al.,
2018; Romani et al., 2009). Whether the negative event is self-
relevant or not also plays a role (Johnson et al., 2010). Kucuk
(2016, 2018b) categorizes the antecedents as two types,
namely, company-related and consumer-related, more
specifically, brand value unfairness, product/service failures
and corporate social irresponsibility. Furthermore, Kucuk
(2018a) tests the macro-level brand hate and finds that
corporate social responsibility (CSR) works with product
service failure (PSF) to predict the macro-level brand hate.
Kucuk (2019), who is among the first to examine the
personality traits, reveals that conscientious individuals are
more likely to be brand haters.
Regarding the consequences of brand hate, the major ones
that have been studied are negative word-of-mouth (WOM),
complaints, boycotts, dissatisfaction, brand avoidance,
schadenfreude and brand switching (Bougie et al., 2003;
Fetscherin, 2019; Garg et al., 2018; Japutra et al., 2018;
Zarantonello et al., 2016). More importantly, scholars agree
that brand hate can cause different levels of consequences
because of its multidimensionality (Fetscherin, 2019; Park
et al., 2013; Kucuk, 2016, 2018b). Therefore, both quiet non-
confrontational (e.g. say nothing) and violent confrontational
(e.g. actively against) consequences can be observed after
brand hate (Japutra et al., 2018; Kucuk, 2016, 2018b, 2019).
A few marketing constructs are useful to the study of brand
hate. Brand revenge (Grégoire et al., 2009), brand sabotage
(Kähr et al., 2016), brand retaliation (Grégoire and Fisher,
2008) and brand avoidance (Osuna Ramírez et al., 2019) are
constructs similar to, yet different from brand hate, as they
capture the partial and consequential attributes of brand hate.
Although brand hate is an intense emotional state, different
from brand revenge, brand sabotage, brand retaliation and
brand avoidance, various reactions may be observed
corresponding to various levels of brand hate (i.e. hot, cool and
cold brand hate; Kucuk, 2016, 2018b). High-intensity
reactions (e.g. brand revenge), moderate reactions (e.g. brand
Journal of Product & Brand Management
avoidance) and even mild ones (e.g. status quo) can occur
(Anderson, 2003; Grégoire et al., 2009; Kucuk, 2008; Lee
et al., 2009a, 2009b; Peattie and Peattie, 2009; Sandıkcı and
Ekici, 2009).
Brand hate and brand love. The original attempts at
researching brand hate are mainly inspired by the work on
brand love (Batra et al., 2012). This approach is valid because
of the thin line and the strong association between love and hate
(Jin et al., 2017; Plutchik, 2001). Both brand love and brand
hate studies are mainly rooted in the triangular theory of that
specific emotion (i.e. love and hate; Sternberg, 1986, 2003).
Based on the triangular theory of love (Sternberg, 1986), Batra
et al. (2012) extracted seven dimensions of brand love, namely,
passion-driven behaviors, self-brand integration, positive
emotional connection, long-term relationship, anticipated
separation distress, overall attitude valence and attitude
strength. Based on the triangular theory of hate (Sternberg,
2003), scholars proposed different types/levels of brand hate
and investigating the multidimensional features of brand hate
(Fetscherin, 2019; Kucuk, 2018b, 2019; Zarantonello et al.,
2016).
Within this article, the authors present the findings of five
studies. Study 1 applies a qualitative methodology to explore
the emotions related to the multidimensional brand hate
construct. Studies 2, 3 and 4 use quantitative methods to
examine the associated emotions, as well as their manifestations
at different brand hate levels. Study 5 confirms the robustness
of the brand hate model developed by this research and
compares it to the currently available brand hate models.
Study 1
Qualitative research is a powerful tool to develop a theory and
understand a construct (Patton, 2001). Study 1 used a well-
developed and well-tested qualitative methodology to assess
brand hate in a general marketing context. The current work
extracts a brand hate definition and its attributes from
interviews and documents informed by general consumer-
brand interaction scenarios. To do so, the authors adopt a
discovery-oriented approach using both qualitative data and
the extant literature (Hollmann et al., 2015). This approach
overcomes some of the constraints imposed by the psychology
literature, as discussed, by allowing codes and coding schemes
to develop organically from the collected primary data. In doing
so, we are able to observe the brand hate phenomenon more
accurately and interpret brand hate in the consumer-brand
context rather than simply assuming that consumers interact
with brands exactly the way they interact with other individuals.
Procedure and analysis
In total, 25 adult consumers were recruited in a major North
American city, including 14 women and 11 men from 12
different nationalities from 19 to 46 years of age. In total, 25
semi-structured interviews were completed and lasted from 35
to 69 min. Participants received 10 dollars in compensation for
their time. To supplement the semi-structured interview
protocol, we implemented three interview phases to better
stimulate the conversation and capture the brand hate
attributes.
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
In the first phase, the authors provided eight categories based
on the product categories on Walmart.ca and Amazon.ca,
namely, clothes, appliances, electronics, foods and drinks,
health and beauty products, getaways, events and activities and
automotive. We believe that these categories well represent the
daily product and service consumption experiences because
these categories include both products (e.g. clothes) and
services (e.g. events and activities) and informants could report
service-related brand hate after selecting a product-related
category and vice versa. For instance, participants reported bad
service received in a restaurant after they chose the “foods and
drinks” category. Participants were encouraged to select three
categories where at least one hated brand was to be reported.
This design simulates the retrieval of the brand hate stories and
minimizes the interpersonal interviewing bias. It also helps
generalize the results to different product categories. After
choosing the categories, participants wrote down one hated
brand for each of the three chosen categories. Then,
participants wrote down one neutral brand and one liked/loved
brand for each selected category.
In the second phase, after providing the hated, neutral and
liked/loved brands in all possible categories, participants sorted
the brands from most hated to most loved, regardless of the
categories to which they previously belonged. Then,
participants regrouped the sorted brands into hate, neutral and
like/love groups. With the new assortment, participants talked
about the general differences between the hate and neutral
groups, and the differences between the hate and like/love
groups. The purpose is to uncover the key attributes that
distinguish the hated brands from the neutral and liked/loved
ones. This procedure is essentially helpful in defining brand
hate and in extracting the hate attributes more accurately.
The final phase involved storytelling, which focused on hated
brands. Participants shared their stories about brand hate
incidents.
In total, 71 brands were reported as hated in the interviews.
We then searched for online complaints about each brand, to
complement the triangulation process (Denzin, 1970). Each
brand’s online forums, blogs, related hate Facebook pages and
hate websites were scrutinized. This process retrieved not only
written brand hate reports but also pictures and videos. Brand
hate incidents, rather than the individual consumers, were the
units of analysis. In total, 179 independent brand hate incidents
(86 from interviews and 93 from online complaints) were
obtained. Taken altogether, the interviews and online
complaint documents provide an adequate source for a
thorough analysis.
All interviews were transcribed and included with online
documents in the ensuing analysis. We adopted a
hermeneutical approach. In doing so, we implemented an
iterative process in which coding was done dynamically by
shifting back and forth between the data and the literature
(Kähr et al., 2016). This approach ensures the extraction of an
exhaustive list of the important and relevant elements, which
can help develop a comprehensive conceptual framework. The
qualitative data were scrutinized first intertextually and then
intertextually. This procedure was repeated several times to
ensure the saturation of the coding scheme. Two coders
including one of the authors coded the qualitative data. The
minor differences between the two coders were resolved
Journal of Product & Brand Management
through discussion. Atlas. ti 7 was used to analyze qualitative
data.
Definition
The qualitative data from the interviews and the online
documents confirm that brand hate is a strong negative state.
The data provide evidence that two important sources fuel
brand hate, namely, fresh bad experiences and repeated bad
experiences. Indeed, the literature on hatred and customer
defection supports the important role played by significant
incidents and repeated failures in brand hate (Johnson et al.,
2010; Hollmann et al., 2015). It is worth clarifying that the
ownership of a brand is not a necessity in brand hate (Park
et al., 2013).
Based on the two descriptive sources of brand hate and by
attentively examining the qualitative data, brand hate is
regarded as something “extreme” and “negative,” which is in
line with the main characteristics of interpersonal hate
emotions (Fitness and Fletcher, 1993; Shaver et al., 1987).
According to Sternberg (2003), hate is composed of hostile
feelings, disgust, frustration and anxiety, depending on the
different types of hate. Based on Sternberg’s (2003) and Shaver
et al.’s (1987) theories, we examine the negative emotions
referring to Shaver et al.’s (1987) six basic emotions (i.e. love,
joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear). Doing so enables us to
explore the emotions of and beyond anger, disgust, frustration
and anxiety, which are the sub-emotions of Shaver et al.’s
(1987) anger, sadness and fear of basic emotions. This
approach also enables us to explore the different manifestation
levels of the related basic emotions. For example, sadness
might be manifested at a stronger level as hurt or at a milder
level as pity. Thus, we posit that brand hate is a strong negative
passion a consumer has toward a brand that is accompanied by
a group of anger-, sadness- and fear-related emotions.
The emotional dimensions of brand hate
The qualitative data lend some strong support to our argument
that brand hate is composed of different negative emotions.
Based on Shaver et al.’s (1987) six basic emotions (i.e. love, joy,
surprise, anger, sadness and fear), four of the six basic emotions
are related to brand hate, namely, anger, sadness, surprise and
fear. Given the nature of brand hate, it is reasonable to expect
surprise emotions to be negative. To be specific, anger is a
strong retrospective emotion that originated from incongruent
events (Gelbrich, 2010). Sadness, defined as a downhearted
feeling, can co-exist with anger to be part of brand hate (Batra
and Ray, 1986; Bougie et al., 2003; Rucker and Petty, 2004).
Surprise, an emotion related to unexpected events, along with
fear, a state of apprehension and uneasiness, comprises the
important brand hate emotional components that lack
attention in the literature (Batra and Ray, 1986; Ekman and
Friesen, 1971).
In addition, as discussed, scholars denote that the hate
emotion comprises various levels with different dimensions;
thus, we examine the emotions based on different brand hate
levels (Sternberg, 2003). We coded the brand hate incidents
using an ordinal scale (Level 1 = mild brand hate; Level 5 =
strong brand hate) to capture the different intensity levels. The
coded brand hate emotions were first analyzed within each
brand hate level and then compared between levels, to illustrate
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

how brand hate emotions evolve as the intensity increases.
Doing so provides us with more insights on the variation in
emotional descriptions corresponding to each brand hate level,
namely, mild, moderate and strong brand hate. Previous
studies (Fetscherin, 2019; Kucuk, 2016, 2018b, 2019;
Zarantonello et al., 2016) have discussed various brand hate
levels. Kucuk (2018b) presented a list of emotion terms
depicting different brand hate levels; however, his grouping of
emotions was not tested by either the qualitative or the
quantitative data. Further, only Fetscherin (2019) discussed
the condition when one brand hate emotion occurs at different
brand hate levels (e.g. sadness manifested at different sad
levels). However, only anger-related emotions were included in
the discussion. Thus, the current study design helps overcome
the limitations of the previous studies and allows us to provide
detailed emotional components for each brand hate level.
Mild brand hates emotions. Scholars claim that anger and
sadness can co-exist in the events of brand hate (Rucker and
Petty, 2004). We did find both the lower intense anger and
sadness emotions in the mild brand hate state (Table II). B
(Male, Sri Lankan, 19) had irritating feelings toward three
Amigos, a Mexican restaurant. R (Male, North American, 19)
described his disappointment as his brand hate emotion toward
Subway. K (Female, North American, 19) expressed her
experiences with American Apparel as “overwhelmed.” As
shown in Table II, informants used only two brand hate
emotions (i.e. anger and sadness) to describe their mild brand
hate, and these emotional descriptors are of low intensity. It is
possible that less aroused emotions are experienced in mild
brand hate. The reasons are as follows:

brand hate comprises low to high-intensity states, thus not
only the states with extreme reactions but also less intense
emotions could be experienced (Sternberg, 2003; Kucuk,
2016); and

anger has sub-categorical emotions such as irritation
(Shaver et al., 1987), which could be less intense than
anger, but are experienced as anger in mild brand hate.
Scholars regard this mild brand hate level as dislike or cool
brand hate (Kucuk, 2016, 2018b; Romani et al., 2009). The
mild brand hate is not as intense as the moderate brand hate or
the strong brand hate; however, it is composed of anger- and
sadness-related emotions, simply at a milder level.
A moderate brand hates emotions. Different from the mild
brand hate state, moderate brand hate comprises emotions that
are relatively active, extreme and intense. Four of Shaver et al.’s
(1987) six basic emotions are revealed to depict moderate

Table II Emotions involved in different brand hate states

Anger-related Sadness-related Fear-related Surprise-related Sample Quotes
Mild brand hate Irritation Boredom It is a phone and me, I do not know. It is a
Disappointment disappointment (E., Male, French, 19, Sony)
Overwhelmed
Moderate brand hate Aggravation Depression Scary Confusion I was very um, very very aggravated [with the
Anger Disappointment Frightfulness Odd tablet]. With the phone, the phone was less so . . . I
Annoyance Embarrassment Shock remember thinking oh this is you, this is your fault,
Disgust Guilt Surprise falling into this trap again. Even though I knew it
Frustration Helplessness was not my fault, I should not buy it
Hate Hopelessness (K., Female, Canadian, 21, Samsung)
Irritation Regret They said the boots were waterproof. However,
Loathe Shame when I wore it on a rainy day, I felt it so wet. I was
Madness so mad. However, I could not go back home. I had
Obnoxiousness to go where I was going or I would be late. So I
Rage went with my feet wet. That was so embarrassing
(M., Female, French, 27, UGG)
I was really scared because I had to fly, I cannot
stay there more. Because I have to really rush and
also I have to come to Canada, register and stuff
(A., Male, Kazakhstan, 25, Expedia)
I was shocked, yes, right now I am not, I will not
show up ever. Not only in Amir [on Crescent] [but
also] in any other places
(K., Female, Canadian, 19, Amir)
Strong Anger Disappointment Terrified I also smashed my phone because I was angry at
brand hate Annoyance Shame the Hewlett-Packard and Best Buy. I never break
Frustration anything
Gross (A., Female, Canadian, 37, Best Buy)
Furiousness I just feel sorry that I did not know that such a
Rage brand such as a beautiful brand can have such a
disgusting disrespectful image behind its logo. So I
will feel sorry, I will feel disappointed
(M., Male, Iranian, 28, Turkish Airline)
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
brand hate, namely, anger, sadness, surprise and fear. When
asked to characterize the hate feelings toward Acer and Nissan,
S. (Male, North American, 20) said, “I feel angry; I feel a little
bit upset. Yeah, because I could have gotten something better
for the same price.” Similar emotions such as aggravation,
madness, obnoxiousness, rage, irritation, annoyance and loathe
were qualifiers used by participants. Frustration, a milder form
of anger, is also a composing emotion of moderate brand hate
reported by the informants (Gelbrich, 2010). C. (Female,
North American, 19) said, as she explained her family’s tug of
war experience with Dell: “my mom was pretty frustrated. I was
getting pretty frustrated with that.” Disgust is another anger-
related emotion in moderate brand hate. A Facebook user
commented on the United Airlines Facebook page: “Cannot
believe the inept, unintelligent, uncaring and disengaged
employees [. . .] I am disgusted!”
In addition to anger-related emotions, we again observe
sadness-related emotions in the moderate brand hate state.
These sadness emotions are of higher intensity levels than the
sadness in mild brand hate. To be specific, informants went
through emotions such as helplessness, hopelessness,
disappointment and depression. Sadness has been overlooked
in brand hate literature. While our data suggest sadness to be
one of the important emotions experienced in moderate brand
hate, only Zarantonello et al. (2016) tested disappointment as
part of the characteristics of passive brand hate. For K.
(Female, North American, 19), brand hate translates into
helplessness because she “could not do anything” about the
frustrating experience they had with Dell. The work by Fitness
and Fletcher (1993) justifies the association between
helplessness and depression and brand hate. While comparing
hate and anger, they claim that hate is elicited by incidents that
are less controlled. Hence, as brand hate may be experienced
during incidents with low control, individuals may experience
feelings of helplessness and depression. Regret, shame, guilt
and embarrassment are another group of non-provoking
sadness-related emotions and are internally triggered (Bagozzi
et al., 1999). When telling the two negative experiences with
Samsung, K (Female, North American, 21) said: “I felt
ashamed that I had let myself be tricked again.” Scholars
believe that regret emotions, a subcategory of sadness, are of a
higher intensity than sadness (Bechwati and Morrin, 2003).
Given that hate is widely accepted as a multidimensional
emotion (Sternberg, 2003), consumers may also encounter a
group of surprise and fear emotions while experiencing brand
hate. Such emotions include confusion, shock, weirdness,
oddity, scariness and frightfulness. K. (Female, North
American, 21) characterized unpleasant experiences with
Hollister as frightening and scary:
I told my friends, you know what guys, this place is frightening to me, it’s
very scary here, because it’s dark and I cannot see, so I’m not going, and it
smells, so I’m just gonna leave.
Emotions related to moderate brand hate are of higher intensity
with a higher arousal level than those reported in the mild state.
More emotions, compared with mild brand hate, contribute to
portraying this moderate state. Besides the anger and sadness
emotions, surprise and fear emotions further form a moderate
brand hate state (Table II). The results are in line with the
multidimensional character of the hate emotion (Sternberg,
2003).
Journal of Product & Brand Management
A strong brand hates emotions. While moderate brand hate
encapsulates a mixture of anger, sadness, fear and surprise
emotions, consumers report more anger-pertinent emotions in
strong brand to hate and these emotions are further along on
the spectrum. Sadness and fear are also observed, yet with a
smaller proportion and a higher intensity compared with mild
and moderate brand hate.
Specifically, anger-related emotions in strong brand hate are
more aggressive and are associated with events appraised as
harmful and frustrating; these emotions make people feel like to
explode (Bougie et al., 2003; Kähr et al., 2016). The
typical anger-related emotions in the strong brand hate include
anger, annoyance, furiousness and rage. M. (Male, North
American, 24) described his interactions with American
Airlines as “just so angry and befuddled, like could not believe
that people would let that pass.” When he wrote about it on the
blog, he said, “I was furious, so I used language that I probably
would not want online.” Informants also felt stronger disgust in
the strong brand hate state. A feeling of blatant to the brand was
reported. B (Female, North American, 23) characterized her
feeling toward Canada Goose as such:
I will ignore the logo. I can recognize it from far, the circle, [and] the color, I
know it. I see it on the shoulder, that’s kind of Canada Goose. I’m like [it’s]
gross [. . .] Every the time I see [a] Canada Goose jacket, it’s gross.
Interestingly, N. (Female, Italian, 20) also had gross feelings
toward Canada Goose.
While sadness and fear do not play a dominant role in strong
brand hate, participants do report them at a stronger level
(e.g. extreme disappointment and terrifying). Describing
two negative experiences with Turkish Airline, M. (Male,
Iranian, 28) said, “at that time, I was a bit disappointed [. . .]
The second time I decided to fly Turkish Airline [. . .] I became
extremely disappointed, and at this time I really hated the
brand.” Fear, too, often occurs, namely, M (Male, North
American, 24) claimed his experiences with American Airlines
were terrifying. Specifically, he reported both fear and anger;
mixed emotions in strong brand hate are common.
The analysis of the emotional dimensions of brand hate
supports the notion that the construct is more than just anger or
hate; rather, it is a mixture of anger, sadness, fear and surprise
emotions (Fitness and Fletcher, 1993; Sternberg, 2003, 2005;
Zarantonello et al., 2016). As brand hate becomes stronger, the
proportion of anger-related emotions becomes greater and their
intensity increases. Table II summarizes the main emotions in
each brand hate state with sample quotes.
The cognitive antecedents of brand hate
The interview results also uncovered the antecedents of brand
hate. We propose, based on the qualitative data analysis, that
the brand hate cognitions (labeled as “antecedents” in
Figure 1) can be observed after the brand hate incidents. In
Figure 1, the reasons are different from antecedents as follows:
reasons are associated with the brand hate incidents and are
usually external to consumers, whereas cognitive antecedents
are consumers’ cognitive evaluations of the brand hate
incidents. The qualitative data presented three types of
cognitions, namely, experience related cognitions, brand-
related cognitions and brand attitude cognitions.
Experience related to cognitions. In the current study, the
qualitative data present the experience related thinking, in
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

Figure 1 Conceptual model of findings

Company related reasons Level 6: Fight with the brand

y Negative brand image y Public inquiry
y Marketing strategy
y Employees and CEOs Level 5: Anti-brand behaviors
y Store environment y Negative WOM
y Industry y Complaint
y Take away customers
y Switch to competitors
Experience-related
Product related reasons Emotional dimensions y Destroy the brand
cognitions
y Price y Mild (Low intensity
y Product quality of anger and
y Product design sadness emotions) Level 4: Brand avoidance
Brand-related y Moderate (Anger, y Avoid the brand
cognitions sadness, surprise, y Boycott
Customer service related and fear emotions)
y Strong (High Level 3: Stay with the brand
reasons intensity of anger,
Brand attitude y Status quo
y Customer service quality cognitions sadness, and fear
y A condescending brand emotions)
Level 2: Passive reaction
Consumer related reasons
Antecedents Brand Hate y Forget about it
y Failed expectation
y Cultural background and Level 1: Communication with the
personality
y Special meaning brand
y Negative WOM
y Better alternatives Other: Lower brand image

Reasons Consequences

which consumers analyze and summarize the brand hate
incidents. Both Y. (Male, North American, 40) and N.
(Female, Italian, 20) depict their brand hate incidents as bad
luck with a brand. B. (Female, North American, 23) described
her experience with Lululemon as uncomfortable.
Brand related cognitions. Consumers may engage in cognitions
about the brand after the brand hate incidents. For instance,
consumers may regard the brand as obnoxious and malicious.
The brand-related cognitions summarize the thoughts related
to brand image, which is often generated from the perceived
risks (Odoom et al., 2019). Although it is a consumer’s
perception, it is less judgmental with fewer consumer attitudes
involved than brand attitude cognitions. Y. (Male, North
American, 40) construed his interaction with Bayer as follows:
“I have the impression it could be malicious, particularly when
the pharmacist tells me I give you that because it’s [in] my
interest to do so’.” Y. (Male, North American, 40) elucidated a
negative cognitive approach with Bell, a brand he hates,
describing them as “a bully.”
Brand attitude cognitions. The brand attitude cognitions are
commonly seen in other brand emotion studies (Grégoire et al.,
2009; Kähr et al., 2016), the current study reports similar
cognitions. Different from the brand-related cognitions, brand
attitude cognitions are more subjective, which reflect
consumers’ attitudes toward the brand. Given the negative
experiences, a consumer associates with a brand and the bad
image linked to it, such an individual may come to despise a
brand following the brand hate incidents, which leads to brand
hate. For example, Canada Goose haters called Canada Goose
as Canada Douche. The thoughts of contempt are not only to
the brand itself but also to the consumers who use the brand.
For instance, the University of Toronto students, who are
known for wearing expensive Canada Goose jackets, are called
1999). This section examines the physical reactions of brand
hate, which comprises two types of reactions: physiological
and behavioral. The physiological reactions occur after
experiencing brand hate, possible symptoms include sweaty
palms and a racing heart (Bagozzi et al., 1999); whereas the
behavioral reactions are a retrospective reflection of the
brand hate the experience, which could be manifested as
brand revenge, brand sabotage and brand retaliation
(Grégoire and Fisher, 2008; Grégoire et al., 2009; Kähr
et al., 2016). Although the two are often confused and
regarded as the same in the extant literature, the current
study treats them separately.
Physiological reactions. Arousals have been recognized as a
way individuals use to cope with strong negative emotions
(Bagozzi et al., 1999). The associated physiological
symptoms describe the organism’s status and are generally
harder to detect than behavioral ones. The data suggest that
gut-wrenching and sick-to-the-stomach feelings are typical
physiological reactions when experiencing brand hate. As a
Nissan hater, Richard Hammond wrote online and described
his hate as “a physical passion, a gut-wrenching, colon-
knotting, visceral twist that threatens to disrupt my digestive
tract and direct bile into my heart.” K. (Female, North
American, 21) explained her reactions to the brand Hollister
as a “physical disgust reaction.”
Behavioral reactions. Brand hate can also be associated with
observable behavioral reactions. Typical behavioral reactions
reported in the current study include eye-rolling, crying, yelling
and smashing things. K. (Female, North American, 21)
expressed her hate for Hollister behaviorally:
When I walk pass them all, I just kind of roll my eyes, and oh my god, that
place still exists. And it satisfies me [. . .] But you know if it was a Hollister
advertisement, I will be looking away, I kind of turn my head.

“douches” by Canada Goose haters.
The physical reactions of brand hate
Brand hate is a strong negative emotion, which can cause
bodily arousal and physical expressions (Bagozzi et al.,
Given that sadness is part of the moderate brand hate state,
crying is a reasonable associated behavioral reaction. K.
(Female, North American, 21) recalled an incident with
Samsung: “I did cry about it and I was so upset. Because it was
my Christmas gift and it was gone.”
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
Sometimes the behavioral reactions can be intense and
confrontational. Brand hate may make consumers yell. J.
(Male, Indian, 26) recalled the time when he had to deal with
Bell’s service support: “I screamed at them. Because I had to.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t get any response.” Sometimes, yelling
and screaming are fueled to cursing a brand. An online Acer
hater wrote, “I hate Acer and I want (them) to die!” Consumers
may also express their hate more confrontationally through
smashing or punching. A. (Female, North American, 37)
destroyed her old computer to vent her hate toward Hewlett-
Packard. A Lululemon hater Paula Mangin wrote on
HuffingtonPost, “everything about that brand makes me want
to knock down an end-aisle display of Vitamin Water with my
yoga mat.” While for Y. (Male, North American, 40), he
enjoyed tearing up the mail from his most hated brand, Bell.
Discussion
Following the hermeneutical approach (Kähr et al., 2016),
Study 1 provides a rich interpretation of brand hate. Overall,
the findings confirm the emotional components of brand hate,
namely, anger, sadness, fear and surprise emotions.
More importantly, anger-, sadness- and fear-related emotions
are manifested with different intensity at different brand hate
levels. Our findings confirm that brand hate is a
multidimensional construct and illustrate the way that
emotions vary across brand hate levels. In addition, the current
work presents brand hate reasons and consequences. See
Figure 1 for details.
The Comparison between Brand Hate and Interpersonal Hate.
Until now, the current research has reviewed the literature on
brand hate (Fetscherin, 2019; Hegner et al., 2017; Kucuk,
2016, 2018a, 2018b, 2019; Zarantonello et al., 2016, 2018),
and discussed findings from the qualitative study pertaining to
the brand hate dimensions, antecedents and reactions. As a
step forward, the authors also investigate how brand hate
compares to interpersonal hate as a means to gain a more
precise definition of brand hate. To the best of our knowledge,
this comparison is novel in the literature. The extant brand
hates research assumes pertinent characteristics to be fully
shared by brand hate and interpersonal hate. Although scholars
have already claimed that brand hate is similar to, yet different
from, interpersonal hate and these differences have yet to be
fully explored (Kucuk, 2016; Preijers, 2016). Such is our
objective for the next section.
Differences. Although a brand can be anthropomorphized as
similar to a human being, brand hate is never identical to
interpersonal hate. A relationship between a brand and a
consumer is believed to be abstract, artificial, subject to
judgment, impersonal and rational. For brand hate, people are
angry at something backed by a collectively profitable
organization. Generally, brand hate is about one-way
communication and one-way responsibility as follows: brands
are normally the target of blame in brand hate. Although
dialogue through customer support and social media platforms
are usually available, consumers do not feel there exists a two-
way communication. In addition, the reasons to hate a brand
are concrete.
On the contrary, interpersonal hate is more personal,
complicated and emotional. Interpersonal hate is not about
quality judgment; it is mostly expressed through two-way
Journal of Product & Brand Management
communications. The hated person is not replaceable by
another person, whereas it is quite common and easy to leave a
hated brand for its competitors.
The qualitative data from this study also indicated that brand
hate is not as strong as interpersonal hate, as interpersonal hate
is more involving and personal and not easily replaceable.
Additionally, a brand can buy the love back from customers
(e.g. lower price), a tactic not quite applicable to interpersonal
hate.
Both brand hate and interpersonal hate are not forgivable,
though for different reasons. Brand hate is not forgivable
because of its profit-driven characteristic, an observation
supported by the empirical results in Fetscherin and Sampedro
(2019), where almost half of the consumers reported that they
are unlikely or very unlikely to forgive a brand in the case of
brand transgression. Interpersonal hate is not forgivable
because of the stability of the hated personality.
Similarities. The current study results suggest brand hate
shares the essential emotional grounds with interpersonal hate.
Individuals experience similar arousal and anxiety when
experiencing brand and interpersonal hate. Both types endure a
series of emotions such as anger, sadness and fear. Both
emotions deal with feelings of injustice and betrayal and may
vary in intensity levels. More importantly, both emotions are
multidimensional constructs.
To further justify the emotional components of brand hate,
Studies 2-5 adopt quantitative methods to triangulate these
results.
Study 2
Three of the recently published brand hate studies (Fetscherin,
2019; Hegner et al., 2017; Zarantonello et al., 2016) proposed
measurement scales of brand hate. Building on the psychology
literature, Zarantonello et al. (2016) asked participants to
choose words that describe brand hate from a group of
emotional terms. Hegner et al. (2017) used six items to measure
brand hate. Although they include items that examine the
branding aspect of brand hate, their research methodology did
not follow the standard scale development protocol (Churchill,
1979). Fetscherin (2019) referred to the triangular theory of
hate (Sternberg, 2003), and measured brand hates through 29
emotional items. However, the variation of the emotional
components of brand hate was not examined in these
studies. By developing a comprehensive measurement scale,
Studies 2-5 seeks to empirically validate the emotional
components of brand hate.
Brand hate propositions
Findings from Study 1 show that brand hate is a construct with
multiple emotional components. Studies 2-5 aim to validate the
multidimensional model through quantitative studies. To test
the predictive validity of the scale, the relationships between
brand hate and other constructs were tested. Using established
constructs to test a new measurement scale has been favored by
scholars, and is a powerful way to validate a new construct
(Walsh and Beatty, 2007). Similar to previous studies of brand
hate, the current research included the following established
dependent variables, namely, negative WOM, complaint,
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
protest and patronage reduction to validate the newly
developed brand hate model (Zarantonello et al., 2016).
According to the brand literature, consumers may talk
spitefully (e.g. negative WOM) about a brand after having
negative associations (e.g. brand hate) with that brand
(Grégoire and Fisher, 2006; Kucuk, 2008). Besides negative
WOM, the complaint is another possible outcome of brand
hate (Charlett et al., 1995). In Grappi et al.’s (2013) study,
revenge or protest to a brand is found to be a demonstration of
consumers’ hate toward a brand. When a negative association
dominates the relationship between a consumer and a brand,
consumers reduce their purchase of that brand (Grégoire and
Fisher, 2006). Accordingly, here are the proposed hypotheses
as follows:
H1. Brand hate is composed of anger-, sadness- and fear-
related emotions.
H2. Brand hate increases negative WOM.
H3. Brand hate increases complaining behaviors.
H4. Brand hate increases protest behaviors.
H5. Brand hate increases patronage reduction.
Item generation
Following the recommended scale development procedure
(Churchill, 1979), an initial pool of items was developed from
study 1. Previous brand hate studies generate the items based
on surveys with detailed brand hate stories left out
(Zarantonello et al., 2016). It is possible that sometimes the
terms in the survey do not depict true brand hate. The current
research implemented a thorough interview procedure in Study
1 to extract the most accurate information from storytelling.
In addition to the items generated from the exploratory data
(Study 1), the authors consulted the hate and brand hate literature
and integrated four general hate measurement items and 18
additional measurement items from Zarantonello et al.’s (2016)
study. In the first step, 89 items were pre-tested among 97
undergraduate students, half of whom had work experience.
Participants were asked to write down one brand they really hated
and completed the questionnaire. In an open-ended question,
participants suggested additional items that were not captured in
the original 89 items. In the second step, the authors reviewed the
qualitative data and extracted additional items, cross-referencing
them to the suggested items and literature. Redundant items were
eliminated in this process. In addition, marketing experts and
brand specialists were consulted. The initial data collection effort
generated 150 items for further analysis (Appendix).
Sample and procedure
Data were collected in a major North American university. The
recruitment advertisement was sent to students who were then
enrolled in a marketing introductory course through a student
subject pool. Students took part in the study in exchange for
either money ($5) or a course credit compensation (1 credit).
Participants finished the measurement scale survey on a
computer in a consumer laboratory. In total, 347 participants
took part in the survey and 43 incomplete questionnaires were
Journal of Product & Brand Management
excluded, leaving 304 valid responses. Among the participants,
135 (44.4 per cent) were male and 169 (55.6 per cent) were
female from 18 to 56 years of age. Similar to the procedure in
the pre-test, participants wrote down a hated brand and then
assessed the extent to which the measurement items described
the hate emotions they felt toward that brand; this was done for
all 150 items.
Findings
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was run using the principal
component method. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO)
measure (0.937) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity ( x 211175 =
39,865.3, p = 0.000) suggested the appropriateness of the
factor model (Malhotra, 2008). Through direct oblimin
rotation, a series of exploratory factor analyzes were applied.
After repeating this process for 13 times, the final factor model
was obtained with 41 items on nine factors (eigenvalues > 1.0),
which explained 72.2 per cent of the total variance, with the
loading score for each factor ||0.50||. The model satisfied all
statistical criteria (Nunnally, 1978). The nine factors were
labeled as follows, namely, hate, sadness, fear, a hypocritical
brand, dismiss the brand, troublesome experience, overwhelm,
behavioral reactions and physiological reactions.
Study 3
While Study 2 provides a preliminary structure of the brand
hate model, Study 3 was carried out as a means to purify the
measurement scale and test its validity and reliability.
Sample and procedure
Participants were recruited in a major North American city.
The recruitment advertisement was sent to students who were
enrolled in the marketing introductory course. Participants for
Study 3 were recruited one semester after Study 2. This
guarantees that a different sample was used for Study 3 than in
Study 2. In total, 381 questionnaires were collected. After
screening the data, incomplete questionnaires were eliminated
and 303 complete questionnaires were retained. Among the
participants, 141 were male (46.5 per cent) and 162 were
female (53.5 per cent) from 18 to 55 years of age. Each
questionnaire contained two general brands hate questions at
the beginning and 41 brands hate-related items. The two
general brands hate questions aimed at capturing the brand
hate level information, which will be discussed later.
Measurement on negative WOM (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006),
complaint (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006), protest (Grappi et al.,
2013) and patronage reduction (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006)
were included in the survey aiming to test the brand hate scale
predictive validity at a later stage. All questions were measured
on five-point Likert scales, anchored at 1 = strongly disagree,
5 = strongly agree.
Findings
Structure of the scale. Similar to the procedures used in Study 2,
we ran an EFA. Both the KMO = 0.918 and x 2820 = 1,1202.6,
p = 0.000 demonstrated that the data set was appropriate for
factor analysis. Using Direct Oblimin Rotation, a model with
nine factors emerged, which confirmed the nine-factor solution
of the measurement scale in Study 2. Two items obtained poor
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

loading scores were eliminated. The final model contains 39
items depicting nine factors (eigenvalues > 1.0), explaining
77.7 per cent of the total variance, with the loading score for
each factor ||0.59|| (Table III).
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied on the 39
items using AMOS 24.0. Items with high correlated errors on
non-corresponding factors were eliminated by referencing
modification indices. After a few attempts, a model with 28
items featuring nine factors was retained while no error item
was freed in the current model. The model had a satisfactory
model fit indices respecting the statistical criteria ( x 2 = 592.6,
df = 314, p = 0.000, CFI = 0.957, IFI = 0.957, RMSEA =
0.054). The results indicate that the data fit the model
satisfactorily and the 28 items capture the nine factors of brand
hate-related constructs properly (Hu and Bentler, 1999).
Table IV shows each item’s coefficient. The factor labels are
adjusted based on their common features.
Brand hate items. Based on the nine-factor model, and
referring back to the observations in Study 1, we believe that
the brand hate model holds better theoretical and statistical
validity if only emotion-related items are treated as the core
brand hate items. According to the literature and the findings in
Study 1, cognitive-related factors are regarded as brand hate
antecedents and physical-related factors are regarded as brand
hate reactions. This causal relationship was then tested in a
structure equational model (SEM).
An additional CFA was performed on the three emotional
factors, namely, anger, sadness and fear. Three factors with
nine items were included in the AMOS 24.0. We obtained a
better model fit for the three-factor model than for the nine-

Table III In total, 39 brand hate-related items after EFA

Factor
F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9
I want to hurt someone when I think about the brand 0.805
I want to punch the brand if it were a person 0.860
I want to slap the brand if it were a person 0.846
I feel like screaming when I think about this brand 0.793
I want to smash something when I think about the brand 0.801
I feel like strangling someone when I think about this brand 0.745
I feel like tarnishing the brand 0.709
I feel like tearing up the things I get from the brand 0.593
I would wish everything bad happens to the brand 0.624
I extremely dislike this brand 0.643
I really detest this brand 0.730
This brand makes me feel enraged 0.828
I feel furious at this brand 0.838
I have a feeling of revulsion to this brand 0.769
I have a feeling of loathing to this brand 0.782
I feel odd thinking about this brand 0.795
I feel overwhelmed thinking about this brand 0.758
I feel uncomfortable when I think about the brand 0.772
This brand makes me feel weird 0.906
I got screwed up by this brand 0.878
This brand made me suffer 0.732
My experience with this brand is troublesome 0.802
I do not care about this brand 0.894
I dismiss the brand 0.875
This brand is greedy 0.853
The brand is hypocritical 0.863
This brand is a scum 0.665
The brand is shady 0.671
I feel disappointed when I think about this brand 0.857
I feel displeased when I think about this brand 0.833
I feel disenchanted when I think about this brand 0.750
I have a feeling of bubbling insides of my body when I think about the brand 0.801
I have a gut-wrenching feeling thinking about the brand 0.902
I feel sick to stomach thinking about the brand 0.890
I want to vomit when I think about the brand 0.851
I want to puke thinking about the brand 0.797
I feel fear when I think about this brand 0.752
I feel threatened when I think about this brand 0.806
I feel worried when I think about this brand 0.715
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

Table IV Factor loadings of 28 brand hate-related items

x 2 = 502.471 x 2 = 413.867 x 2 = 440.512
df = 222 df = 201 df = 222
p = 0.000 p = 0.000 p = 0.000
CFI = 0.950 CFI = 0.960 CFI = 0.962
IFI = 0.951 IFI = 0.960 IFI = 0.962
RMSEA = 0.065 RMSEA = 0.059 RMSEA = 0.057
Standardized Standardized Standardized Cronbach’s
coefficient coefficient coefficient a
Antecedent
Troublesome experience 0.842
I got screwed up by this brand 0.775
This brand made me suffer 0.844
My experience with this brand is troublesome 0.775
Dismiss the brand 0.787
I do not care about this brand 2.142
I dismiss the brand 0.303
A hypocritical brand 0.849
The brand is hypocritical 0.654
This brand is scum 0.889
The brand is shady 0.887
Brand hate
Anger 0.915
I feel furious at this brand 0.845 0.846 0.845
I have a feeling of revulsion to this brand 0.920 0.919 0.920
I have a feeling of loathing to this brand 0.893 0.894 0.892
Sadness 0.858
I feel disappointed when I think about this brand 0.819 0.816 0.812
I feel displeased when I think about this brand 0.863 0.867 0.867
I feel disenchanted when I think about this brand 0.781 0.780 0.784
Fear 0.893
I feel fear when I think about this brand 0.907 0.908 0.906
I feel threatened when I think about this brand 0.913 0.910 0.912
I feel worried when I think about this brand 0.776 0.778 0.779
Reactions
Overwhelm 0.871
I feel odd thinking about this brand 0.695 0.696 0.696
I feel overwhelmed thinking about this brand 0.778 0.776 0.776
I feel uncomfortable when I think about the brand 0.857 0.856 0.857
This brand makes me feel weird 0.838 0.840 0.840
Behavioral reactions 0.937
I want to hurt someone when I think about the brand 0.828 0.828 0.828
I feel like screaming when I think about this brand 0.890 0.890 0.891
I want to smash something when I think about the brand 0.943 0.943 0.943
I feel like strangling someone when I think about this brand 0.900 0.899 0.899
Physiological reactions 0.946
I feel sick to stomach thinking about the brand 0.831 0.831 0.831
I want to vomit when I think about the brand 0.978 0.977 0.977
I want to puke thinking about the brand 0.973 0.974 0.973

factor model; x 2 = 78.26, df = 24, p = 0.000, CFI = 0.971,
IFI = 0.971 and RMSEA = 0.087. Table V presents the
coefficients of the nine-item three-factor model. All the items
were normally distributed, with skewness and kurtosis values
falling in an acceptable range between 2 and 12 (George and
Mallery, 2010). Results confirmed the multidimensional
structure of the brand hate construct as follows: brand hate is
composed of anger-, sadness- and fear-related emotions. To
examine whether the three-factor model holds a better
theoretical and statistical explanation of brand hate than the
nine-factor model, we ran a comparison analysis of the two
models and found that the three-factor model was significantly
better than the nine-factor model (D x 2 = 514.4, Ddf = 290 and
p = 0.000). This finding confirmed that brand hate is a
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

Table V Factor loadings of nine brand hate items

Skewness Kurtosis Standardized Coefficient Cronbach’s a
Study 3 Emotional - anger 0.915
v2 = 78.26 I feel furious at this brand 0.036 0.785 0.846
df = 24 I have a feeling of revulsion to this brand 0.225 0.555 0.918
p = 0.000 I have a feeling of loathing to this brand 0.297 0.547 0.894
CFI = 0.971 Emotional - sadness 0.858
IFI = 0.971 I feel disappointed when I think about this brand 0.850 0.336 0.811
RMSEA = 0.087 I feel displeased when I think about this brand 0.997 0.241 0.874
I feel disenchanted when I think about this brand 0.418 0.789 0.776
Emotional - fear 0.893
I feel fear when I think about this brand 0.831 0.407 0.911
I feel threatened when I think about this brand. 0.943 0.094 0.910
I feel worried when I think about this brand 0.523 1.013 0.772
Study 4 Emotional - anger 0.820
v2 = 74.68 I feel furious at this brand 0.331 0.807 0.764
df = 24 I have a feeling of revulsion to this brand 0.676 0.032 0.776
p = 0.000 I have a feeling of loathing to this brand 0.716 0.182 0.797
CFI = 0.958 Emotional - sadness 0.757
IFI = 0.958 I feel disappointed when I think about this brand 0.981 0.175 0.711
RMSEA = 0.085 I feel displeased when I think about this brand 1.320 1.779 0.735
I feel disenchanted when I think about this brand 0.739 1.000 0.706
Emotional - fear 0.893
I feel fear when I think about this brand 0.609 0.974 0.846
I feel threatened when I think about this brand 0.520 1.183 0.952
I feel worried when I think about this brand 0.177 1.478 0.786
Study 5 Emotional - anger 0.930
v2 = 88.25 I feel furious at this brand 0.061 1.199 0.829
df = 24 I have a feeling of revulsion to this brand 0.032 1.153 0.941
p = 0.000 I have a feeling of loathing to this brand 0.030 1.126 0.944
CFI = 0.982 Emotional - sadness 0.908
IFI = 0.982 I feel disappointed when I think about this brand 0.955 0.031 0.871
RMSEA = 0.075 I feel displeased when I think about this brand 0.969 0.080 0.926
I feel disenchanted when I think about this brand 0.466 0.726 0.839
Emotional - fear 0.912
I feel fear when I think about this brand 1.024 0.123 0.921
I feel threatened when I think about this brand 1.087 0.280 0.908
I feel worried when I think about this brand 0.721 0.790 0.837

multidimensional construct comprising anger-, sadness- and
fear-related emotions.
Reliability. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated for each factor.
Each of the three factors has a Cronbach’s alpha greater than
0.85 (Table V). All nine items combined produced an overall
Cronbach’s alpha of 0.88. Therefore, all the items produced a
satisfactory reliability score for each factor.
Convergent and discriminant validity. We calculated the
average variance extracted (AVEs) and composite reliabilities
(CRs) and checked the discriminant validity considering all the
first-order constructs (Table VI). The standardized loadings
and the AVE values were above the 0.5 thresholds for each
construct (Table VI). Thus, convergent validity was well-
supported (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). The CR indices
ranged from 0.86 to 0.92. The square roots of the AVEs were
greater than their corresponding correlation coefficients, thus
discriminant validity was supported (Fornell and Larcker,
1981). The findings supported the convergent and
discriminant validity even when including the antecedent
factors and consequence factors. Table VII presents the means,
standard deviations and correlations of the three brand hate
factors. The multi-collinearity of the nine brand hate items was
tested using the variance inflation factors (VIFs). The VIFs fell
below the level suggested by the rules of 4 or 10 (O’Brien,
2007).
Furthermore, the three-factor brand hate model was
tested for common method bias using the single factor
method (Harman, 1976). In the one-factor model, all nine
items loaded on the brand hate latent variable directly ( x 2 =
815.67, df = 27, p = 0.000, CFI = 0.574, IFI = 0.576 and
RMSEA = 0.311). These indices showed a model with a
much weaker ability to explain the brand hate construct than
the three-factor model (Table VIII). A significant difference
was found between the two models (D x 2 = 815.7, Ddf = 3
and p = 0.000). Then, the higher-order model was tested
with three factors corresponding to the latent variable brand
hate. The same model fit indices were obtained as for the
three-factor model ( x 2 = 78.26, df = 24, p = 0.000, CFI =
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

Table VI CR, AVE, MSV and MaxR(H) values of brand hate factors, antecedents and consequences
CR AVE MSV MaxR(H) Anger Sadness Fear A-TE A-DB A-HB C-O C-B C-P
Anger 0.917 0.786 0.308 0.923 0.887
Sadness 0.861 0.675 0.247 0.868 0.497 0.821
Fear 0.900 0.752 0.329 0.918 0.514 0.307 0.867
A-TE 0.841 0.638 0.315 0.846 0.346 0.399 0.434 0.799
A-DB 0.795 0.661 0.040 0.830 0.018 0.187 0.200 0.009 0.813
A-HB 0.855 0.668 0.315 0.896 0.555 0.460 0.390 0.561 0.076 0.817
C-O 0.872 0.631 0.329 0.884 0.482 0.414 0.574 0.493 0.106 0.397 0.794
C-B 0.939 0.793 0.507 0.947 0.448 0.294 0.513 0.488 0.086 0.438 0.465 0.891
C-P 0.950 0.865 0.507 0.977 0.448 0.313 0.506 0.346 0.027 0.406 0.499 0.712 0.930
Notes: A-HB: antecedent-a hypocritical brand; A-TE: antecedent-troublesome experiences; A-DB: antecedent-dismiss the brand; C-O: consequence-
overwhelm; C-B: consequence-behavioral reactions; C-P: consequence-physiological reactions

Table VII Means, standard deviations and correlations Scale validation. We adopted a duo-path approach to validate
the brand hate construct. First, we tested the model including
M SD Anger Sadness Fear
both interview-generated antecedent factors (e.g. experience-
Anger 3.04 1.07 1 related cognitions) and consequence factors (e.g. physical
Sadness 3.58 1.11 0.446 1 reactions). Three antecedents (i.e. troublesome experience,
Fear 2.13 1.14 0.495 0.332 1 dismiss the brand and a hypocritical brand) were tested

Notes: p < 0.05; 
p < 0.01 separately with brand hate construct and consequence factors
in a series of SEMs. This contributes to the brand hate study by
providing antecedents and consequences in addition to the
Table VIII Models and goodness-of-fit indices factors included in the extant brand hate studies.
To examine the antecedent-brand hate-consequence model
Model df x2 CFI IFI RMSEA
generated from Study 1, we ran three SEMs including
One-factor model 27 815.670 0.574 0.576 0.311 troublesome experience, dismiss the brand and a hypocritical
Three-factor model 24 78.257 0.971 0.971 0.087 brand each as an antecedent and along with three reaction factors
Second-order model 24 78.257 0.971 0.971 0.087 as consequences for the higher-order brand hate to construct
Constraint model 27 114.720 0.953 0.953 0.104 (three factors). The results showed a good fit for the model with
troublesome experience (x 2 = 502.471, df = 222, p = 0.000,
CFI = 0.950, IFI = 0.951 and RMSEA = 0.065), the model with
0.971, IFI = 0.971 and RMSEA = 0.087; Table VIII), which dismiss the brand (x 2 = 413.867, df = 201, p = 0.000, CFI =
illustrated the multidimensionality of the brand hate to 0.960, IFI = 0.960 and RMSEA = 0.059) and the model with a
construct. Therefore, H1 was supported. In addition, the hypocritical brand (x 2 = 440.512, df = 222, p = 0.000, CFI =
three-factor model was tested against the fully constrained 0.962, IFI = 0.962 and RMSEA = 0.057; Table IV). The results
model. Results demonstrated a significant difference also indicated a significant path from troublesome experience to
between the unconstrained and fully constrained model brand hate (standardized coefficient = 0.60 and p < 0.001) from a
(D x 2 = 36.46, Ddf = 3 and p = 0.000), thus discriminant hypocritical brand to brand hate (standardized coefficient = 0.68
validity was confirmed. The brand hate model with all the and p < 0.001) and from brand hate to consequences
factors is illustrated in Figure 2. These results provide ample (standardized coefficients = 0.87, 0.80 and ps < 0.001). Based on
support for our claim that brand hate is a construct the data, dismiss the brand was not a significant antecedent
comprising anger-, sadness- and fear-related emotions. predicting brand hate (p = 0.788). The coefficients of overwhelm
(standardized coefficients = 0.67, 0.64 and ps < 0.001), behavioral
reactions (standardized coefficients = 0.82, 0.82 and ps < 0.001)
Figure 2 Brand hate to construct the model and physiological reactions (standardized coefficients = 0.80, 0.83
and ps < 0.001) provide us preliminary evidence of the impact of
Item 1
brand hate on non-behavioral consequences. The list of items for
Anger Item 2 each construct is available in Table IV.
Item 3 Second, the brand hate items from the current study were
Item 4 tested using the established constructs. Four hypotheses related
to the brand hate construct were proposed earlier. In this
Brand Hate Fear Item 5
section, a group of tests was performed to examine the
Item 6
predictive validity of the brand hate scale. The aforementioned
Item 7 model testing results indicate brand hate to be better
interpreted as a multidimensional construct. Thus, H1 was
Sadness Item 8
supported. The second-order model was then used in the
Item 9
following validation tests.
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
Brand hate and negative WOM. According to the literature,
the authors hypothesized that brand hate leads to higher
chances of negative WOM. A three-item Likert scale was
adopted form Grégoire and Fisher (2006). We ran an SEM
testing the causal relationship between brand hate and negative
WOM. Results showed the path to be statistically significant
(standardized coefficient = 0.450, p < 0.001 and R2 = 0.203;
Table XI, Figure 3). H2 was supported.
Brand hate and complaint. Similar to the previous analysis, we
tested the causal relationship between brand hate and
complaining behavior. A three-item Likert scale of complaint
behavior was adopted from Grégoire and Fisher (2006). The
SEM model indicated a significant path from brand hate to the
complaint (standardized coefficient = 0.525, p < 0.001 and
R2 = 0.275; Table XI, Figure 3). Thus, H3 was supported:
brand hate increases complaining behavior.
Brand hate and protest. To test H4, a seven-item Likert scale
was included in the earlier survey (Grappi et al., 2013). After
running the SEM model, results showed a significant path from
brand hate to protest (standardized coefficient = 0.624, p <
0.001 and R2 = 0.389; Table XI, Figure 3). H4 was supported:
brand hate increases protest behavior.
Brand hate and patronage reduction. To test the H5, the same
procedure was used. A four-item measurement scale was
adopted from Grégoire and Fisher (2006). A significant path
was obtained in the SEM model (standardized coefficient =
0.184, p < 0.05 and R2 = 0.034; Table XI, Figure 3). Brand
hate does increase patronage reduction. The more an
individual hates a brand, the less money will be spent on the
brand.
All five hypotheses were supported. Most importantly, the
quantitative data confirmed the emotional components of
brand hate. Results from H2 to H5 provided further support in
favor of the validation of the brand hate measurement scale and
affirmed the multidimensionality of brand hate.
Emotions and brand hate levels. One of the research questions
was to investigate how emotions are associated with brand hate
across different levels. Specifically, the current research
attempted to examine whether certain emotions predict one
brand hate level better than the others do. For instance,
moderate brand hate might comprise a greater portion of
sadness-related emotions than anger-related emotions.
Figure 3 SEM model (Study 3 data)
R 2 = 0.203
Negative
Item 1
Item 2 **
Anger
0.450**
Item 3
**
Complaint
Item 4
0.525**
** Sadness Brand
Item 5 ** Hate
0.624**
Item 6
**
Item 7
Fear
0.184*
Item 8
Item 9
Notes: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Besides, different brand hate levels may predict subsequent
behaviors differently. For instance, it is possible that anger-
related emotions predict negative WOM better in strong brand
hate than in moderate brand hate.
As mentioned before, two questions were included aiming to
capture the overall hate (one question measured on a seven-
point scale, the other on a 10-point scale). The authors
normalized both scales (i.e. (a-1)/6 and (6-1)/9) and then split
the data into mild, moderate and strong brand hate levels based
on the rating as follows: 0-0.33, 0.34-0.66 and 0.67-1.00. Due
to the small sample size of the mild brand hate (n = 22), this
level only generated model fit indices and was not proceed with
the path analysis (Table IX). The data confirmed that the nine-
item model was a good representation of brand hate at both
moderate ( x 2 = 55.53, df = 24, p = 0.000, CFI = 0.943, IFI =
0.945 and RMSEA = 0.113) and strong ( x 2 = 60.89, df = 24,
p = 0.000, CFI = 0.964, IFI = 0.965 and RMSEA = 0.093)
levels. As we have limited data for mild brand hate, the
discussion of mild brand hate will not be included in the
subsequent discussion.
First, the comparison of the nine-item three-factor model
illustrates that anger-related emotions are more salient in the
brand hate construct than the sadness-and fear-related
emotions. These emotions are manifested at a stronger level in
strong brand hate (Standardized coefficients of anger, sadness
and fear: 0.828, 0.545 and 0.617) than in moderate brand hate
(Standardized coefficients of anger, sadness and fear: 1.672,
0.180 and 0.233). We also ran a series of SEMs including
negative WOM (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006), complaint
(Grégoire and Fisher, 2006), protest (Grappi et al., 2013) and
patronage reduction (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006). This adds
new knowledge to the current brand hate literature. A series of
SEM analyzes showed that negative WOM, complaint and
patronage reduction are more likely to be observed after
moderate brand hate than strong brand hate; whereas protest
behaviors are more likely to be associated with strong brand
hate. To be specific, the drive of moderate brand hate to
negative WOM is mostly sadness-related emotions, and the
drive of the strong brand hate to negative WOM is mainly
anger-related emotions. As for complaint and protest
behaviors, fear-related emotions play an important role in the
moderate level, whereas all three groups of emotions are
important in the strong level, with the impact of anger-related
emotions more salient than the other two. Finally, the
patronage reduction is primarily caused by anger-related
emotions in both moderate and strong brand hate levels.
WOM
Study 4
R 2 = 0.275
Studies 2 and 3 validated the multidimensional construct of
brand hate and developed a measurement scale following
Churchill’s (1979) classic procedure. The brand hate items
R 2 = 0.389 were tested using two different samples. The findings
Protest demonstrated the robustness of the measurement scale through
a series of rigorous validation tests. However, the data
collection could be improved, as both studies were conducted
R 2 = 0.034
Patronage
in a major North American city. The results could, thus, be
Reduction constrained by the homogeneity of the group. Although the city
in which the study was conducted is multicultural, results from
Studies 2 and 3 could not rule out that the participants were
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

Table IX Mild, moderate and strong brand hate

Mild Moderate Strong
Level brand hate brand hate brand hate
Sample size 22 103 178
Nine-item brand hate model Fit indices x 2 = 49.130 x 2 = 55.530 x 2 = 60.891
df = 24 df = 24 df = 24
p = 0.002 p = 0.000 p = 0.000
CFI = 0.853 CFI = 0.943 CFI = 0.964
IFI = 0.863 IFI = 0.945 IFI = 0.965
RMSEA = 0.223 RMSEA = 0.113 RMSEA = 0.093
Standardized coefficient
Anger item 1 ! anger 0.734 0.860
Anger item 2 ! anger 0.910 0.912
Anger item 3 ! anger 0.885 0.886
Sadness item 1 ! sadness 0.878 0.747
Sadness item 2 ! sadness 0.821 0.880
Sadness item 3 ! sadness 0.724 0.747
Fear item 1 ! fear 0.911 0.896
Fear item 2 ! fear 0.906 0.916
Fear item 3 ! fear 0.808 0.744
Anger ! brand hate 1.672 0.828
Sadness ! brand hate 0.180 0.545
Fear ! brand hate 0.233 0.617
Standardized coefficient (R2)
Brand hate ! negative WOM model Anger ! brand hate 0.341 (0.117) 0.835 (0.697)
Sadness ! brand hate 0.799 (0.639) 0.547 (0.299)
Fear ! brand hate 0.216 (0.047) 0.607 (0.369)
Brand hate ! negative WOM 0.832 (0.692) 0.211 (0.045)
Brand hate ! complaint model Anger ! brand hate 0.407 (0.166) 0.755 (0.570)
Sadness ! brand hate 0.052 (0.003) 0.533 (0.284)
Fear ! brand hate 0.976 (0.952) 0.694 (0.482)
Brand hate ! complaint 0.565 (0.319) 0.530 (0.281)
Brand hate ! protest model Anger ! brand hate 0.495 (0.245) 0.736 (0.542)
Sadness ! brand hate 0.141 (0.020) 0.531 (0.282)
Fear ! brand hate 0.802 (0.643) 0.709 (0.503)
Brand hate ! protest 0.562 (0.316) 0.650 (0.422)
Brand hate ! patronage reduction model Anger ! brand hate 1.731 (2.998) 0.835 (0.697)
Sadness ! brand hate 0.174 (0.030) 0.547 (0.299)
Fear ! brand hate 0.225 (0.051) 0.608 (0.369)
Brand hate ! patronage reduction 0.003 (0.000) 0.094 (0.009)

mainly influenced by the North American culture. Thus, to
overcome this limitation and to further test the robustness and
generalizability of the nine brand hate items, Study 4 was
carried out to examine the measurement scale in a more diverse
group of consumers.
backgrounds. In total, 15 identical IP addresses were detected,
thus were excluded. Finally, 290 valid questionnaires were
retained, including 189 men (65.2 per cent) and 101 women
(34.8 per cent), from 19 to 56 years of age.

Sample and procedure Findings

Similar to the procedure in Studies 2 and 3, participants wrote
down one brand they hated and then answered the questions
for brand hate measurement. Demographic information was
recorded at the end of the questionnaire. The survey was
launched online and was open to everyone who can read
English. In total, 305 participants voluntarily participated
through Amazon Mechanical Turk, and each received $0.50 as
compensation. No country constraint was applied. The IP and
geographical information were collected to assure that
participants were from different countries with various cultural
The main purpose of Study 4 was to investigate the robustness
and generalizability of the measurement scale and examine
whether the nine items can detect brand hate in different
samples. The three-factor nine-item model was tested. The
results were still satisfactory even when tested in a very
heterogeneous group ( x 2 = 74.68, df = 24, p = 0.000, CFI =
0.958, IFI = 0.958 and RMSEA = 0.085). The Cronbach’s
alpha for all the items and for each factor was also calculated.
The Cronbach’s alpha for each factor was above 0.75. The
overall Cronbach’s alpha for the nine items was 0.81.
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

Studies 2-4 confirmed the robustness of the nine-item brand complaint (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006), protest (Grappi et al.,
hate measurement. It detected brand hate effectively in 2013) and patronage reduction (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006), to
different conditions. Taken altogether, Studies 2, 3 and 4 test the predictive validity of each of the three models.
provide an accurate scale to measure brand hate.

Study 5
Studies 1-4 aim to examine the emotional components of brand
hate and emotion variation in different brand hate levels. As a
result, Studies 1-4 present a new way to detect and measure the
brand hate construct. The findings of brand hate as a
multidimensional construct comprising anger-, sadness- and
fear-related emotions were confirmed across different samples.
We believe that it is necessary to compare the current brand
hate model with the established measurement scales, to
evaluate the current nine-item three-factor brand hate model
against other models.
Sample and procedure
In Study 5, data collection was done in a major university in a
North American city. In total, 476 students (198 men and 278
women) took part in the study in exchange for one-course
credit. No missing data was reported.
Similar to the procedure in Studies 2 and 3, participants
wrote down one brand they hated and then answered the
questions capturing the brand hate measurement as follows: 9
items from the current research, 18 items from Zarantonello
et al. (2016) and 6 items from Hegner et al. (2017). Instead of
collecting data for our model only and comparing the indices
from data collected by different groups of researchers across
more than a three-year-long period (i.e. 2016-2019), the
authors collected data for all three brand hate measurement
models (i.e. the authors, Zarantonello et al., 2016 and Hegner
et al., 2017). This enables the authors to have a valid and solid
comparison. The questionnaire also included the
measurements of negative WOM (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006),
Findings
First, the authors ran a series of SEM tests for the three brand
hate constructs. Using the current study’s sample, the model
developed by the authors ( x 2 = 88.25, df = 24, p = 0.000,
CFI = 0.982, IFI = 0.982 and RMSEA = 0.075) obtained
better-fit indices than Zarantonello et al. (2016) ( x 2 = 563.88,
df = 129, p = 0.000, CFI = 0.941, IFI = 0.942 and RMSEA =
0.084) and Hegner et al. (2017) models ( x 2 = 88.08, df = 9, p =
0.000, CFI = 0.953, IFI = 0.953 and RMSEA = 0.136; Table
X). The model fit indices of the brand hate models reported by
Zarantonello et al. (2016) and Hegner et al. (2017) in their
original papers were also included (Table X).
Then, to further examine the predictive ability of the
aforementioned brand hate models on the established related
constructs, the authors ran a series of SEM tests on negative
WOM (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006), complaint (Grégoire and
Fisher, 2006), protest (Grappi et al., 2013) and patronage
reduction (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006). The findings confirmed
the better fit of the Zhang and Laroche (2020) model than the
Zarantonello et al. (2016) and Hegner et al. (2017) models. In
addition, the Zhang and Laroche (2020) model indicated
better predictive ability on the subsequent behaviors (e.g.
brand hate ! negative WOM: x 2 = 166.02 vs 697.48 and
152.61, df = 50 vs 182 and 26, p = 0.000, CFI = 0.974 vs 0.938
and 0.952, IFI = 0.974 vs 0.939 and 0.952, RMSEA = 0.070 vs
0.077 and 0.101; Table X). The full list of comparison results is
available in (Table XI).
Study 5 demonstrates that the three-factor nine-item model
better depicts the brand hate to construct and better predicts
the brand hate consequences.

Table X Comparison between Zhang and Laroche (2020), Zarantonello et al. (2016) and Hegner et al. (2017) models
Model df x2 CFI IFI RMSEA Cronbach’s a
Brand hate construct Zhang and Laroche (2020) 24 88.254 0.982 0.982 0.075 0.897
Zarantonello et al. (2016) 129 563.875 0.941 0.942 0.084 0.944
W 128 313.07 0.98  0.064 >0.70
Hegner et al. (2017) 9 88.077 0.953 0.953 0.136 0.903
W (with antecedents and consequences) 474 943.21 0.92 0.92 0.06 >0.82
Model df x2 CFI IFI RMSEA Path coefficient
Brand hate ! negative WOM Zhang and Laroche (2020) 50 166.015 0.974 0.974 0.070 0.621
Zarantonello et al. (2016) 182 697.476 0.938 0.939 0.077 0.491
Hegner et al. (2017) 26 152.607 0.952 0.952 0.101 0.657
Brand hate ! complaint Zhang and Laroche (2020) 50 139.424 0.982 0.982 0.061 0.443
Zarantonello et al. (2016) 182 654.169 0.946 0.946 0.074 0.368
Hegner et al. (2017) 26 119.564 0.968 0.968 0.087 0.307
Brand hate ! protest Zhang and Laroche (2020) 100 379.369 0.956 0.956 0.077 0.725
Zarantonello et al. (2016) 268 954.474 0.932 0.933 0.074 0.623
Hegner et al. (2017) 64 406.725 0.920 0.920 0.106 0.575
Brand hate ! patronage reduction Zhang and Laroche (2020) 61 193.544 0.974 0.974 0.068 0.379
Zarantonello et al. (2016) 202 722.940 0.942 0.942 0.074 0.250
Hegner et al. (2017) 34 181.005 0.954 0.955 0.095 0.402

 
Notes: p < 0.05; p < 0.01. W: model fit indices reported in the original papers of Zarantonello et al. (2016) and Hegner et al. (2017)
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
Table XI Hypothesis paths
Expected sign
H2: Brand hate fi negative WOM 1 0.450
H3: Brand hate fi complaint 1 0.525
H4: Brand hate fi protest 1 0.624
H5: Brand hate fi patronage Reduction 1 0.184
 
Notes: p < 0.05; p < 0.01
General discussion
As a whole, the five studies presented in this article sought to
accurately define the brand hate construct, develop a thorough
multidimensional scale and test the validity and robustness of
said scale among a variety of samples. In Study 1, the three-
phase semi-structured interview process, as well as data
triangulation ensured a rich and accurate description of brand
hate. The process allowed us to uncover the composing
emotions of brand hate, as well as the antecedents and
consequences. Studies 2-5 tested the multidimensionality of
brand hate and the variation of the emotional components. The
relationships between brand hate and negative WOM,
complaint, protest and patronage reduction were tested and
compared among currently available brand hate models.
Theoretical contributions
Although brand hates scholars have agreed upon the
multidimensional structure of brand hate, the extant research
focuses on the descriptive differences between brand hate levels
rather than investigating the component differences beneath
the surface of brand hate levels. Kucuk (2019) claimed a need
for a discussion of the sub-dimensions of brand hate and stated
that “the dimensions of this construct need to be discussed
separately, as well as their interactions with each other, in a
broader and more comprehensive conceptualization (p. 432).”
Fetscherin (2019) investigated three anger-alike components of
brand hate, namely, anger, contempt and disgust. The current
work advanced the brand hate construct by considering more
than just anger-alike emotions. In addition to three anger-
related emotions (i.e. fury, revulsion and loathing), the current
research incorporated three sadness-related emotions (i.e.
disappointment, displeasure and disenchantment) and three
fear-related emotions (i.e. fear, threat and worry) into brand
hate model. The current work examined the components and
the variations of the components at each of the mild, moderate
and strong brand hate levels. Thus, the current research
is among the first few attempts to present how anger-, sadness-
and fear-related emotions interact at each of the mild, moderate
and strong brand hate levels. Supported by the results from
SEM analyzes, the current research is able to illustrate that
strong brand hate is a well-balanced integration of intensive
anger, sadness and fear emotions, whereas moderate brand
hate is dominated by anger emotions. This interesting finding
(Table IX) demonstrates that the serious consequences of
strong brand hate, for instance, protest, may be generated by
intense anger, sadness and fear, contradictory to the commonly
accepted notion that brand hate is about anger. To the best
knowledge of the authors, the current research is among the
first few attempts to show the variation of anger-, sadness- and
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Study 3 Study 5 Supported
 
0.621 
 
0.443 
 
0.725 
 
0.379 
fear-related emotions in the formation of brand hate
consequences at different brand hate levels. For instance,
negative WOM is more likely to be caused by anger-related
emotions in strong brand hate, whereas is more likely to be
driven by sadness-related emotions in moderate brand hate
(Table IX). Hence, anger is not the fiercest devil of brand hate,
but sadness and fear are.
Scholars have investigated the multidimensional
characteristics of the brand hate construct. However, the
majority of the extant brand hate research focuses on the sub-
emotions under the anger emotion. Although sadness and fear
were mentioned in the research pertaining to brand hate
research, no research has presented if it is one dominant
emotion or a combination of well-balanced anger-, sadness-
and fear-related emotions, that is contributing to a specific
brand hate consequence (e.g. negative WOM), until now. Our
study examined a list of nine negative emotions across anger-,
sadness- and fear-related emotions using a model that fits the
conceptualization better. Only through this can we distinguish
the variation of emotional components and each of the
components’ roles in the subsequent outcomes across mild,
moderate and strong brand hate levels more accurately.
The current research presented the dominant causing
negative emotion of certain brand hate consequences. Again,
answering the call for research on the separate examination of
the brand hate sub-dimensions, results from the current work
demonstrate that negative WOM is caused by different
emotions at different brand hate levels. Specifically, sadness-
related emotions cause the impact of the moderate brand to
hate on negative WOM, whereas anger-related emotions cause
the impact of a strong brand to hate on negative WOM.
Different consequences are to be observed following different
brand hate levels. For instance, in general, negative WOM,
complaint and patronage reduction are more likely to be seen
among moderate brand haters, while the protest is more likely
to be seen among strong brand haters. The decomposition
analysis and a closer look at the brand hate components and
levels enable us to observe the underlying function of brand
hate, which provides valuable insights into the brand hate
research.
The previous brand hates research focuses on the behavioral
reactions of brand hate. The current research demonstrates
that brand hate causes overwhelm feelings and physiological
reactions (e.g. feel sick to the stomach). In the current study, an
antecedent-brand hate-consequence model was generated and
tested. The results contribute to the discussion of the non-
behavioral consequences of brand hate in addition to its
behavioral consequences, an aspect that has been mostly
discussed in the brand hate literature.
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
Additionally, the brand hates descriptions that contribute to
a better understanding of the negative interactions between
consumers and brands, further enriching the consumer-brand
relationship literature. This article reaffirms that brand hate is
different from other negative consumer-brand interactions
such as brand retaliation, brand revenge and brand sabotage:
brand hate is a negative passion encompassing a full spectrum
of emotions, that is, anger, sadness and fear emotions. With
better predictive ability, the measurement scale put forward can
be used in testing the role of brand hate in other contexts,
namely, consumer purchase behavior, consumer-brand
relationship, etc.
Managerial contributions
The current work contributes to marketing management
practices in several ways. First, managers are provided with a
more powerful instrument than what is available in the existing
brand hate literature. They now have the rationality to examine
sub-component emotions of brand hate more closely, that is,
anger-, sadness- and fear-related emotions. The underexplored
sadness emotions in the extant brand hate literature has
definitely left out an underexplored territory, which managers
can use to understand and tackle brand hate. Our research
denotes that sadness and fear emotions are just as important as,
if not more important than, anger emotions when coping with
strong brand hate.
Additionally, the results from the current scale validation
support a significant relationship between the brand hate
construct and negative WOM, complaint, protest and
patronage reduction. Thus, brand managers must pay
particular attention to these actions both online and offline.
Brand managers can use this measurement scale to survey their
consumers and be better prepared for brand hate and its
harmful consequences. Especially, managers should focus on
mitigating moderated brand hate when coping with negative
WOM and focus on strong brand hate when coping with
protest. Furthermore, this article lends guidance for managers
to focus on certain causal emotions when dealing with different
consequences of brand hate. For instance, managers should
emphasize strategies on coping with anger-related emotions
and try to mitigate anger when protest behaviors are reported
among brand hate consumers.
Importantly, the current study uncovers that brand hate can
cause not only behavioral reactions but also overwhelm feelings
and physiological reactions. Although the overwhelming
feelings and physiological reactions are less visible, managers
should not let go of the symptoms of brand hate. These less
visible reactions are still detectable online and offline. For
example, when customers mention, “feel overwhelmed” or
“feel sick to the stomach,” that is a sign of brand hate. Actions
ought to be taken to cope with brand hate.
Limitations and future research
As our study allows for the inclusion of hated brands regardless
of the consumer’s previous experience with the said brands, we
did not investigate the role of ownership. Prior to brand
experiences may generate a stronger emotional foundation for
brand hate. It is possible that when a prior experience is
missing, consumers rely on analytical reasoning. The opposite
may also be hypothesized as follows: consumers without a prior
Journal of Product & Brand Management
brand experience have only abstract reasons to hate that brand.
The role of ownership in brand hate is an interesting avenue for
future research.
The current research only tests four possible consequences to
brand hate, namely, negative WOM, complaint, protest and
patronage reduction. Findings from Study 1, however, suggest
additional outcomes such as revenge, brand avoidance and
switching to competitors. Brand avoidance, for example, is
discussed as a similar yet distinct construct of brand hate
(Odoom et al., 2019). Researchers could compare brand hate
with other similar constructs such as brand dislike and brand
boycott and summarize the attributes that distinguish one
construct from another. According to the research on brand
polarization (Osuna Ramírez et al., 2019), brand negativity
could lead to non-negative outcomes. Thus, future research
could investigate the beneficial aspects of brand hate for
companies.
The current brand hate construct is comprised of nine items
in three dimensions. Although Study 4 examines the
generalizability of the scale with a heterogeneous group and the
measurement scale was found to be robust in a multicultural
context, hate could be culturally grounded (Underhill, 2012),
thus it would be wise to verify if brand hate has different levels
and meanings for different cultural groups. In addition,
although the purpose of the current work is to validate the nine-
item three-factor brand hate construct, the measurement
invariance was not tested before applying the instrument to a
different group, which could be problematic. Future research
should use a more rigorous examination of the construct before
using it in a different sample or cultural group.
Future research may also examine the influencing factors of
brand hate. The study of potential moderators (e.g. product
categories) and mediators would make scholars and marketing
managers more confident in categorizing various brand
conditions. By moving forward with this knowledge, it would
be easier for managers to adjust their coping strategies for
different marketing situations.
References
Anderson, C.J. (2003), “The psychology of doing nothing:
forms of decision avoidance result from reason and
emotion”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 129 No. 1,
pp. 139-167.
Anderson, J.C. and Gerbing, D.W. (1988), “Structural
equation modeling in practice: a review and recommended
two-step approach”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 103 No. 3,
pp. 411-423.
Arnold, M.B. (1960), Emotion and Personality, Columbia
University Press, New York, NY.
Bagozzi, R.P., Gopinath, M. and Nyer, P.U. (1999), “The role
of emotions in marketing”, Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 184-206.
Batra, R. and Ray, M.L. (1986), “Affective responses
mediating acceptance of advertising”, Journal of Consumer
Research, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 234-249.
Batra, R., Ahuvia, A. and Bagozzi, R.P. (2012), “Brand love”,
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 76 No. 2, pp. 1-16.
Bechwati, N.N. and Morrin, M. (2003), “Outraged
consumers: getting even at the expense of getting a good
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
deal”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 13 No. 4,
pp. 440-453.
Bougie, R., Pieters, R. and Zeelenberg, M. (2003), “Angry
customers don’t come back, they get back: the experience
and behavioral implications of anger and dissatisfaction in
services”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 31
No. 4, pp. 377-393.
Brewer, M.B. (1999), “The psychology of prejudice: ingroup
love and outgroup hate?”, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 55
No. 3, pp. 429-444.
Carroll, B.A. and Ahuvia, A.C. (2006), “Some antecedents
and outcomes of Brand love”, Marketing Letters, Vol. 17
No. 2, pp. 79-89.
Charlett, D., Garland, R. and Marr, N. (1995), “How
damaging is negative word of mouth?”, Marketing Bulletin,
Vol. 6, pp. 42-50.
Churchill, G.A. Jr. (1979), “A paradigm for developing better
measures of marketing constructs”, Journal of Marketing
Research, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 64-73.
Denzin, N.K. (1970), The Research Act in Sociology, Aldine,
Chicago.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1973), Love and Hate: On the Natural
History of Basic Behaviour Patterns, Aldine Transaction.
Ekman, P. and Friesen, W.V. (1971), “Constants across
cultures in the face and emotion”, Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, Vol. 17 No. 2, p. 124.
Fehr, B. and Russell, J.A. (1991), “The concept of love viewed
from a prototype perspective”, Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, Vol. 60 No. 3, pp. 425-438.
Fetscherin, M. (2019), “The five types of Brand hate: how they
affect consumer behavior”, Journal of Business Research,
Vol. 101, pp. 116-127.
Fetscherin, M. and Sampedro, A. (2019), “Brand forgiveness”,
Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 28 No. 5,
pp. 633-652.
Fitness, J. and Fletcher, G.J.O. (1993), “Love, hate, anger, and
jealousy in close relationships: a prototype and cognitive
appraisal analysis”, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, Vol. 65 No. 5, pp. 942-958.
Fornell, C. and Larcker, D.F. (1981), “Evaluating structural
equation models with unobservable variables and
measurement error”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 18
No. 1, pp. 39-50.
Fournier, S. (1998), “Consumers and their brands: developing
relationship theory in consumer research”, Journal of
Consumer Research, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 343-373.
Garg, R., Chikkara, R., Suman, H., Pande, S., Sharan, R. and
Panda, T.K. (2018), “Consumer- Brand relations: an
investigation into the concept of Brand Hate’”, Driving
Customer Appeal Through the Use of Emotional Branding, IGI
Global. pp. 73-84.
Gelbrich, K. (2010), “Anger, frustration, and helplessness after
service failure: coping strategies and effective informational
support”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 38
No. 5, pp. 567-585.
George, D. and Mallery, P. (2010), SPSS for Windows Step by
Step: A Simple Study Guide and Reference, 17.0 Update, 10/e,
Pearson Education, India.
Goode, W.J. (1959), “The theoretical importance of love”,
American Sociological Review, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 38-47.
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Grappi, S., Romani, S. and Bagozzi, R.P. (2013), “Consumer
response to corporate irresponsible behavior: moral
emotions and virtues”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 66
No. 10, pp. 1814-1821.
Grégoire, Y. and Fisher, R.J. (2006), “The effects of
relationship quality on customer retaliation”, Marketing
Letters, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 31-46.
Grégoire, Y. and Fisher, R.J. (2008), “Customer betrayal and
retaliation: when your best customers become your worst
enemies”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 247-261.
Grégoire, Y., Tripp, T.M. and Legoux, R. (2009), “When
customer love turns into lasting hate: the effects of
relationship strength and time on customer revenge and
avoidance”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 73 No. 6, pp. 18-32.
Harman, H.H. (1976), Modern Factor Analysis, 3rd ed., The
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
Hegner, S.M., Fetscherin, M. and van Delzen, M. (2017),
“Determinants and outcomes of brand hate”, Journal of
Product & Brand Management, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 13-25.
Hollmann, T., Jarvis, C.B. and Bitner, M.J. (2015), “Reaching
the breaking point: a dynamic process theory of business-to-
business customer defection”, Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, Vol. 43 No. 2, pp. 257-278.
Hu, L. and Bentler, P.M. (1999), “Cutoff criteria for fit indexes
in covariance structure analysis: conventional criteria versus
new alternatives”, Structural Equation Modeling: A
Multidisciplinary Journal, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 1-55.
Japutra, A., Ekinci, Y. and Simkin, L. (2018), “Positive and
negative behaviors resulting from Brand attachment: the
moderating effects of attachment styles”, European Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 52 Nos 5/6/6, pp. 1185-1202.
Jin, W., Xiang, Y. and Lei, M. (2017), “The deeper the love,
the deeper the hate”, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 8, p. 1940.
Johnson, A.R., Matear, M. and Thomson, M. (2010), “A coal
in the heart: self-relevance as a post-exit predictor of
consumer anti-brand actions”, Journal of Consumer Research,
Vol. 38 No. 1, pp. 108-125.
Kähr, A., Nyffenegger, B., Krohmer, H. and Hoyer, W.D.
(2016), “When hostile consumers wreak havoc on your
brand: the phenomenon of consumer brand sabotage”,
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 80 No. 3, pp. 25-41.
Kemper, T.D. (1987), “How many emotions are there?
Wedding the social and the autonomic components”,
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 93 No. 2, pp. 263-289.
Kucuk, S.U. (2008), “Negative double jeopardy: the role of
anti-Brand sites on the internet”, Journal of Brand
Management, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 209-222.
Kucuk, S.U. (2016), Brand Hate: Navigating Consumer
Negativity in the Digital World, Springer.
Kucuk, S.U. (2018a), “Macro-level antecedents of consumer
Brand hate”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 35 No. 5,
pp. 555-564.
Kucuk, S.U. (2018b), Brand Hate: Navigating Consumer
Negativity in the Digital World, 2nd ed., Springer.
Kucuk, S.U. (2019), “Consumer brand hate: steamrolling whatever
I see”, Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 5, pp. 431-443.
Lee, M.S.W., Fernandez, K.V. and Hyman, M.R. (2009a),
“Anti-consumption: an overview and research agenda”,
Journal of Business Research, Vol. 62 No. 2, pp. 145-147.
 A multidimensional construct
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche
Lee, M.S.W., Motion, J. and Conroy, D. (2009b), “Anti-
consumption and Brand avoidance”, Journal of Business
Research, Vol. 62 No. 2, pp. 169-180.
Malhotra, N.K. (2008), Marketing Research: An Applied
Orientation, 5/E, Pearson Education.
Nunnally, J.C. (1978), Psychometric Theory, McGraw-Hill.
Nyer, P.U. (1997), “A study of the relationships between
cognitive appraisals and consumption emotions”, Journal of
the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 296-304.
O’Brien, R.M. (2007), “A caution regarding rules of thumb for
variance inflation factors”, Quality & Quantity, Vol. 41
No. 5, pp. 673-690.
Odoom, R., Kosiba, J., Djamgbah, C. and Narh, L. (2019),
“Brand avoidance: underlying protocols and a practical
scale”, Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 28
No. 5, pp. 586-597.
Osuna Ramírez, S., Veloutsou, C. and Morgan-Thomas, A.
(2019), “I hate what you love: brand polarization and
negativity towards brands as an opportunity for Brand
management”, Journal of Product & Brand Management,
Vol. 28 No. 5, pp. 614-632.
Park, C.W., Eisingerich, A.B. and Park, J.W. (2013), “Attachment–
aversion (AA) model of the customer–Brand relationships”,
Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 229-248.
Patton, M.Q. (2001), Qualitative Research & Evaluation
Methods, 3rd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Peattie, K. and Peattie, S. (2009), “Social marketing: a
pathway to consumption reduction?”, Journal of Business
Research, Vol. 62 No. 2, pp. 260-268.
Plutchik, R. (1991), The Emotions, University Press of America.
Plutchik, R. (2001), “The nature of emotions: human
emotions have deep evolutionary roots, a fact that may
explain their complexity and provide tools for clinical
practice”, American Scientist, Vol. 89 No. 4, pp. 344-350.
Preijers, S. (2016), “Brand hate: Exploring and understanding
the concept”, Master’s Thesis, Radboud University.
Romani, S., Sadeh, H. and Dalli, D. (2009), “When the Brand is
bad, I’m mad!: an exploration of negative emotions to brands”,
Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 36, pp. 494-501.
Rucker, D.D. and Petty, R.E. (2004), “Emotion specificity and
consumer behavior: anger, sadness, and preference for
activity”, Motivation and Emotion, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 3-21.
Sandıkcı, Ö. and Ekici, A. (2009), “Politically motivated Brand
rejection”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 62 No. 2,
pp. 208-217.
Shaver, P., Schwartz, J., Kirson, D. and O’Connor, C. (1987),
“Emotion knowledge: further exploration of a prototype
approach”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
Vol. 52 No. 6, pp. 1061-1086.
Sprott, J.C. (2004), “Dynamical models of love”, Nonlinear
Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, Vol. 8 No. 3,
pp. 303-314.
Sternberg, R.J. (1986), “A triangular theory of love”,
Psychological Review, Vol. 93 No. 2, pp. 119-135.
Sternberg, R.J. (2003), “A duplex theory of hate: development
and application to terrorism, massacres, and genocide”,
Review of General Psychology, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 299-328.
Sternberg, R.J. (2005), “Understanding and combating hate”,
The Psychology of Hate, American Psychological Association,
Washington, DC, pp. 37-49.
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Storm, C. and Storm, T. (1987), “A taxonomic study of the
vocabulary of emotions”, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, Vol. 53 No. 4, pp. 805-816.
Thomson, M., MacInnis, D.J. and Whan Park, C. (2005),
“The ties that bind: measuring the strength of consumers’
emotional attachments to brands”, Journal of Consumer
Psychology, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 77-91.
Underhill, J. (2012), Ethnolinguistics and Cultural Concepts:
Truth, Love, Hate and War, Cambridge University Press.
Walsh, G. and Beatty, S.E. (2007), “Customer-based
corporate reputation of a service firm: scale development and
validation”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 127-143.
Zarantonello, L., Romani, S., Grappi, S. and Bagozzi, R.P.
(2016), “Brand hate”, Journal of Product & Brand
Management, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 11-25.
Zarantonello, L., Romani, S., Grappi, S. and Fetscherin, M.
(2018), “Trajectories of Brand hate”, Journal of Brand
Management, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 549-560.
Appendix
Original list of the 150 Brand Hate items:
1 I hate this brand.
2 I extremely dislike this brand.
3 I really detest this brand.
4 I feel hostile to this brand.
5 I feel contempt for this brand.
6 I feel disgusted by this brand.
7 This brand makes me feel enraged.
8 I feel furious at this brand.
9 I have a feeling of revulsion to this brand.
10 I have a feeling of loathing to this brand.
11 I feel anxious when I think about this brand.
12 I feel fearful when I think about this brand.
13 I feel threatened when I think about this brand.
14 I feel worried when I think about this brand.
15 I feel disappointed when I think about this brand.
16 I feel displeased when I think about this brand.
17 I feel disenchanted when I think about this brand.
18 I feel ashamed by what this brand does.
19 I have a feeling of embarrassment when I think about
this brand.
20 I have a feeling of dehumanization when I think about
this brand.
21 I have a feeling of depersonalization when I think about
this brand.
22 I feel anger towards this brand.
23 I feel annoyed by this brand.
24 I feel aggravated when I think about the brand.
25 I feel appalling towards this brand.
26 I feel awful thinking about the brand.
27 I feel befuddled thinking about the brand.
28 I feel betrayed when I think about this brand.
29 I blame myself for using or buying this brand.
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

30 I feel bored by the brand. 80 This brand to me is like a drug.

31 I have a feeling of confusion when I think about this 81 I have a failed expectation towards this brand.
brand. 82 I want to say fuck you to the brand.
32 I feel I don’t have control over the brand. 83 This brand is greedy.
33 I feel depressed when thinking about the brand. 84 I feel like hell when I think about the brand.
34 I despise this brand. 85 This brand is hideous.
35 I despise the people who use this brand. 86 The brand is hypocritical.
36 I feel the brand disrespects me. 87 I am humiliated by this brand.
37 I am dissatisfied with this brand. 88 I feel inappropriate using this brand.
38 The experience I have with this brand is frightening. 89 This brand is inconvenient to use.
39 I feel frustrated when I think about the brand. 90 The brand is unjust.
40 The brand is gross. 91 The brand to me is insane.
41 I feel guilty for using this brand. 92 This brand is insidious.
42 I feel happy if this brand does not exist. 93 I feel insulted by this brand.
43 I feel helpless thinking about the brand. 94 My feeling towards this brand is intense.
44 I feel hopeless when I think about the brand 95 I wish to put this brand in jail if it were a person.
45 I feel horrible when I think about the brand. 96 This brand seems to me like a joke.
46 I have a feeling of irritation when I think about this brand. 97 The brand to me is malicious.
47 I become livid when I think about this brand. 98 I feel messed up by this brand.
48 I am mad at this brand. 99 I feel like mocking the brand.
49 I have strong negative feelings when I think about the brand. 100 This brand is nasty.
50 This brand is obnoxious. 101 I am not proud of using this brand.
51 I feel odd thinking about this brand. 102 My experience with this brand is novelty.
52 I feel overwhelmed thinking about this brand. 103 I feel offended by this brand.
53 I am pissed off with this brand. 104 The brand is pathetic.
54 I regret using this brand. 105 I feel myself at the point of explosion when I think
55 I have a feeling of revenge when I think about the brand. about the brand.
56 I feel sad thinking about this brand. 106 I feel repulsed by the brand.
57 I feel scared when I think about the brand. 107 The brand is retarded.
58 I feel shocked by this brand. 108 This brand is ridiculous.
59 Thinking about this brand makes me feel stressed. 109 I reject this brand.
60 I am surprised by what this brand does. 110 I feel ripped off by this brand.
61 I feel terrible thinking about the brand. 111 I got screwed up by this brand.
62 I am terrified when I think about the brand. 112 This brand is scum.
63 I feel uncomfortable when I think about the brand. 113 The brand is shady.
64 I feel upset when I think about the brand. 114 This brand is a piece of shit.
65 This brand makes me feel weird. 115 This brand is sick.
66 I don’t appreciate the brand. 116 This brand is strange.
67 The brand is an asshole. 117 The brand offers stupid things.
68 This brand is very bad. 118 I feel sorry for what this brand does.
69 I associate bad luck with the brand. 119 This brand sucks.
70 This brand means bad association to me. 120 This brand made me suffer.
71 This brand is barbarous. 121 My experience with this brand is troublesome.
72 The brand is to be blamed. 122 The brand breaks my trust.
73 This brand is a bully. 123 The brand turns me off.
74 I feel bumped when I think about the brand. 124 The brand is ugly.
75 The brand is condescending. 125 What the brand does is unacceptable.
76 This brand is creepy. 126 The brand is unethical.
77 I don’t care about this brand. 127 The brand is unprofessional.
78 I dismiss the brand. 128 I am unsatisfied with this brand.
79 The experience with this brand is distasteful. 129 I want to cry when I think about the brand.
 A multidimensional construct Journal of Product & Brand Management
Chun Zhang and Michel Laroche

130 I feel like destroying the brand. 148 I feel sick to stomach thinking about the brand.
131 I want to hurt someone when I think about the brand. 149 I want to vomit when I think about the brand.
132 I ignore the brand. 150 I want to puke thinking about the brand.
133 I look away when I see the brand.
134 I feel physical disgust when I see the brand.
135 I want to punch the brand if it were a person.
About the authors
136 I want to rant about this brand. Chun Zhang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of
137 I roll my eyes at the brand. Management and Marketing, University of Dayton. Her
research interests are emotions, branding and advertising,
138 I want to slap the brand if it were a person.
service marketing and cross-cultural marketing. Chun Zhang
139 I feel like screaming when I think about this brand. is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
140 I want to smash something when I think about the brand. czhang4@udayton.edu
141 I feel like strangling someone when I think about this brand. Michel Laroche is a Professor and the Royal Bank
142 I feel like tarnishing the brand. Distinguished Professor at John Molson School of Business,
143 I feel like tearing up the things I get from the brand. Concordia University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of
144 I would wish everything bad happens to the brand. Canada, the American Psychological Association, the Society for
Marketing Advances, the Academy of Marketing Science and is
145 I feel like yelling when I think about this brand.
a Concordia Research Fellow. He has also received several
146 I have a feeling of bubbling insides of my body when I research and service awards. His main research interests are in
think about the brand. the areas of communication, consumer behavior modeling,
147 I have a gut-wrenching feeling thinking about the brand. culture, neuromarketing, retail, internet and services marketing.

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

View publication stats