Brand as Promise

Brands are widely regarded as a constellation of shared associations surrounding a company and its offerings. On the traditional view of brands, these associations are regarded as perceptions and attitudes in consumers’ minds in relation to a company. We argue that this traditional framing of brands...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics 2022-09, Vol.179 (3), p.919-936
Main Authors: Bhargava, Vikram R., Bedi, Suneal
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Brands
Business and Management
Business Ethics
Companies
Consumers
Education
Employee behavior
Ethics
Frame analysis
Management
Marketing
Original Paper
Philosophy
Quality of Life Research
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Summary:Brands are widely regarded as a constellation of shared associations surrounding a company and its offerings. On the traditional view of brands, these associations are regarded as perceptions and attitudes in consumers’ minds in relation to a company. We argue that this traditional framing of brands faces an explanatory problem: the inability to satisfactorily explain why certain branding activism initiatives elicit the moralized reactive attitudes that are paradigmatic responses to wrongdoing. In this paper, we argue for a reframing of brands that calls for viewing brands as a series of normatively binding expectations that are ethically akin to promises. Our promissory framing of brands avoids the explanatory problem, illuminates a number of ethical requirements on branding, and reconceptualizes the role of brand managers.
ISSN:0167-4544
1573-0697
DOI:10.1007/s10551-021-04834-z