Greenwashing is a frequent issue within the FMCG industry, such as vague ecological claims and misleading communication. When a brand is accused of greenwashing it is important to understand how to manage this transgression, since both forgiveness and loyalty are concepts that are affected. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to investigate how brand forgiveness influences brand loyalty, within the FMCG industry, with the aim of contributing to limited research in this area. Ten interviews were conducted with loyal customers to examine how they felt and experienced two brands after perceived transgressions. The critical incident technique was used during the interviews to remind the customers of the transgressions and obtain a comprehensive view of their narratives. The results indicated that the lack of repair efforts influenced the customers to perceive the brands as dishonest and untrustworthy, which affected their unwillingness to forgive and damaged their trust. Based on the customer's perceptions and feelings regarding the brands and the specific transgressions, brand forgiveness and loyalty were influenced differently. In addition, the customer places high importance on the product quality and their relationship with the brand and would rather stay with the brand instead of switching to another if the quality and/or the relationship is strong.

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Magister Commercii - MCom / The concept of brand loyalty highlights the importance of brands in marketing strategy development because it leads to a stream of benefits for the company (lower marketing costs, less price sensitivity, greater market share and greater profits). Questions thus arise about how brand loyalty is achieved, especially for low involvement product categories classified as fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs). Models of how brand loyalty is built have been tested and most agree that brand loyalty is linked to satisfying customer needs. Knowledge about the type of needs (utilitarian and hedonic) is however, not usually determined. How the different types of needs first influence brand trust and brand affect, before affecting consumer satisfaction, also requires investigation. This study therefore tested how brand building efforts for some selected FMCG brands in South Africa impact on brand loyalty, as well as the extent to which utilitarian and hedonic need satisfaction leads to brand trust and brand affect for these low involvement products. The study also examined the extent to which brand trust and affect influence consumer satisfaction, examined as drivers of attitudinal and behavioural brand loyalty. Quantitative research methods were used to collect and analyse the data, appropriate because of the nature of the research (testing relationships between multi-variables), and the fact that standardised instruments were available to test the proven and valid variables. Data was collected from 272 White, Indian, Coloured and Black South Africans living in Cape Town. The respondents were sampled from malls in Nyanga (targeting Black consumers, most of whom represent lower income consumers), Mitchell's Plain (targeting middle income Coloured and Black consumers), and Canal Walk (targeting high income White, Coloured, Indian and Black consumers), all of which either have SPAR, Pick n Pay or Shoprite/Checkers retailers that sell FMCGs. Structural equation modelling was the main data analysis method for this multivariate investigation.