Chiara Mauri

Brand honesty is increasingly mentioned as a desirable brand quality, yet it remains under-specified and is often addressed only indirectly through related constructs such as trust, transparency, sincerity, and equity/fairness. This study explores how consumers form honesty and dishonesty judgments about brands by combining a qualitative-based meanings of honesty, then used these insights to build a survey where participants named an honest or dishonest brand-point scale. The instrument included personality-like items grouped into four batteries: honesty-related traits, sincerity, equity/fair dealing, and ZMET-derived meanings. Using paired comparisons an honest brand are most strongly associated with equity/fair dealing cues, whereas perceptions of a dishonest brand are most strongly associated with lack of sincerity. The findings suggest that brand honesty is not simply the opposite of brand dishonesty and highlight the need for a multidimensional view of perceived brand honesty that integrates fair dealing and sincerity-based cues. Implications are discussed for both future measurement development and managerial strategies aimed at credibly signaling honesty.