Netnography of Brand Lovers or Haters

Haters of particular brands have less chance of liking a mysterious item presented by a particular brand. On the other hand, lovers of a brand tend to like anything that comes across them. Some companies with lovers and haters we identified are- Starbucks, Louis Vuitton, and Apple, Walmart etc. Starbucks– Lovers of Starbucks had the view that they not only loved instant coffee, they also loved the coffee beans. People enjoy having coffee at Starbucks over brainstorming sessions. Lovers of Starbucks also like to have Starbucks coffee aroma at their homes. Haters of Starbucks think Starbucks is not bought for its taste, and even some people perceive it as an indicator that they are rich or they perceive it as giving them an image of hipster. Others don`t like the ambiance and think of people sitting at Starbucks as complicated and snobby intellectuals. Louis Vuitton- Lovers say they find it gorgeous and love the colors of LV products. Others say it helps them enhance their status symbol. Haters of LV don`t like the monogram, some find it too expensive and others find the designs for old and matured people.

Value of such consumers!

• Concerned about the environment: More people are worried about the companies which are depleting the natural resources, like BP and Union Carbide, the company that killed many lives due to toxic gas emissions and also polluted the environment to huge extent. Whereas many people like certain brands for its interest towards public and environment, for example IKEA has a good reputation among the public for its CSR activities.
• Innovation: Most competitive and innovative field is electronics industry. Many hate certain brands due to lack of innovation and poor features. Premium brands like apple and Samsung too have haters as apple haters believe that there is no innovation in apple mobiles after Steve’s exit and conversely people love Samsung and Sony for its cheap priced mobiles with greater features.
• Individual’s Interest: Every individual is different from one another. As one person might like natural organic food other might tend to like fast foods or any flavored food. Due to these variations in every individual’s interest, there are a group of haters and lovers for a brand.
• Relation with Employees:  People hate Walmart because it wasn’t paying enough to its employees and a lot of news was spread that Walmart was making its employees to work for longer time. People love companies like Verizon and Google since they treats their employees with all benefits and provide them proper work life balance.
• Health Conscious:  People hate certain fast food chains for poor packaging and low quality foods.
• Unethical practices: When KFC sold chickens affected by flu, this created a huge controversy in China and people started to pelt stones over KFC outlets. On the other
  side, people love KFC for its variety of chicken items.

Factors that makes one a hater

• The most common reason for turning one into a hater is because bad customer experience in terms of product quality, service provided, product durability, post buying maintenance services etc.
• Sometimes brand’s unethical practices, illegal ways in achieving targets, does not go down well with the end customer, and  they take it as their social responsibility to initiate a movement against the organizations/services by being a hater for that particular brand. For e.g.- PETA on KFC cruelty to chickens.
• Advertisement – If the advertisement of a particular brand projects/or depicts something that becomes offensive to a group of people/religion or a country, that spreads negative sentiments among people, which drives them to become hater.
• Greater expectation– customers over a period of time after using the brand, set high expectations and if a brand does not come up with new innovations, ideas or features, then the some customers shift away from brand and that eventually may turn them into haters.

Factors that brings lovers together

• Brand image plays an important role in creating lovers for the brand, and is one of the primary drivers for lovers.
• Lovers are created for a brand on the basis of consistent performance of that particular brand over the course of time that can be in terms of its customer satisfaction optimization, innovative features, quality, and value added in life through using it.
• Trust, price, style, flexibility, safety, convenience, comfort, etc. are some of the drivers that distinguish between the customer and the lovers.
• Relationship building is a parameter which organizations target to construct to increase their pool of brand lovers.
• Striking the emotional chord among the customers through marketing and advertisement of a brand allows organizations to generate new brand lovers and
  convert the existing customers into loyal customers.