Political ideology moderates consumer response to brand crisis apologies for data breaches

Abstract Many firms unfortunately experience data breaches in which personal records information are accessed by external agents without firms' and consumers' consent. To improve customer relationships and re-build equity, it is important for brands to apologize, and many do. In the current inquiry, we study how consumers' political ideology moderates their brand trust and purchase intentions after brands apologize for a data breach. In two experimental studies, we report that an apology for a data breach has little sway in conservatives' (vs. liberals') brand trust (Study 1) and purchase intentions (Study 2). The explanation is that conservatives (liberals) have entity (incremental) beliefs, so they see firms as unlikely to change even after an apology or statement of how they intend to mitigate future data breaches. Although our context is on data breaches and how consumers with different political ideologies consider privacy breaches of personal data, we are also the first to examine how consumers respond to a brand crisis apology based on their political ideology. Consequently, understanding who a firm's consumers are in terms of their ideological makeup is crucial in predicting the effectiveness of an apology for data breaches in order to restore brand equity.