Brands in Bad Company

Springing from the relatively newco-creation paradigm, this article is based on the fact that consumers have asignificant influence on the brand building process. However consumers cannotbe understood as a sound and compact group of buyers with homogeneous values. Insteadvarious societal developments, and in particular the emergence of consumertribes, support the existence of a multiplicity of consumer groups. Furthermoreeach of those groups is trying to appropriate the brand and to impose their ownvalues and meanings on it. This is particularly true for social identitybrands, like fashion labels, which are carrying strong cultural and identitymeanings as well as symbolic power. Therefore consumer segments, which are notspecifically targeted by the company, present marketers with a trickychallenge. Thereforethis paper is structured around one specific research question: Is everycustomer favourable for the brand? In order to answer this question anextensive case study will be built around the experience of Stone Island, an Italianhigh-end fashion brand, which unintentionally became the symbol of the hooliganculture in the early 1990s. After an in-depth analysis of the case, the authorsreveal that there are consumer segments that are inherently unfavourable forbrands. However, the nuances of the topic make the reasoning path just asimportant as the answer itself. Beyond that, an illustrative categorization of various types of unintended consumer segments will be elaborated. Furthermore, byreviewing the examples of other companies that faced the occurrence of unintended consumer segments, plausibleaction paths will be analyzed following the presented categorization. Moreover,theoretical and managerial contributions will be outlined and future researchpossibilities on the topic of unintendedconsumer segments will be offered