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.

In the present study, we have explored the role of brand trust and consumer brand identification in evoking brand forgiveness when individuals are exposed to communications related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) wrongdoings. Grounded in attribution theory, we have developed and empirically tested a conceptual model to assess the effectiveness of brand trust in facilitating the attribution of wrongdoings either internally (e.g., believing that the brand had wrong intentions) or externally (e.g., believing that there are other factors beyond the brand's control) in influencing brand forgiveness. We conducted an online experiment utilizing Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to recruit participants from the U.S. national population (N = 620) following a quota sampling method. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed in Mplus to analyze the hypothesized direct and mediation relationships. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to test the moderating hypotheses in SPSS (i.e., the interplay of brand trust and consumer brand identification in influencing internal and external attributions). Supporting the hypotheses, we found that brand trust positively influenced external attribution and external attributions, evoking brand forgiveness when individuals are exposed to communications related to CSR wrongdoings. However, contrary to our expectation, we found that the brand trust positively influenced internal attribution which indicated that higher the degree of faith individuals had in the brands, higher their tendency was to consider the possibility that the brand was indeed involved in unethical CSR practices.

No one is perfect, and that includes the brands that we use. Therefore, there will inevitably come a time in a brand’s existence where a transgression occurs that will harm their relationships with its customers. The decision to forgive a brand after a transgression is a complex and individual process that evolves over time. With the rise of social media, the ease with which negative word-of-mouth can be spread is an increasing challenge for brands to manage. However, social media usage tends to differ between people from different generational belongings, or cohorts. As a testament to the fact that you are shaped by the time you grow up in, this paper analyzes how brand forgiveness differs between consumers from the generational cohorts of Generation X and Generation Z. Furthermore, it was investigated whether brand image is a decisive factor that affects the consumer’s willingness to forgive. This study suggests that a certain brand image implies increased expectations toward the brand, which affects the forgiveness process. The willingness to forgive does, however, differ depending on the generational cohort. In contrast to consumers from Generation Z, Generation X are more inclined to forgive a brand after a transgression.