I Can’t Believe You Posted That, It’s Offensive! Conceptualizing How Consumers Take Offense to Marketing Communications

Consumers encounter brand-created content that offends, yet this response is not well understood in the marketing communications domain. This study uses a qualitative approach employing interviews and photo-elicitation techniques to explore the consumer experience of taking offense to marketing communications online. The findings show that taking offense to marketing communication is a cognitive-emotional process. Consumers describe cognitive evaluation of a prescriptive norm violation that conveys disrespect to the self, and/or others, and/or society. Participants also associated a variety of negative emotions such as anger, sadness, disgust, and negative surprise with taking offense. Perceptions of offensiveness seemed to be strengthened (or weakened) by incongruence (congruence) with the consumer’s expectations of the brand, their perceptions of the marketing communications reach, and their certainty (uncertainty) about their own interpretation. The work builds upon phenomenological literature on the experience of offense and extends the recently proposed normative theory of offense to the marketing communications context. This study offers a definition of taking offense to marketing communications that identifies norm violations and distinguishes it from interpersonal offense and related concepts such as moral outrage. A conceptual framework of the process by which consumers take offense to marketing communications, and a series of propositions are also provided.