KOREASCHOLAR

Relationship between consumers and brands has become an important issue both for managers and marketing scholars (Fournier 1998, Fournier et al 2012,Alba and Lutz 2013, Loureiro 2015). This becomes even more important when brands misbehave. This paper studies the situation in which consumers are disappointed with the brand and feel hate toward it. Building on the Triangular Theory of Hate (Stenberg 2003), a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 349 posts written on a facebook public group, is performed. The goal of the analysis is twofold: i) understanding which are the more recurrent types of hate for consumers and its causes; ii) testing, in light of the expressing writing theory, whether writing and sharing their brand hate online is a way for consumers to vent away their feelings and hence to restore their wellbeing. Results show that consumers mainly experience burning hate that is composed by anger, disgust and devaluation and wish the brand death. Also, given the specific relationship consumers have with the brand, the catharsis effect does not take place for them.

• Giulia Miniero(Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland)
• Monica Grosso(emlyon business school, Lyon, France)