Negative emotions in consumer brand relationship: A review and future research agenda

Emotions have a compelling and strong effect on individuals actions and behaviours. They are elicited in consumers during the decision-making process through brand-related stimuli. Negative emotions towards a brand can translate directly into actions against it, for instance, propagating negative word of mouth, avoidance and vengeance. Although scholars have conducted consumer-brand relationship (CBR) research for over 20 years, our understanding of negative emotions is still limited. Research in the consumer-brand relationship domain so far has predominantly focused on positive emotions and its constructs. However, with a recent surge in the studies on negative emotions in the consumer-brand relationship domain, a systematic review is essential to identify, evaluate and synthesize the extant literature. Using a citation-based search, we analyse 55 articles in the literature to achieve three objectives: primarily to illustrate the evolution and growth of negative emotions in the consumer-brand relationship using the seminal article by Fournier (1998) 'Consumers and their brands: Developing relationship theory in consumer research' as the base paper. Further, the study aims to identify uncharted negative emotions in consumer-brand relationship literature by integrating it with the hierarchical theory of emotions article and finally, it suggests future research in unexplored and underexplored negative emotions.