How far can brands go to defend themselves? The extent of negative publicity impact on proactive consumer behaviors and brand equity

Negative publicity, defined as the public disclosure of a problematic incident associated with a brand, is a critical issue for fashion brands, as it vitiates the image of targeted brands and drives consumers’ voice and exit behaviors. Despite the impact of negative publicity, few studies have compared the impact of product-related versus personnel-related negative publicity, or explored the extent to which brands’ coping strategies can prevent consumers’ anti-brand behavioral intentions and recover brand equity. This study used multivariate analyses of variance to analyze responses from 594 American consumers, which revealed that when negative publicity is about a product-related issue, none of the brand's different recovery efforts are effective in decreasing consumers’ voice and exit intentions and protecting brand equity. However, for a personnel-related issue, functional and informational recovery strategies were effective in decreasing consumer voice and exit intentions, and affective, functional, and informational recovery strategies positively impacted most domains of brand equity (brand judgement, brand feelings, and brand resonance). The following analysis of variance and post hoc analyses revealed the comparative effectiveness of specific recovery types. Discussions and implications of the findings are provided.