Building Brand Resilience in Digital Markets: The Interplay of Brand Authenticity, Consumer Trust, and Emotional Attachment During Reputational Crises

Maryam Emamjomeh; Sepehr Ashoori

Authors

Maryam Emamjomeh PhD Student in Business Management, Department of Management, Se.C., Islamic Azad University, Semnan, Iran. Head of Investment Projects and Contracts Group, Office of Investment Affairs and Resource Mobilization, Imam Khomeini Airport City Company, Tehran, Iran https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0110-6071
Sepehr Ashoori PhD Student in Business Management, Department of Management, Se.C., Islamic Azad University, Semnan, Iran. Author https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4452-2198

Keywords:

Brand authenticity, Brand resilience, Consumer trust, Emotional attachment, Reputational crisis, Digital markets, Structural equation modeling

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the direct and indirect effects of brand authenticity on brand resilience during reputational crises in digital markets, with particular emphasis on the mediating roles of consumer trust and emotional attachment. This quantitative, cross-sectional explanatory study was conducted in Tehran, Iran, in 2026 among 412 adult consumers who were active users of digital platforms and had encountered a reputational crisis involving a familiar brand during the previous 12 months. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire measuring brand authenticity, consumer trust, emotional attachment, and consumer-perceived brand resilience. The measurement instruments demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics and IBM SPSS AMOS. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to assess the measurement model, structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized direct relationships, and bias-corrected bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples was employed to evaluate indirect effects. Brand authenticity significantly predicted consumer trust (β = .638, p < .001), emotional attachment (β = .512, p < .001), and brand resilience (β = .218, p < .001). Consumer trust (β = .414, p < .001) and emotional attachment (β = .263, p < .001) also had significant positive effects on brand resilience. The model explained 61.2% of the variance in brand resilience. Brand authenticity exerted significant indirect effects on brand resilience through consumer trust (β = .264, 95% CI [.198, .342]) and emotional attachment (β = .135, 95% CI [.081, .203]). The total indirect effect was .399, while the total effect of brand authenticity on brand resilience was .617, indicating complementary partial mediation. Brand resilience in digital markets is strongly shaped by authenticity-based relational resources, with consumer trust functioning as the most influential mediating mechanism and emotional attachment providing an additional affective pathway through which authentic brands can better withstand and recover from reputational crises.

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