Making a Brand Loved Rather Than Sustainable? Cosmopolitanism and Brand Love as Competing Communication Claims

Abstract

Sustainability labels on products improve consumers’ product quality perceptions, suggests existing research. To understand this link in detail, the interaction of attitudes towards sustainability and attitudes towards the brand are explored. Theoretically, a branding view is contrasted with moral consumer cosmopolitanism: the view that people consider sustainability issues a planetary challenge that must be met by all of humanity. The theory is tested using the case of a global hazelnut spread brand and investigating the interaction between attitudes toward the brand (branding view) and attitude toward firm-NGO collaboration (cosmopolitanism) on consumers’ intention to purchase. Stepwise moderated regression analysis is applied to a sample of 109 French responses from an online consumer survey. Analyses show that for those who rated brand attitude in the highest category (brand lovers), the effect of NGO attitude on purchase intention was negative. By theoretically integrating branding and a cosmopolitan lens, the study contributes to the nascent debate around the potential negative effects of eco-labels. The negative moderation implies that sustainability researchers take a more nuanced approach to different levels of brand attitude and that brand managers consider withholding their sustainability performance from their brand lovers.