Uncovering brand honesty: a systematic literature review and preliminary insights

This article summarizes the researchers’ presentation for the In Pursuit of Luxury 2025 Conference, themed ‘Honest Luxury’, held on Thursday, 19 June 2025. The article explores the underdeveloped construct of brand honesty in marketing scholarship and practice. Although honesty is often mentioned alongside authenticity, transparency, credibility and morality, it is rarely examined as a distinct concept. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic literature review of studies published between 1985 and 2024, following PRISMA guidelines. Our aims were to identify dominant theoretical perspectives and highlight conceptual and methodological shortcomings in current research. The review reveals that brand honesty is typically treated as a secondary or antecedent dimension, often conflated with other constructs, which limits definitional clarity. Yet the rapid rise of e-commerce and social media has intensified the need for a more precise understanding of honesty, particularly in contexts where trust must be built without physical interaction. We argue that relationship marketing theory provides a more suitable framework for reconceptualizing brand honesty as a dynamic, co-created process. In this perspective, honesty is not limited to disclosure or compliance but involves recognizing brand shortcomings, communicating openly and aligning promises with behaviours throughout the customer journey. Our contribution is twofold: first, we propose a theoretical definition of brand honesty that integrates authenticity, transparency, morality, credibility and relational perspectives; second, we outline future research directions to examine how participatory mechanisms enable verification of brand claims. By doing so, the study advances the understanding of how honesty can strengthen consumer trust, enhance accountability and support brand resilience.