Role of Anti-Brand Websites on Brand Image
Since customers are facilitated through the internet and many-to-many communication, they can easily and conveniently share their opinions with others. Anti-brand websites operate as forums for high-level empowered electronic word-of-mouth exchanges. This
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laint forums provide a platform through which customers can express their experiences and comments, either privately or publicly, to share information with other customers. Customers also use these forums to find a solution for what has happened to them. Anti-brand websites are intended to create a negative identity for a brand; customers not only share their purchasing failures, but also their concerns about extended issues, such as environmental, cultural, legal, and political issues (Krishnamurthy & Kucuk, 2009). The speech and communication forms used on anti-brand websites can be categorized into market, ideological, and transactional speech. Market speech attacks the brand by using a specialist in marketing, and ideological attacks criticize personal or national issues. Transactional speech targets those who did not succeed in transactions. Among these three forms of speech, market speech has the biggest effect on brand value (Krishnamurthy & Kucuk, 2009). From the perspective of those who are engaging with these websites and their main purpose, Kucuk (2008) categorized the anti-brand sites into four types: experts, symbolic haters, complainers, and opportunists. Expert anti-brand sites’ main focus is on market information and analyses. They generally take stands against consumerism and the companies that market around this culture. For example, ‘McCruelty’ discusses McDonalds’ damaging operations in rainforests and issues related to the ethical treatment of animals, and Walmart-blows.com discusses employment discrimination (Kay, 2006; Kucuk, 2008). Brands with high brand awareness are targeted by symbolic haters who use negative word-of-mouth to sully a brand’s achievements. For example, people who hate Starbucks offer comments that are not as reliable as those of experts because the haters’ comments are based mainly on personal tastes (Kucuk, 2008). These complainers express anger and opposition mainly relevant to the brand’s products and services. Opportunists use media activities and information to find fake news or rumors about a brand to call attention to specific websites (Kucuk, 2008). Many researchers have investigated customer complaints and customer activities such as boycotts and protests (Sen et al., 2001). In addition, negative word-of-mouth (WOM) and its effects on consumers’ opinions and their behavior have been the topic of several studies (Bickart & Schindler, 2001). O’Reilly and Marx (2011) showed that in the online world strangers’ reviews and comments are much more acceptable among people who would pay less attention to them in real-world circumstances. BRAND IMAGE Kucuk (2008) suggested that anti-brand websites, as a type of online WOM, have significant influence on brand identity and image; they can affect customer buying behavior and buying decisions directly or indirectly and they can change the market share of a brand. Consequently, these websites play a noticeable and undeniable role with regard to different aspects of a brand. Brand image is one of these aspects; it describes custome
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