You are so embarrassing, still, I hate you less! Investigating consumers’ brand embarrassment and brand hate

Brand hate is an emerging concept representing the dark side of the consumer–brand relationship. This research investigates whether negative brand social self-expressiveness can significantly predict brand hate via creating perceived brand embarrassment in a social context, and also the moderating roles played by consumer’s susceptibility to social influence and brand inner self-expressiveness. Data were collected from Nano car users in India and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) and conditional process analysis (Hayes in the process macro for SPSS and SAS, 2018). The study results support that negative brand social self-expressiveness creates brand hate, and this relationship is mediated by brand embarrassment. Consumer’s susceptibility to interpersonal influence positively moderates the effect of negative brand social self-expressiveness on brand embarrassment. On the other hand, the effect of brand embarrassment on brand hate is negatively moderated by brand inner self-expressiveness. Thus, the model shows a moderated mediation. The contribution of this research lies in empirically identifying the relationship between brand embarrassment and brand hate, and the distinctive roles played by brand social and inner self-expressiveness in shaping this relationship.