تحریم برند در صنعت بانکداری: شناسایی و اولویت بندی عوامل تاثیرگذار

Introduction: In a highly competitive market, intangible assets are considered as a critical factor for the success of an organization, and one of these assets is the brand (Vasily et al., 2023). Consumers have different emotional connections with brands (Tiffani et al., 2022). It is possible that while some people fall in love with a brand, some people are indifferent to it and some people have a feeling of hatred towards it and boycott that brand (Makizadeh et al., 2017). Brand boycott is defined as one of the negative key elements of a brand and the decision by customers not to buy particular brands and giving negative recommendations to friends about the desired brand (Kim et al., 2022). When customers experience bad services, they express feelings that indicate their hatred for the brand and they not only boycott that brand, but also share their negative experiences with others. These negative emotions cause adverse consequences along with avoiding brand encouragement and reducing brand performance (Beatriz et al., 2021). Companies are facing increasingly negative consumer emotions towards their brands. These feelings, which are precisely caused by the lack of love for the brand or consumer dissatisfaction, often lead to a decrease in consumption or end of consumption, protests and brand boycotts (Dalakas et al., 2023). Consumers who advocate for a brand are part of the important goals of companies, because they are more loyal and tend to communicate positively about a brand and show resistance to negative information (Shujaa and Sadegh Vaziri, 2017). On the other hand, concepts with a negative semantic load such as brand boycott, which is perhaps the strongest and most important negative emotion that consumers may feel towards brands, have largely been forgotten as a research topic. In branding literature, consumers' positive emotions about the brand have been discussed many times; but researchers have generally paid very little attention to negative emotions toward brands, especially the concept of brand boycott (Sampdero, 2017). A quick look at banking industry in Iran shows that a large part of consumers express opinions and behaviors towards some banking brands, which is a reflection of various aspects of their negative attitude towards the mentioned brands. Opinions and behaviors that are in the form of negative comments and even in some cases boycotting the brand and refuse to buy it. According to the above-mentioned statements, the main research problem is answering to this question, what are the factors affecting brand boycott in the banking industry?
Methodology: Research method, in terms of objective is applied and in terms of nature is mixed method (both quantitative and qualitative). The present study is underpinned by the interpretivist research philosophy. In line with the interpretive research philosophy, qualitative and inductive research approach are adopted for this study. Furthermore, in order to extract factors thematic analysis was carried out and structural equations modeling applied to identify and classify relationships between variables.  In present study, semi-structured interviews were used to identify the components of brand boycott by customers in the banking industry. The statistical population of the research include16 experts (university professors, bank managers, bank assistant managers, and researchers familiar with the research topic). The process of collecting and analyzing data was repeated until theoretical saturation was reached. This was continued until the researcher felt that the experts were no longer providing new information. In order to analyze data in the qualitative section thematic analysis method was used and finally the factors affecting the boycott of the brand by customers in the banking industry were identified.
Discussion and Results: The present study aimed to identify and rank the factors affecting the brand boycott in the banking industry. To this end, in the qualitative part of the research, semi-structured interviews were conducted and a total of 100 basic themes were identified and finally categorized into 14 main themes. These factors were evaluated in the form of a proposed research model in the banking industry. Furthermore, in qualitative phase, a researcher-made questionnaire was conducted to collect data and structural equations modeling (Visual PLS software) was used to analyze data research. Finally, 14 factors were identified which have a significant impact on brand boycott in the banking industry. The factors include: service quality, interaction quality, quality customer service, facilities, bank charges, poor customer-oriented culture, nepotism, inefficiency of marketing and advertising activities, environmental factors, bureaucracy and strict rules, lack of personnel, managers attitude and inefficiency of the information system and queue management system. Moreover, Fuzzy AHP technique was used to rank the factors. The ranking results also showed that factors such as service quality, poor customer-oriented culture and bank charges are the most important factors affecting brand boycott by customers in the banking industry.
Conclusion: Banks must understand individual's needs. They should pay attention to the complaining customers; listening to the protests and respond appropriately toward them. They should ask about the reasons of customer dissatisfaction and complaints in order to collect information about banks shortcomings and weaknesses. Also, banks should have a strategic plan for understanding their customers' interests and preferences, especially main customers. Banks should identify factors affecting customers' purchases intention and their purchase motivations as well as predict factors that may cause customer objections. Banks should welcome the ideas of customers and use their comments in order to make the customers feel valued. Bank personnel should be courteous and respectful to customers; moreover, they must strengthen their knowledge and skills while dealing with customers. The behavioral competencies, professional ethics and sales ethics should be strengthened among employees and appropriate rewards should be considered for personnel who have a sense of altruism and citizenship.