Sarcastic or Assertive: How Should Brands Reply to Consumers’ Uncivil Comments on Social Media in the Context of Brand Activism?

Abstract

Brands are increasingly embracing social activism and adopting positions on controversial issues, prompting some consumers to react by making uncivil comments on social media. How should brands reply to such incivility while maintaining their positions and protecting their reputations? Two common types of reply include either a sarcastic or an assertive tone, but the effects of these types of communication on consumers’ attitudes toward brands remain largely unexplored. Results from a series of five studies exploring different causes (LGBT+ phobia, sexism, and racial equity) show that consumers evaluate brands that reply using an assertive tone more favorably than those using a sarcastic tone, which can be partially explained by the perceived aggressiveness of sarcasm. Additionally, support for a brand's stance acts as a boundary condition on the effect the type of reply adopted by the brand has on consumer attitudes toward the brand. So, the more someone supports a brand's stance, the less their perception of aggressiveness will negatively influence their attitude to that brand. We discuss the implications of these findings for marketing theory and practice.

Let's Laugh About It! Using Humor to Address Complainers’ Online Incivility

“…Customers’ incivility is a growing phenomenon on social media (Fombelle et al 2020; Wolter, Bacile, and Xu 2022), with 73% of observers reporting having witnessed incidents of incivility (Duggan 2014). Thus, there is a need for more research to understand how companies can handle customers’ incivility on social media (Bacile et al 2018; Batista et al 2022). Moreover, the current research focuses on observers’ reactions given their potential impact in terms of number and influence (Hogreve, Bilstein, and Hoerner 2019).…”

“…In this research, we demonstrate that incivility represents a special context for the use of humor as a recovery tactic targeting observers. The benefits of humor in marketing are well documented (e.g., Bompar, Lunardo, and Saintives 2018; Lussier, Grégoire, and Vachon 2017), and the use of humor on social media has received growing attention (Batista et al 2022; Liao, Li, and Filieri 2022), especially when firms respond to online complaints (Béal and Grégoire 2022; Shin and Larson 2020). Accordingly, the current research extends prior work on humor by examining its effects in the context of incivility on social media.…”

“…First, the research contributes to the recent literature on customers’ incivility (Fombelle et al 2020; Henkel et al 2017) in the social media context (Bacile et al 2018; Batista et al 2022; Wolter, Bacile, and Xu 2022). Specifically, our research identifies humor as a relevant strategy to address uncivil comments posted on social media.…”

From Crisis to Advocacy: Tracing the Emergence and Evolution of the LGBTQIA+ Consumer Market

“…The proximity to the LGBTQIA+ community allows organizations to collect several insights into LGBTQIA+ consumers’ needs. These insights are leveraged by policy makers to provide solutions in the public sphere and develop shared policy efforts (Batista et al 2022; Zhu and Smieliauskas 2022). For instance, the 2021 European Union Guidelines for Strategies and Action Plans to Enhance LGBTIQ Equality represent a major step toward safeguarding equality and nondiscrimination of LGBTQIA+ individuals (European Commission 2022).…”