When luxury brand authenticy fail: impacts in brand love Paula Rodrigues, Lusíada University north, portugal Amélia Brandão, faculdade de economia, universidade do porto, portugal Paula Costa, lusíada university, lisboa, portugal 5th International Consumer Brand Relationships Conference May, 18-20, 2017 Porto, Portugal

Purpose This paper aims to verify if: brand identification, social responsibility image and brand love of luxury brands are affected by the NEGATIVE EMOTIONS TOWARDS THE BRAND as a result of a perception of faults in the BRAND AUTHENTICITY, leading to less attractive consumer behaviors.

Research Question If the consumer has negative emotions towards the brand, as a result of a perception of failure in the authenticity of the luxury brand, when it communicates a social responsibility that it does not practice, is this can compromise the consumer's relationship with the brand?

Theoretical Background Consumer’s can express positive and negative emotions toward brands (Dalli et al, 2007; Romani et al., 2012). Negative emotions toward a brand can appear not only after the purchase but can be formed in advance, so consumers can decide to avoid a brand even if they have never tried it (Romani et al., 2009; 2012). These consumers’ negative emotions toward brands can be evoked by different stimuli/reasons (Lee et al., 2009b; Nenycz-Thiel & Romaniuk, 2011). The literature has demonstrated the influence of authenticity on consumers' perceptions of a marketing cue (Beverland, 2009). Managers of luxury brands should emphasize the authenticity and unique character of luxury brands in all its components (Castaño and Perez, 2014).

Theoretical Background For the specific context of brand authenticity the following conclusions can be drawn: Authenticity in the context of brands deals with the authenticity of market offerings (objects and services) in contrast to the authenticity of human beings; (2) Brand authenticity is based on the evaluations of individuals rather than being solely related to the inherent attributes of the brand (Beverland and Farrelly 2010); (3) Brand authenticity corresponds to a variety of attributes since there is no unique definition of the authenticity concept, particularly in the branding context.

Theoretical Background Carroll and Ahuvia (2006) define brand love as ‘the degree of passionate emotional attachment a satisfied consumer has for a particular trade name’. Brand identification is defined as ‘ the extent to which them consumer sees his or her own self-image as overlapping the brand ’s image (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006)). Brand identification is also known as self image congruence and self-connection (Fournier, 1998; Sirgy et al., 1997). Brand Social Responsibility is defined as consumers’ perceptions of the extent to which a brand reflects the human values related to social responsibility (Grohmann and Bodur, 2015).

Conceptual Model and Hyphotheses The conceptual model showing the hypotheses is depicted in Figure. H1: Negative emotions toward a brand has a negative influence in the brand identification H2: Negative emotions toward a brand has a negative influence in the brand love H3: Negative emotions toward a brand has a negative influence in the brand social responsibility H4: The brand identification has a positive influence in brand love. H5: The brand social responsibility has a positive influence in brand love. H6: The brand love influences the purchase of branded accessories.

Methodology - Design Based on a total of 219 consumers, repondents evaluated if the negative emotions toward the brand in results of the perception of fails in the autenticity of the luxury brand affect the brand identification, the brand social responsibility and the brand love. The data were collected by online survey, using the snow ball method, and asked to recommend the fullfilment of others participants. Answers were measured using a five-point Likert scale. CFA and SEM were used to assess these relationships in the conceptual model propose. The Dior luxury brand of accessories has been chosen because it is a well-known brand and implemented in the global market and because their hedonic appeal and symbolic benefits.

Methodology - MEASURES (1) Negative emotions toward the brand (NEB) was measured with 6 items of Romani et al. (2012) scale, (2) Brand identification (BI) was measured with 4 items of Marin et al. (2009) work, (3) Brand social responsibility (BSR) was mesured with 6 items of Menon and Kahn (2003), Dean (2002) and Lichtenstein et al. (2004) works and (4) Brand love BL) was measured with 6 items of Bagozzi, Batra and Ahuvia (2016) short scale. The purchase of luxury acessories of Dior brand was measured with dicotomic variable, yes or no buy that kind of product.

Negative Emotions toward the Brand Brand Social Responsibility Results - CFA Construct Itens Convergent Validity Reliability Factor Loading  CR AVE Brand Identification (BI) BI1: BI2: BI3: BI4: 0,824* 0,829* 0,889* 0,893* 0,881 0,954 0,841 Negative Emotions toward the Brand (NEB) NEB2: NEB3 NEB4: NEB5 NEB6: 0,971*  0,968* 0,931*  0,972*  0,960* 0,979 0,992 0,961 Brand Social Responsibility (BSR)   BSR1 BSR2: BSR5: BSR6: 0,879* 0,911* 0,938*  0,913* 0,931 0,973 0,902 Brand Love (BL) BL2: BL3: BL4: BL5: 0,898*  0,887* 0,909 0,965 0,874 Goodness-of-fit indexes RMSEA GFI CFI IFI 2 Standardized = 1,974* 0,0434 0,921 0,901 0,892 Following the procedures suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981), convergent and discriminant validity was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The fit values for this confirmatory model were satisfactory. CR = Composite Reliability; AVE = Average variance extracted; * p < 0,001

Results - SEM To test the hypotheses, this research applied a recursive structural equation modelling (SEM) using SPSS/AMOS software. The goodness of fit indices demonstrated acceptable matching of the structural model: CFI = 0.955; NFI = 0.925; TLI = 0.948; RMSEA = 0.058; CMIN/DF = 2.3. The results suggested that the impact of NEB on BI is significant and negative (γ = -0.228, p < 0.01), in support H1 and its impact on BSR is also significant and negative (γ = -0.034, p < 0.05), supporting H2. The impact of NEB on BL is significant and negative (γ = -0.058, p < 0.01), in support H3. The impact of BI on BL is positive and significant (β = 0.687, p < 0.001), supporting H4. With respect to the impact of BSR on BL, is positive and significant (β = 0.290, p < 0.01), supporting H5. Lastly, the impact of BL on purchase is positive, ie, the brand love influences the purchase of Dior brand accessories, supporting H6.

Conclusions It has been found that in the case of the Dior brand of accessories, the fault in perceived authenticity of the brand can induce negative emotions of the consumer, which in turn negatively affects the identification with the brand, brand love and perception of the brand social responsibility. However, it has been shown that brand identification and the perception of brand social responsibility help to improve the brand's love of the consumer. This improvement in brand love positively affect the purchase of luxury accessories.

Theoretical Contributions For the first time, the relationships between negative emotions and the constructs of brand identification, brand social responsibility and brand love were empirically tested. One interesting result was the positive relationship between brand social responsibility and brand love, in luxury brands. The results of this investigation contradicted the work of Torelli et al. (2012) where the authors argue that consumers do not respond well to information about the social responsibility of luxury brands, showing that brand social responsibility influences brand love and as such increases brand purchase.

Managerial Implications From the managerial point of view, the knowledgment of the extent to which consumers perceive defects in brand authenticity and creating negative emotions can help preserve the strategy of maintaining that authenticity. Additionally, the consumer's perception guidelines of brand social responsibility helps to reinforce brand love and to help managers to realize the importance of investing in properly communicating social responsibility efforts to maintain and strengthen the consumer-brand relationship.

Limitations and Future Research Despite the positive outcomes, this investigation has limitations: relates to the sample size (n = 219) which is reduced for the generalization of the results. the data collection was performed by online survey using the snow ball method, which does not allow controlling the respondents. the study is conducted in only one country when the Dior brand is sold over the world. Another limitation is that it did not measure brand authenticity and instead asked respondents to think generically about faults of authenticity of luxury brands. The limitations give oportunities to further research: (1) It would be interesting to test an alternative model in which the relation of the proposed model was verified without the influence of the negative emotions towards the brand. (2) The collection of data in other countries and with other luxury brands could allow the validation of the proposed relationships consolidating the results obtained and the hypotheses raised. (3) Another line of investigation is to verify if this type of relations is maintained for functional brands.

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