Consumers-Brands Battle: Investigating The Impact of Cancel Culture On Switching Behaviour and Brand Cancellation – The Moderating Role of Negative eWOM

Cancel culture has become one of the most controversial topics in the last few years. Online cancel culture movement can be defined as the practice of any form of withdrawing customers’ support for a particular brand, company, or even a person. Customers can withdraw their support by engaging in boycotting acts and unfollowing the brands on various networking websites to express their outrage and disapproval of the company's wrongdoings. In today's current world, the cancel culture debate is considered a crucial phenomenon due to its power to engender public pressure to boycott a particular brand by inducing others to switch to another competitor and thus, promoting brand cancellation. This paper sheds the light on the dangers of the online cancel culture movement on a brand's image. It also aims to provide guidance to businesses to mitigate the effects of brand cancellation and avoid falling prey to cancel culture movements. To achieve the research objectives, a mixed-methods approach will be conducted using qualitative content analysis and an online survey.