Brand avoidance among Generation Y consumers Zana Knittel, Karolin Beurer and Adele Berndt Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this research is to explore the reasons for brand avoidance among Generation Y consumers. Researchers have traditionally focused on the positive relationship between consumers and brands, but, increasingly, consumers are consciously avoiding brands. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative study consisting of both focus groups and interviews was conducted among Generation Y participants. Findings – The indings support previous research that identiies four types of brand avoidance, namely, experiential, identity, moral and deicit-value avoidance. However, the study also suggests that an additional type of brand avoidance, namely, advertising avoidance, also occurs. Aspects of advertising that can contribute to brand avoidance include the content of the advertising, the use of a celebrity endorser and the music in the advertising, as well as the response to the advertising. This study thus proposes an expanded framework of brand avoidance. Research limitations/implications – This study has found support for the existing types and reasons impacting brand avoidance but suggests that advertising may also impact brand avoidance. This is an aspect that requires further research. Practical implications – For marketing managers, the indings suggest that not only can product experiences result in brand avoidance, but that advertising may be a further reason for this phenomenon. Originality/value – While there has been a great deal of attention on the positive aspects of brands, research on the negative aspects has largely been ignored. Further, the identiication of advertising as a reason for brand avoidance is also suggested. Keywords Advertising, Advertising avoidance, Brand avoidance, Moral avoidance Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction Brands and consumption are major characteristics of modern societies, as they appear in all different aspects of our lives (Kapferer, 2012). Current branding research has explored positive customer brand relationships such as brand love (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006; Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen, 2010; Batra et al., 2012; Sarkar, 2014) and affection (Tse and Chan, 2008) or emotional attachment (Grisaffe and Nguyen, 2011), which consumers generally have with brands they use regularly, manifesting as customer loyalty (Jaiswal and Niraj, 2011). But the negative aspects associated with brands are equally important. It has been stated that knowing what consumers do not want to consume is just as important as knowing about what they do like (Hogg and Banister, 2001; Lee et al., 2009a). Consequently, issues such as brand avoidance and brand hate have begun to receive more attention (Lee et al., 2009b). Changes in social media have also made it The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1352-2752.htm Brand avoidance 27 Received 12 March 2015 Revised 11 September 2015 Accepted 19 October 2015 Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal Vol. 19 No. 1, 2016 pp. 27-43 © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1352-2752 DOI 10.1108/QMR-03-2015-0019