Re-imagining brand morality: A spirituality perspective

Brand morality is broadly about consumers' perceptions of a brand’s moral characteristics, like fairness and kindness. These characteristics parallel those used to judge a human’s behaviours (Paris, 2022). Given the rising demand for brands to act responsibly on many facets (e.g., environment, social, and digital), BM has become a popular discussion topic amongst retail scholars and practitioners (e.g., Nguyen & Dekhili, 2019).

Extant retailing and branding literature offers a somewhat conventional and rigid conceptualisation of BM. It is about brands doing what is right (wrong) and behaving (in)appropriately in specific situations (Kame & Tshaka, 2015), like (not) respecting a market’s traditions and customs (Hoppner & Vadakkepatt, 2019; Stoeckl & Luedicke, 2015). Because of the overlapping characteristics, BM has been treated similarly to brand ethics (e.g., Brunk and Bluemel Huber, 2011). For example, Fan (2005) characterised the two concepts as concerning "good or right behaviours" (p. 3). Kirmani et al. (2017) described the two concepts in a singular sense on a spectrum of moral/ethical attributes. Brunk (2012) theorised BM as ‘moral norms’, one of the many facets defining brand ethics.

Despite the popularity of the indifferent treatment, we question whether it is relevant in today’s retailing, where consumers expect retailers to be more ‘connected’ with society and act more caringly. The expectation goes beyond simply following the laws and/or upholding the social norms of a market. Some scholars describe this phenomenon as ‘spiritual consumerism’ (Sardana et al., 2018) or ‘consumer spirituality’ (Husemann & Eckhardt, 2019).

We identify three popular theoretical lenses used to study BM in the extant literature: anthropomorphism (e.g., Kim & Ball, 2021), social norms/business ethics (e.g., Romani et al., 2015), and corporate social responsibility (e.g. van Prooijen & Bartels, 2019). The latter lenses potentially contribute to the indifferent treatment of BM with brand ethics due to their overlapped focus on complying with society’s normative principles (e.g., employer obligations) (Alwi et al., 2017; Romani et al., 2015) and being responsible for its economic and environmental well-being (Miralles-Quiros et al., 2018). On the other hand, the anthropomorphism lens explains the salient human traits consumers value when defining brand morality, such as honesty, integrity, caring, and fairness (Kirmani et al., 2017).

The three lenses above provide a solid foundation for studying BM and its defining characteristics. However, the extent to which they are unique enough to differentiate BM from brand ethics and prudent enough to discern BM’s emergent characteristics is unclear, especially in response to the constantly evolving retail landscape (Kantar, 2023). Very few studies have explored the research directions. Instead, previous studies have focused on the explanatory effects of BM/brand ethics on consumer behaviour. The mentioned research directions may produce new knowledge to the extant literature. For example, do retail consumers perceive BM similarly or differently from brand ethics? Do they perceive other theoretical lenses relevant to defining BM?

Responding to the conference theme ‘Retail Imagination’ and departing from the somewhat conventional and rigid conceptualisations offered by the extant literature, this study explores retail consumer perceptions of BM via a spirituality lens. Specifically, it will explore whether consumers appreciate an alternative theoretical lens to study BM and whether it is helpful to (better) differentiate BM from brand ethics.

Spirituality and BM

Two questions naturally emerge when we propose ‘spirituality’ as the guiding theory of this study: Are we referring to spirituality as religion? Why will this concept be meaningful for studying BM? This section provides some preliminary answers to these questions.

Like BM and brand ethics, many scholars have treated spirituality and religion as identical. Some describe them succinctly as “the deepest values and meanings by which people live” (Kame & Tshaka, 2015, p. 3) and some elaborately as “a religious symbol system that specifically expresses individual-level experiences, beliefs and practices” (Stolz & Usunier, 2018, p. 3). However, a few scholars disagree with the indifferent treatment and argue that the two concepts are related but distinct. They describe spirituality as “a search for universal truth” and religion as “...more formal beliefs and group practices as related to existential issues” (Vitell et al., 2016, pp. 147-8).

Some scholars (e.g. Hur et al., 2020) particularly emphasise ‘greater or wider connection’ as the key differentiating trait of spirituality from religion. For instance, Hur et al. (2020) explain that spirituality’s connection is “...with one’s complete self, others and the entire universe”, and religion’s connection is “...with a particular faith system” (p. 424). Harris (2014), a neuroscientist and a prominent author, concurs with the subtle distinction between spirituality and religion and has published a book titled ‘Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion’ to discuss the topic. It was named one of the New York Times Bestsellers.

Based on the discussion above, one can surmise that spirituality’s connection is broader and more fluid than a group’s or institution’s principles and practices (e.g., Buddhism and Christianity). Kame and Tshaka (2015) associate the pursuit of spiritual connection with the seeking of humanistic qualities like “love, compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, harmony, and concern for others with the express purpose of living happily and helping others” (p. 3). The extent to which these qualities (attributes) differ from those emphasised in a brand ethics conceptualisation and can help retail brands establish a moral or moralistic image are the research questions this study seeks to answer. Stated differently, we seek to establish whether retail consumers perceive spiritual connection with human society, the universe or the divine realms as a more critical source of achieving BM (Sharma & Kumra, 2020) beyond fulfilling legal responsibilities and upholding good citizenship expected by a market (Hur et al., 2020).

Proposed methodology
Because this study comprises theory-building and testing components, it will employ a multi-stage and mixed research design. It will involve desk research, qualitative interviews with retail consumers, and quantitative surveys.