More than law-abiding: a multi-staged consumer study on brand morality

Today's consumers expect brands to act morally to win their hearts and wallets. Yet, existing marketing literature provides little clarity on what this behaviour entails and how it differs from acting ethically. This study aims to clarify these concepts and inspire further research. Our consumer-centric research adopted a multi-theory and multi-method approach, coupling Moral Foundations with Morality as Cooperation theories, 12 in-depth interviews and three surveys with 1,229 respondents from two opposite national cultures. We present a Brand Morality scale involving three meaningful dimensions: brand care, brand compliance and brand competency. Brand care is more influential in establishing a moralistic image than the other dimensions. We also learn that while consumers from different national cultures may value the same set of BM dimensions on a cognitive level, they may interpret and react differently on a behavioural-intent level. Our unique contributions include (i) presenting a 12-item Brand Morality scale that is theoretically meaningful and practically applicable to brands, (ii) demonstrating the co-utility of two under-considered theories, (iii) clarifying the nuanced distinctions of brands acting morally versus ethically, and (iv) shedding light on consumers’ perceptual definitions of BM may be consistent between nations, but their behavioural interpretations may vary depending on their local cultures.