A Framework of Brand Contestation: Toward Brand Antifragility

2021/09/10 by Daniel Dietrich, Daniel R. Dietrich, Cristel Antonia Russell · 7 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · #Advertising #Affect (linguistics) #Brand equity #Brand management #Business #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification #Corporate branding #Empirical research #Environmental Sustainability in Business #Extant taxon #Marketing #Perspective (graphical) #Scope (computer science) #Service and Product Innovation #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1093/jcr/ucab053

published in Journal of Consumer Research 48(4), 682-708 (Oxford University Press)

openalex publication_date 2021/09/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Abstract The consumer literature on branding to date coalesces around the notion that brands are constantly contested. Brand contestation arises where the actions of consumer brand actors meet, and sometimes confront, those of the brands’ legal owners. This article integrates the extant branding research, a qualitative prestudy, and two complementary empirical studies to advance a theoretical process model of brand contestation. First, an in-depth analysis of thirty historical cases reveals its dynamics and how both the magnitude of contestation and the momentum of mobilization affect brand contestations’ scope and evolution. Second, interviews with upper-level marketing and branding executives add an emerging perspective that brand managers can use the energy generated by consumers’ contestation to develop antifragility—a brand’s ability to grow and thrive as a result of contestation.

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