Social media responses and brand personality in product and moral harm crises: why waste a good crisis?

Abstract

When a brand crisis happens, a manager needs to be ready to mitigate its potentially damaging effects. The purpose of this research is to understand the process of attitudinal changes towards a brand in a crisis and the brand's communication around the crisis by utilising balance theory and brand personality. Four crisis case studies were selected based on type of crisis, scale of crisis (national/international), organisation business model (franchise or nonfranchise) and recency of the crisis. We collected data from brands' Twitter platforms three months on either side of the crisis event horizon. Results demonstrate an opportunity to update the balance theory approach in a crisis by considering the type of crisis (product harm vs. moral harm) relative to brand personality (brand competence vs. brand character). Balance theory helps explain how consumer attitude changes occur through a crisis. Further, the mapping of brand communications in social media over four selected case studies show that brand personality identity can change as a result of a crisis and demonstrate how brand managers can actively frame their online communication to help the brand to recover more effectively from a crisis. Statement of ContributionThis research makes a theoretical and empirical contribution to brand management in a crisis by extending balance theory into the understudied intersection of brand personality and crisis type. It does this by examining both the consumer attitudinal changes expressed in social media during a crisis and the subsequent brand management response. A methodological contribution is made by accounting for both perspectives in one paper.

Consumers’ brand personality perceptions in a digital world: A systematic literature review and research agenda

“…Besides these dominant theories, digital BP research has employed a variety of other theoretical perspectives. Digital BP research has applied 32 other theoretical lenses from the field of (social) psychology or interpersonal relationships research, such as parasocial interaction theory (Youn & Jin, 2021), social identity theory (Farhat et al., 2021), linguistics (Chang et al., 2019), social information processing theory (Garanti & Kissi, 2019), cognitive balance theory (Nadeau et al., 2020), and so forth. It is striking that the majority of theoretical perspectives stem from the fields of BP‐related marketing theories, psychology, or interpersonal relationships/communications theories (see Figure 4).…”

Social media influencers, product placement and network engagement: using AI image analysis to empirically test relationships

“…This engagement can significantly influence the subsequent behavior of consumers (Bowden & Mirzaei, 2021). Interactive engagement is often linked to more positive views about a brand (Dessart, 2017;Leckie, Nyadzayo, & Johnson, 2016), but not always, for example, in times of crisis (Nadeau, Rutter, & Lettice, 2020).…”

Synthesis of forty years of brand crisis literature

“…, 2011) buffer brands from the negative effects of crises. Recently, studies investigating the role of social media provide pragmatic insights into brand–consumer interactions (Nadeau et al. , 2020).…”

“…The studies have examined how marketing strategiesinvolving promotion programs, advertising expenditure and pricing discounts (Rubel et al, 2011) buffer brands from the negative effects of crises. Recently, studies investigating the role of social media provide pragmatic insights into brand-consumer interactions (Nadeau et al, 2020).…”