This article uncovers an important yet overlooked antecedent of brand ethicality that lies beyond the predominant focus on environmental and social actions in the literature: perceived brand authenticity. Perceived authenticity and brand ethicality strongly drive consumer decision making, but the link between the two has not been closely scrutinized. This article examines how two types of authenticity cues (indexical and iconic) differently influence consumers’ perceptions of brand ethicality. Across five studies and four different product categories, the findings show that indexical authenticity cues (i.e., an original product by a brand) lead to greater perceived brand ethicality than iconic authenticity cues (i.e., an authentic reproduction by the same brand). The underlying mechanism is that indexical authenticity cues (compared to iconic authenticity cues) prompt people to perceive that a product is made with more effort; this increases their perception that it is crafted with love, which then enhances their perception of brand ethicality. The findings also indicate that lower perceived brand ethicality when using iconic authentic cues (versus indexical authentic cues) can be offset by the notion that developing the product involved intense effort.

本文揭示了品牌道德的一个重要但被忽视的先例，它超出了文献中对环境和社会行为的主要关注范围：可感知的品牌真实性。感知的真实性和品牌道德性强烈推动了消费者的决策制定，但两者之间的联系尚未得到严格的审查。本文研究了两种类型的真实性提示（索引性和标志性）如何不同地影响消费者对品牌道德的看法。在五项研究和四个不同的产品类别中，研究结果表明，与标志性真实性提示（即同一品牌的真实复制）相比，指数性真实性提示（即品牌的原始产品）导致更大的品牌道德感。潜在的机制是索引真实性提示（与标志性真实性提示相比）促使人们意识到产品的制造更加费力。这增加了他们对爱情的爱戴，从而增强了他们对品牌道德的感知。研究结果还表明，在使用标志性真实提示（相对于索引真实提示）时，较低的品牌道德感可以被开发产品涉及大量工作的观念所抵消。