How harmful are online firestorms for brands?An approach to the phenomenon from the participant level

  1. Elena Delgado-Ballester 1
  2. Inés López-López 1
  3. Alicia Bernal-Palazón 1
  1. 1 Departamento de Marketing. Universidad de Murcia
Journal:
Spanish journal of marketing-ESIC

ISSN: 2444-9695,  2444-9709

Year of publication: 2020

Volume: 24

Issue: 1

Pages: 133-151

Type: Article

DOI: 10.1108/SJME-07-2019-0044 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: Spanish journal of marketing-ESIC

Sustainable development goals

Abstract

Propósito – Este trabajo exploratorio identifica posibles consecuencias negativas que los ataques colaborativos online contra las marcas podrían tener en las relaciones marca-consumidor. Para ello se adopta la perspectiva del participante en el ataque colaborativo mediante un análisis pormenorizado del contenido que los usuarios generan durante el tiempo que dura el ataque contra la marca. Metodología – Se ha llevado a cabo un análisis del contenido generado durante cuatro ataques colaborativos recientes que protagonizaron distintas marcas en Twitter. Resultados – Del análisis de contenido se desprende que las marcas son las protagonistas de las conversaciones de los usuarios aunque otros actores tales como marcas competidoras también han sido mencionadas. Los comentarios negativos predominan sobre los positivos. También se identifican acciones contra la marca, tanto pasivas (evitar comprarla) como activas (venganza). Limitaciones – El carácter exploratorio del estudio impide la generalización de sus resultados. El número de ataques colaborativos analizados son limitados aunque representan una interesante variedad de errores y malas conductas por parte de las marcas. Implicaciones prácticas – Actualmente las marcas son objeto de escrutinio público en las redes sociales en tanto que facilitan la interacción entre usuarios y el comportamiento informativo de cualquier tipo. Este trabajo confirma que los responsables de marca deben controlar, comprender y tratar de responder a estos ataques colaborativos contra las marcas para minimizar su impacto. Originalidad/valor – Los ataques colaborativos contra las marcas son un fenómeno que está recibiendo una enorme atención últimamente en la medida en la que miles de usuarios participan en ellos en tiempo real generando una enorme cantidad de comentarios online contra una marca. Estos ataques pueden dañarla seriamente, incluso ante la ausencia de evidencias claras de que el contenido que se comparte sea cierto. Este trabajo contribuye a la escasa literatura existente sobre los ataques colaborativos online contra las marcas y analiza sus posibles efectos negativos.

€ View funding

Funding information

Funding acknowledgment: This research was supported by the Fundación Ramón Areces under the XVI national contest for the adjudication of aids to research in Social Sciences.

Funders

Bibliographic References

  • Baccarella, V., Wagner, T.F., Kietzmann, J.H., McCarthy, I.P. (2018), “Social media? It’s serious! Understanding the dark side of social media”, European Management Journal, Vol. 36 No. 4,pp. 431-438.
  • Batra, R., Ahuvia, A., Bagozzi, R.P. (2012), “Brand love”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 76 No. 2, pp. 1-16.
  • Brady, W.J., Crockett, M.J. (2019), “How effective is online outrage?”, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 79-80.
  • Brunk, K.H., Blümelhuber, C. (2011), “One strike and you’re out: qualitative insights into the formation of consumers’ ethical company or brand perceptions”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 64 No. 2, pp. 134-141.
  • Chan, T.K.H., Skoumpopoulou, D., Yu, Q. (2018), “Firestorms on social media: effects of social information characteristics on customer responses”, PACIS Proceedings, Vol. 69.
  • Chaudhuri, A., Holbrook, M.B. (2001), “The chain of effects from brand trust and brand affect to brand performance: the role of brand loyalty”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 65 No. 2, pp. 81-93.
  • Cipriani, J. (2012), “How to prevent Facebook messenger from sharing your location”, available at: www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-prevent-facebook-messenger-from-sharing-your-location
  • CMO Survey (2018), available at: https://cmosurvey.org/
  • Delgado-Ballester, E., Fernández-Sabiote, E. (2016), “‘Once upon a brand’: storytelling practices by Spanish brands”, Spanish Journal of Marketing - Esic, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 115-131.
  • Delgado-Ballester, E., Munuera-Alemán, J.L. (2001), “Brand trust in the context of consumer loyalty”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 35 Nos 11/12, pp. 1238-1258.
  • Drasch, B., Huber, J., Panz, S., Probst, F. (2015), “Detecting online firestorms in social media”, Thirty Sixth International Conference on Information Systems, Fort Worth.
  • Duhachek, A., Zhang, S., Krishnan, S. (2007), “Anticipated group interaction: coping with valence asymmetries in attitude shift”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 395-405.
  • Einwiller, S., Viererbl, B., Himmelreich, S. (2017), “Journalists’ coverage of online firestorms in German-language news media”, Journalism Practice, Vol. 11 No. 9, pp. 1197-1778.
  • Escalas, J.E., Bettman, J.R. (2003), “You are what they eat: the influence of reference groups on consumer connections to brands”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 13 No. 3,pp. 339-348.
  • Floh, A., Koller, M., Zauner, A. (2013), “Taking a deeper look at online reviews: the asymmetric effect of valence intensity on shopping behavior”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 29 Nos 5/6, pp. 646-670.
  • Fournier, S. (1998), “Consumer and their brands: developing relationship theory in consumer research”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 343-373.
  • Fournier, S., Alvarez, C. (2013), “Research dialogue: relating badly to brands”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 253-264.
  • Gensler, S., Völckner, F., Liu-Thompkins, Y., Wiertz, C. (2013), “Managing brands in the social media environment”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 242-256.
  • Goode, E., Ben-Yehuda, N. (1994), “Moral panics: culture, politics, and social construction”, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 149-171.
  • Grégoire, Y., Fisher, R.J. (2008), “Customer betrayal and retaliation: when your best customers become your worst enemies”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 247-261.
  • Grégoire, Y., Laufer, D., Tripp, T. (2010), “A comprehensive model of customer direct and indirect revenge: understanding the effects of perceived greed and customer power”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 38 No. 6, pp. 738-758.
  • Grégoire, Y., Salle, A., Tripp, T.M. (2015), “Managing social media crises with your customers: the good, the bad and the ugly”, Business Horizons, Vol. 58 No. 2, pp. 173-182.
  • Hansen, N., Kupfer, A., Hennig-Thurau, T. (2018), “Brand crises in the digital age: the short- and long-term effects of social media firestorms on consumers and brands”, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Vol. 25, pp. 557-574.
  • Hauser, F., Hautz, J., Hutter, K., Füller, J. (2017), “Firestorms: modeling conflict diffusion and management strategies in online communities”, The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 285-321.
  • Hennig-Thurau, T., Walsh, G. (2004), “Electronic word-of-mouth: consequences of and motives for reading customer articulations on the internet”, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 51-74.
  • Hennig-Thurau, T., Hofacker, C.F., Bloching, B. (2013), “Marketing the pinball way: understanding how social media change the generation of value for consumers and companies”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 237-241.
  • Herhausen, D., Ludwig, S., Grewal, D., Wulf, J., Schoegel, M. (2019), “Detecting, preventing, and mitigating online firestorms in brand communities”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 83 No. 3, pp. 1-25.
  • Hewett, K., Rand, W., Rust, R.Y., Van Heerde, H. (2016), “Brand buzz in the echoverse”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 80 No. 3, pp. 1-24.
  • Hudson, S., Huang, L., Roth, M.S., Madden, T.J. (2016), “The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand relationships: a three country-study of brand perceptions and marketing behaviors”, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 27-41.
  • Johnen, M., Jungblut, M., Ziegele, M. (2018), “The digital outcry: what incites participation behavior in an online firestorm?”, New Media and Society, Vol. 20 No. 9, pp. 3140-3160.
  • Kähr, A., Nyffenegger, B., Krohmer, H., Hoyer, W.D. (2016), “When hostile consumers wreak havoc on your brand: the phenomenon of consumer brand sabotage”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 80 No. 3, pp. 25-41.
  • Khamitov, M., Wang, X.S., Thomson, M. (2019), “How well do consumer-brand relationships drive customer brand loyalty? Generalizations from a meta-analysis of brand relationship elasticities”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 46 No. 3, pp. 435-459.
  • Krishnamurthy, S., Kucuk, S.U. (2009), “Anti-branding on the internet”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 62 No. 11, pp. 1119-1126.
  • Kwan, G.C., Skoric, M.M. (2013), “Facebook bullying: an extension of battles in school”, Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 16-25.
  • Lamba, H., Malik, M.M., Pfeffer, J. (2015), “Tempest in a teacup? Analyzing firestorms on twitter”, Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, pp. 17-24.
  • Lim, J.S. (2017), “How a paracrisis situation is instigated by an online firestorm and visual mockery: testing a paracrisis development model”, Computers in Human Behaviour, Vol. 67 (February), pp. 252-263.
  • Lopez-Lopez, I., Ruiz de Maya, S., Warlop, L. (2014), “When sharing consumption emotions with strangers is more satisfying than sharing them with friends”, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 475-488.
  • McKinsey (2012), “Turning buzz into gold”, available at: www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/turning-buzz-into-gold
  • Makarem, S.C., Jae, H. (2016), “Consumer boycott behavior: an exploratory analysis of Twitter feeds”, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 193-223.
  • Mochalova, A., Nanopoulos, A. (2014), “Restricting the spread of firestorms in social networks”, Twenty Second European Conference on Information Systems, Tel Aviv.
  • Park, C.W., MacInnis, D.J., Priester, J., Eisingerich, A.B., Iacobucci, D. (2010), “Brand attachment and brand attitude strength: conceptual and empirical differentiation of two critical brand equity drivers”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 74 No. 6, pp. 1-17.
  • Parson, A. (2013), “Using social media to reach consumers: a content analysis of official Facebook pages”, Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 27-36.
  • Pfeffer, J., Zorbach, T.N., Carley, K.M. (2014), “Understanding online firestorms: negative word-ofmouth dynamics in social media networks”, Journal of Marketing Communications, Vol. 20 Nos 1/2, pp. 117-128.
  • Rauschnabel, P.A., Kammerlander, N., Ivens, B.S. (2016), “Collaborative brand attacks in social media: exploring the antecedents, characteristics, and consequences of a new form of brand crises”, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 381-410.
  • Roedder John, D., Loken, B., Kyeongheui, K., Alokparna, S.M. (2006), “Brand concept maps: a methodology for identifying brand association networks”, Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 43 No. 4, pp. 549-563.
  • Romani, S., Grappi, S., Dalli, D. (2012), “Emotions that drive consumers away from brands: measuring negative emotions toward brands and their behavioral effects”, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 55-67.
  • Rost, K., Stahel, L., Frey, B.S. (2016), “Digital social norm enforcement: online firestorms in social media”, Plos One, Vol. 11 No. 6, pp. 1-26.
  • Rowe, Z.O., Wilson, H.N., Dimitriu, R., Charnley, F.J., Lastrucci, G. (2019), “Pride in my past: influencing sustainable choices through behavioral recall”, Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 276-286.
  • Salek, T.A. (2016), “Controversy trending: the rhetorical form of Mia and Ronan Farrow’s 2014 online firestorms against #Woodyallen”, Communication, Culture & Critique, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 477-494.
  • Scholz, J., Smith, A.N. (2019), “Branding in the age of social media firestorms: how to create brand value by fighting back online”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 35 Nos 11/12, pp. 1100-1134.
  • Smith, A.N., Fischer, E., Yongjian, C. (2012),“How does brand-related user-generated content differ across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter?”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 102-113.
  • Stich, L., Golla, G., Nanopoulos, A. (2014), “Modelling the spread of negative word-of-mouth in online social networks”, Journal of Decision Systems, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 203-221.
  • Tenzer, A., Chalmers, H. (2017), “When trust falls down: how brands got here and what they need to do about it”, available at: www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2017-06/Ipsos_Connect_When_Trust_Falls_Down.pdf
  • Tsarenko, Y., Strizhakova, Y. (2013), “Coping with service failures”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 47 Nos 1/2, pp. 71-92.
Data source: Dialnet