Impact of Doppelganger Brand Image (DBI) on Consumer Behavior

Doppelganger brand images (DBIs) are a collection of disparaging brand images and stories circulated in popular culture, customarily targeted at brands to hold them accountable for any inconsistency in the quality of the products or services provided. If overlooked, DBIs may prove harmful to the brand’s equity and value and sometimes even directly lead to a loss in sales. This paper delves into how DBIs affect an end consumer’s perception of a brand. It aims to draw insights into a possible change in consumers’ attitudes towards purchasing and subsequent consumption of the products and services offered by brands from four different industries(Beverage, Cellular Network, Airlines and Sports Entertainment) after being exposed to DBIs. The research was conducted in three steps, including two quantitative surveys and one qualitative research with the help of in-depth interviews. Through the first quantitative survey, the preferred attributes of four product categories beverages industry, the sports entertainment industry, cellular network industry, and the airline industry, was observed. Next, any changes in the respondents’ willingness to consume after they have been exposed to DBIs of four brands from the above four different industries have been mapped. Through in-depth interviews on a sample of respondents, the underlying reasons behind the change or lack thereof were observed. Conducting the qualitative research on each product category’s three competitive brands helped in assessing the variation in the level of indifference a consumer has towards a DBI concerning a particular product category. Finally, quantitative research on the selected sample of respondents was used to map any possible difference in attitude towards consumption of the products and services of the brands discussed in the in-depth interviews, which was used to arrive at the findings and conclusion. The novelty of this paper lies in the fact that much of existing research has been done to gauge the effects of negative branding via Doppelganger Brand Images of products on the brand equity and sales, by studying on specific brands/products. The question of “How are consumers impacted by the exposure to the aforementioned negative branding?” has been attempted to be answered through this paper, without restricting our scope to a single business industry or product category. The paper throws light on the emergence of a possible pattern of consumer’s perception towards brands that have been targeted by DBIs, across four product categories, which need to be taken into account by marketers planning on large scale emotional branding campaigns of those product categories.