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Brand managers across industries face growing volatility. Socio-political shocks and the speed at which negative information spreads online mean that small triggers can escalate into reputational crises almost overnight. In this environment, competitive advantage depends not only on generating customer affection, but on building relationships resilient enough to withstand sudden negative information.

The shift: from loyalty to resilience

Traditional metrics such as brand love capture how customers feel about brands, but not how they will react when things go wrong. Conversely, customers with the strongest brand connection often exhibit the most negative reactions. This is where brand immunity becomes critical, first introduced by research at ImperiaBusiness School in 2023.

Brand immunity refers to a customer’s resistance to changing their perception of a brand when confronted with negative information. Customers with high immunity process bad news more carefully, weighing it against prior experience. In doing so, brand immunity provides a more reliable indicator of how customers will behave under pressure.

Focusing on customers with high brand immunity in crises helps stabilise sentiment and limit the spread of negative narratives.

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Back in the 1950s, political differences between Democrats and Republicans, both in terms of platforms and demographics, were so subtle that political scientists considered this problematic – a lack of differentiation between the parties did not give voters enough choice.

This no longer appears to be the case. As our research shows, students living on the same campus have different lifestyles according to their political identities. Research has shown that the divide between those on the right and left is growing in terms of policy preferences and disdain for those on the other side.