Brands are more frequently engaging with controversial issues and clearly taking a stand on them, making it important to understand how consumers view and react to these brands. The present research focuses on analyzing if controversial brands are perceived as more powerful and risk-taking, and how this can lead to compensatory consumption, by assessing consumers’ purchase intentions. An online experiment was conducted, where participants were primed with low or high power followed by a manipulation of controversy. It was possible to infer that low-power individuals tend to have higher brand perceptions, even though the hypotheses were inconclusive
