Hercules or Medusa: heroes and villains and their impact on consumers' preference for vice and virtue products

In cultures around the world the morality taught from childhood supports heroes as role models while villains are to be eschewed. Research and folk lore suggest that heroes are looked up to while the villains should be looked down upon. However, across time, we see that villainy has a certain allure to which individuals respond. This research explores the influence of villain versus hero labels on product choice and preference. First we propose that after exposure to a villainous brand compared to a hero brand, consumers become more impulsive in their product choices. Second, we suggest an interactive influence of a villain versus hero label on virtue versus vice products. Intuition would predict that virtue products help people and there should be a greater match with hero (helpful character) label. Similarly the matching theory would predict that a vice product would have more in common with a villain (indulgent character) label. However, we propose, counter to intuition based on matching, that individuals prefer a virtue product with a villain label compared to a virtue product with a hero label. Similarly, they prefer a vice product with a hero label compared to vice product with a villain label. Six studies test our proposed hypotheses and the underlying theory based on justification which we suggest leads to an interactive influence on product choice. This research contributes to the influence of labels on product choices and provides important insight for branding literature where a mismatch rather than match between attributes and labels can increase the value of a product.