Brands are widely regarded as a constellation of shared associations surrounding a company and its offerings. On the traditional view of brands, these associations are regarded as perceptions and attitudes in consumers’ minds in relation to a company. We argue that this traditional framing of brands faces an explanatory problem: the inability to satisfactorily explain why certain branding activism initiatives elicit the moralized reactive attitudes that are paradigmatic responses to wrongdoing. In this paper, we argue for a reframing of brands that calls for viewing brands as a series of normatively binding expectations that are ethically akin to promises. Our promissory framing of brands avoids the explanatory problem, illuminates a number of ethical requirements on branding, and reconceptualizes the role of brand managers.

品牌被广泛视为围绕公司及其产品的共享协会的集合。按照传统的品牌观点，这些关联被视为消费者对公司的看法和态度。我们认为，这种传统的品牌框架面临一个解释性问题：无法令人满意地解释为什么某些品牌行动主义倡议会引发道德化的反应态度，这些态度是对不法行为的典型反应。在本文中，我们主张重新设计品牌，呼吁将品牌视为一系列在规范上具有约束力的期望，这些期望在道德上类似于承诺。我们对品牌的期盼框架避免了解释性的问题，阐明了品牌塑造方面的许多道德要求，并重新概念化了品牌经理的角色。