Key Takeaways

  1. The Problem: High inequality and low mobility lead to malicious envy resurgence.
  2. The Mechanism: Low economic mobility causes brand malicious envy due to undeserved success perception.
  3. The Consequence: BME leads to negative word-of-mouth and boycott intentions.
  4. Strategy 1: Underdog brands avoid BME as success attributed to effort.
  5. Strategy 2: Charitable donations reduce BME in low-mobility contexts.

Consumer Marketing’s Strategic Threat

Consumer marketing faces a strategic threat driven by economic disparity. While marketing traditionally leverages benign envy to boost sales and drive consumer desire, rising social and economic inequalities expose a critical gap concerning the resurgence of malicious envy. This gap occurs because extreme inequality reinforces the perception that status and coveted goods are unreachable. This research explores and defines brand malicious envy (BME) as intense anger directed at successful brands perceived as undeserving of their achievements. Unlike focusing on envy toward individuals, this research confirms that brands can be direct targets of this spiteful emotion.

Brand Malicious Envy

Boycotts and Negative Word-of-Mouth

Malicious envy imposes measurable economic deadweight loss on brands and organizations. Malice rarely stays an internal emotion; it quickly translates into destructive behavior. BME, triggered by low PEM, leads to tangible negative consequences for the brand. Studies confirmed this by measuring consumer intent following exposure to successful, undeserving brands in a low PEM environment. Consumers demonstrated a significant increase in negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) and heightened boycott intentions. For instance, the dual mediation pathway, where reduced PEM diminishes deservingness, which fuels BME, significantly predicted NWOM and boycott intentions in cross-cultural testing. Global brands are especially susceptible to malicious envy when operating in sensitive markets.

Photo Grid Brand Envy Consequences

Mitigation Strategy 2: Strategic Redistribution

Charitable giving acts as a powerful strategic tool to reduce malice and hostility. Across cultures, redistribution is known as a tool to lessen envy. Brands can employ coping strategies, specifically engaging in prosocial behavior like charitable donations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, to mitigate BME. Study results confirm Hypothesis 2 (H2): BME is more pronounced when a successful brand does not engage in charitable donation. This lack of redistribution in low PEM environments intensifies malicious envy. The positive impact of charitable contributions is significant: the indirect effect of low PEM on BME through deservingness was only significant when the brand did not participate in donations. Strategic charitable donations can therefore significantly reduce brand-directed malicious envy and strengthen brand-consumer relationships.

Brand Donation Mitigation

What's Next?

Malicious envy, triggered by low perceived economic mobility, is a substantial threat leading to inefficient, destructive consumer behavior. Brands must actively manage their image, either by cultivating an **underdog biography** that emphasizes effort or by engaging in **strategic redistribution** to counteract the perception of undeserved wealth. Future research should clarify the relationship between malicious envy and resentment, especially regarding how brand redistribution interacts with the deservingness judgment *before* and *after* it is formed.

References

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