{"id":18882,"date":"2026-03-02T12:41:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T12:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/when-brands-wear-an-insult-as-a-badge-of-honor\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T12:41:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T12:41:33","slug":"when-brands-wear-an-insult-as-a-badge-of-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/when-brands-wear-an-insult-as-a-badge-of-honor\/","title":{"rendered":"When Brands Wear an Insult as a Badge of Honor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure class=\"article-inline\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-orig-src=\"https:\/\/sloanreview.mit.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2026SPRING_Radar_ResearchSnap-1290x860-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-125699\"><figcaption>\n<p class=\"attribution\">Fernando Dias Silva\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"smr-leadin\">How should brands react<\/span> when faced with negativity from reviewers? Recent research published in the <cite>Journal of Consumer Psychology<\/cite> suggests that brands could benefit by proudly brandishing the very insults hurled at them.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers Katherine Du, Lingrui Zhou, and Keisha Cutright examined whether brands can benefit from \u201creappropriating\u201d insults, or intentionally adopting an externally imposed negative label. When the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team was called \u201ca bunch of jerks\u201d by a commentator for their celebratory antics, for example, they put the phrase on merchandise. The result: over $875,000 in sales.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers conducted three studies to understand when and why this strategy works. In a real-world test, they ran Facebook ads that featured a fictitious electronics store responding to a one-star review. An ad featuring reappropriation (\u201cWe\u2019re an \u2018out-of-date, birdbrain of a store\u2019\u2009\u201d) achieved a 7.12% click-through rate, compared with 5.62% for an ad that denied the insult.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>A second study found that reappropriating an insult generated much more customer interest for a brand than ignoring, denying, or apologizing for it. The advantage was driven by two factors: Consumers perceived brands that reappropriated as more humorous and more confident.<\/p>\n<p>But before you go slapping your one-star reviews on billboards, some important caveats: The researchers found that reappropriation backfires when the insult comes from a vulnerable person (such as an elderly woman), because the brand appears to be bullying someone less powerful. Reappropriation also fails when the criticism seems justified (such as when a product is defective) or when it reflects serious moral concerns (like accusations of being sexist).<\/p>\n<p>In short, when criticism is unwarranted, wearing an insult as a badge of honor can be effective \u2014 but only for insults that are ultimately benign, unjustified, and don\u2019t punch down at vulnerable critics.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fernando Dias Silva\/Getty Images How should brands react when faced  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphic-design"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}