Latifa Mednini and Mouna Damak Turki. What leads customer to create and participate in anti-brand community: a netnographic approach. (ICDEc 2022)

1. What leads customer to create
and participate in anti-brand
community: a netnographic
approach
The 7th International Conference on Digital Economy
Latifa Mednini
Pr. Mouna Damak Turki

2. Problem’s Context, Research Questions
Anti-brand Community: Theoritical
Background
Research Methodology
Limitations and Future directions
Results’discussion
Presentation
Agenda
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Theoritical and Managerial implications

3. #1
Participation in the anti-
brand community has
received increasing
growth. but why this
community has been
created is yet
unexplored.
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INTRODUCTION
Several anti-brand communities
have been emerged as
Safeway’s (Shameway.com) ,
Starbucks (Starbucked.com),
Coca-Cola’s (Killercoke) (Kucuk,
2008).
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Problem’s context
Research Problems

4. #2
Anti-brand community
participation has
received limited
attention.
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INTRODUCTION
Dessart et al. (2016; 2020)
investigated the intensity of
negative emotions in affecting
individuals to participate with
other consumers and establish
collective behavior in an anti-
brand community.
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Problem’s context

5. #3
Most of previous studies
do not take into
consideration the
consumers who participate
in this community to
defend the brand.
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INTRODUCTION
Engaging in an anti-
brand community
shows the dark side of
consumers’ opinions,
thoughts towards a
brand.
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Problem’s context

6. #4
The power of negative
consumer actions targeting
brands is a significant concern
because opposition has a
much stronger effect than
support (Banister and Hogg,
2004).
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INTRODUCTION
Many companies see
haters as a big problem,
actually
ignoring them is the
bigger problem.(Baer,
2016, Kucuk, 2019).
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Problem’s context

7. Questions
What drives consumers to
participate in anti-brand
community?
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INTRODUCTION
What drives consumers to
create an anti-brand
community?
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Research questions Problem’s context

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Theoritical
background

9. 3/45
Theoritical background
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Motivation can be categorised into intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivation is presented by self-encouragement, self-
interest in doing such activities. Extrinsic motivation is
demonstrated by relying on external factors and reasons (Oh and
Syn, 2015).
Motivation Theory
Anti-brand
community
“Groups of people who have negative feelings
towards a brand and self-select to join this kind of
community to express their feelings to the brand”
(Dessart et al., 2020)
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10. 1. Creation of anti-brand community
Hate toward brand
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1
Theoritical background
Hate is one of the most powerful human
emotion (Kucuk, 2019). Most of individuals
do not express this emotion and ignore it
(Kucuk, 2019). Referring to Robert Sternberg
(2003), theory duplex of hate, hate is
categorised by three components which are:
"anger and fear", "negation of intimacy and
disgust“, and "devaluation and diminution”.
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11. 1. Creation of anti-brand community
Not real hater
2
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Theoritical background
Hate is a complex emotion that it is not easy
to detect it. Kucuk (2019) noticed that most
brand haters come from a troll, a review-
farm, or a competitor-associated source such
as a paid-blogger.
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12. 2.Participation in anti-brand community
Social factors
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1
Theoritical background
Dessart and al. (2016) suggested three
social factors, which are community
identification, community engagement
and social approval.
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13. 2.Participation in anti-brand community
Individual factors
2
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Theoritical background
Individual factors are consists of two
elements, which are oppositional
attitudinal loyalty and brand material
value.
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14. 2.Participation in anti-brand community
Brand factors
3
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Theoritical background
Brand factors comprise the negative
relationship and the collective memory.
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15. 15/35
Research
Methodology

16. Netnography steps
Step 1: Entry and immersion in the
community
 Research question:
What leads consumers to
create and join an anti-
brand community?
Selected virtual brand
communities (Facebook)
Two steps
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Research methodology
Kozinet, 2002

17. Anti-brand communities
« Reclamations
Tunisair »
(number of memberships: 548)
«Boycottons Tunisair et
ses tarifs indécents»
(number of memberships: 2668)
« Scandales
tunisair ‫فضائح‬
‫التونسية‬ ‫الخطوط‬
»
(number of memberships:
6494)
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Research methodology

18. 150 negative comments
Step 2: Data Collection
a. Non-participant
observation
b. Participant observation c. Field Notes
Netnography steps
Final sample:
14 Tunisian individuals
Phase 1: (Focus group)
Initial sample:
30 Tunisian participants
16 participants
did not answer
Phase 2: sample from
individual interview
16 Tunisian participants
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Period : 1year
Research methodology
Context :Tunisia

19. Step 3: Data Analysis and Interpretation
Content analysis
Thematic
analysis
Analysis of
opinions
Netnography steps
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Research methodology

20. Step 4: Validation by participants and
ethics of the process
 Respect the privacy of membres
(confidentiality and anonymity)
 Have permission from concerned
members before posting their messages or
comments.
Netnography steps
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Research methodology

21. Step 5: The "member
check"
Solicit feedback from members on all
or part of the research.
Netnography steps
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You are doing a good
research but you are
wasting your time by
choosing Tunisair, it is a
crappy company!".
Research methodology

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Result’s
Discussion

23. 1.Creation of anti-brand community
Hate towards brand
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1
Result’s discussion
Consistent with Romani and al. (2015)
and Nguyen and Nguyen (2021), the
negative feeling of hate influences anti-
brand actions.
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24. 1.Creation of anti-brand community
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Result’s discussion
According to the work of Kucuk (2019), hate
can be from a real person or from a
competitor-associated to another company.
Not real hater: competitor-associated
source
2
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25. 1.Creation of anti-brand community
Social Approval
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3
Result’s discussion
Drawing on Kucuk (2019) and
Hollenbeck and Zinkhan (2015), the
anti-brand community acts as a
significant consumer agency and source
of data
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26. 2.Participation in anti-brand community
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1
Result’s discussion
The results of Hegner and al. (2017)
suggested that a negative relationship
can lead to rejection, dislike, or hate
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Negative Relationship

27. 2.Participation in anti-brand community
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2
Result’s discussion
Prior research revealed that community
identification affects feeling to be
identified as a member, and belonging to
a community (Bagozzi and Dholakia 2006;
Dholakia and al. 2004)
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Community Identification

28. 2.Participation in anti-brand community
Patriotism
3
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Result’s discussion
National product consumption by individuals,
patriotism can be an expression of duty
towards the nation by respect and
acknowledgment for such product that is
representative of the nation
The findings of Nik Kamariah and al.
(2015) noticed that patriotism is one of the
direct motivations that reinforce the
consumer purchase.
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29. Anti-brand
Community
H5
Community
identification
Participation
Antecedents
Patriotism
Brand hate
Creation Antecedents
Not real
hater
Social
approval
Research Model
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Negative
relationship

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Theoritical and
Managerial
Implications

31. Theoritical implication
The current research explores the antecedents of creating an online
anti-brand namely brand hate, not real hate and social approval.
Our results describe for the first time patriotism as an antecedent of
participating in online anti-brand.
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Theoritical implication
This research is enriching the literature of anti-brand, anti-
consumption, brand- consumer relationship and brand hate

32. - Anti-brand community provides insight to brand managers on the
ways to manage consumer negative emotion.
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Managerial implication Managerial implication
- This paper presents a pilot study to pay attention to listening
technologies. In fact, this method allow companies to distinguish
consumer hater from no hater.
- This study allows brand practitioners to better understand the
antecedents that leads to create and participate in anti-brand
community

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Limitations
and Future
directions

34. 02
1. Our research was limited to a
qualitative study
2. This research did not
investigate the level of hater
3. The negative emotion
toward brand has negative
consequences
1. In future research, we intend to
quantify our findings.
2. Future research should studied
this subject.
3. Future work would do well to
explore the strategies of managing
the hate existing in online
communities.
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35. Thank you for your attention
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