Every Dog has Its Day: How Top‐Dog Versus Underdog Brand Positioning Affects Unethical Consumer Behavior

ABSTRACT Unethical consumer behavior inflicts substantial damage on firm performance and social order, rendering it a formidable challenge in the field of commercial ethics. Scholars have therefore sought to identify the antecedents of unethical consumer behavior in order to devise more effective countermeasures. Across six experiments ( N = 1398, including one experiment reported in the supporting Materials), the present study demonstrates that brand positioning (top‐dog vs. underdog) exerts a significant influence on unethical consumer behavior. Compared with top‐dog brands, underdog brands attenuate unethical consumer behavior by amplifying consumer empathy toward the brands, which subsequently heightens anticipated guilt associated with violating moral norms. This attenuating effect is, however, weakened when (a) consumers’ moral identity is low and (b) the salience of harm is high. These findings advance the consumer ethics literature and offer actionable guidance for brands: integrating underdog narratives into brand stories and in‐purchase communications can help curb unethical acts such as cheating and coupon abuse, especially for consumer segments with high moral identity or when harm from unethical behavior is less salient.