Anti-consumption and Brand Avoidance in the Airline Industry

While positive brand relationships have received a great deal of academic attention, negative brand relationships—specifically brand avoidance—have been neglected. As part of any decision to reject a particular brand, various types of brand avoidance have previously been identified, including experiential, identity, moral, deficit value, and advertising avoidance. These impact product and service industries, such as tourism and airlines. Thus, this research aims to investigate brand avoidance in the airline industry, specifically the impact of anti-consumption (at a general/societal level) and the types of brand avoidance and their outcomes (avoidance behaviour). Quantitative methods were used to attain the purpose of the research, specifically a survey distributed from panel data. The constructs were measured using items derived from previous studies and analysed using SPSS 28. The findings show the importance of anti-consumption as a driver of the types of brand avoidance. Deficit-value avoidance was found to be the main driver of brand avoidance behaviour, with contributions made by all the other types of brand avoidance, apart from identity avoidance. This study contributes to the understanding of brand avoidance in the airline industry and the levels as well as the types of avoidance, indicating the strategies required by airlines in their relationship-building strategies.