Brand hypocrisy captures a consumer's perception that a brand is intentionally projecting a false or unrealistic appearance — saying one thing and doing another. The scale identifies four distinct ways this perception forms: a brand failing to deliver on its stated promises (image hypocrisy), a brand having an unacknowledged negative impact on people or society (mission hypocrisy), a brand's advertising portraying unrealistic or unattainable images (message hypocrisy), and a brand supporting social causes purely for strategic image benefit rather than genuine commitment (social hypocrisy). Developed specifically at the brand level as conceptually distinct from firm-level corporate hypocrisy, and shown to predict negative word-of-mouth and consumers' desire to distance themselves from a brand.
7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)
Image Hypocrisy (3 items)
Mission Hypocrisy (3 items)
Message Hypocrisy (3 items)
Social Hypocrisy (3 items)
Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.
Discriminant validity was confirmed against related constructs including corporate hypocrisy, brand trustworthiness (reverse scored), and brand authenticity (reverse scored) — brand hypocrisy is conceptually and empirically distinct from each. Predictive validity was demonstrated across two studies: the four dimensions together explained 66% of variance in negative word-of-mouth intentions and 63% of variance in consumers' desire to distance themselves from the brand. Average variance extracted exceeded .50 for every dimension.
Guèvremont, A. (2019). Brand hypocrisy from a consumer perspective: scale development and validation. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 28(5), 598–613.
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