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Making a Brand Loved Rather Than Sustainable? Cosmopolitanism and Brand Love as Competing Communication Claims

Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10402; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310402

by Christoph Bey^* and Dirk C. Moosmayer

Reviewer 1: Anonymous

Reviewer 2:

Halyna Mishchuk

Reviewer 3:

Bruno Sousa

Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10402; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310402

Submission received: 16 May 2023 / Revised: 18 June 2023 / Accepted: 29 June 2023 / Published: 1 July 2023

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Intersection of Product Quality and Consumer Behavior)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper "Making a brand loved rather than sustainable? Consumers’ rejection of cosmopolitanism in the competing communication claims of sustainability attitude and brand love" correspond to the Journal area. The authors do not bad investigation. However, the paper in the present form could not be accepted to the Journal.

The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used; 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.

Introduction. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses on your theme which uderlined the actuality of the investigation. Briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper. Add the originality of the paper, contribution to the current theoretical and practical framework.

Literature review (Theoretical framework and hypotheses development) each hypothesis should be summerised by the analysis of the relevant publications. Thus, each sub-paragraphs should be finished by the coherent hypothesis.

Material and Methods. The authors should describe with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available. Add the social and demographic portraite of the respondents, add the list of questions, descriptive statisctics of the results. Add the result for alpha Cronbaha or other indicators which allow confirming the concordance of the respondents' answer.

The author should provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn. Table 1 - results, not method.

Discussion should be cardinarly enlarge by adding the comparison analysis with the previous similar investigations. Thus, see the following paper for idea:

Hussain, I., Mu, S., Mohiuddin, M., Danish, R. Q., & Sair, S. A. (2020). Effects of sustainable brand equity and marketing innovation on market performance in hospitality industry: Mediating effects of sustainable competitive advantage. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(7) doi:10.3390/su12072939

Nedergaard, N., & Gyrd-Jones, R. (2013). Sustainable brand-based innovation: The role of corporate brands in driving sustainable innovation. Journal of Brand Management, 20(9), 762-778. doi:10.1057/bm.2013.16

Us, Ya., Pimonenko, T., Lyulyov, O., Chen, Ya., & Tambovceva, T. (2022). Promoting Green Brand of University in Social Media: Text Mining and Sentiment Analysis. Virtual Economics, 5(1), 24-41. https://doi.org/10.34021/ve.2022.05.01(2)

Pimonenko, T., Bilan, Y., Horák, J., Starchenko, L., & Gajda, W. (2020). Green Brand of Companies and Greenwashing under Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability, 12(4), 1679. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041679

Conclusion should be added. The authors should summerised the results of investigation, explaine limitations and further directions for investigations.

Last one, the auhtors should read the Instruction for authors and use the template for paper. Submitted paper is not corespond to the Journal requirements. It shoud be cardinarly change. The style of English should be changed into the Profesional Academic English avoide to use the personall sentences: we, our,...

The style of English should be changed into the Profesional Academic English avoide to use the personall sentences: we, our,...

Author Response

Dear Professor,

please find the authors' responses to your comments below and in the submitted file:

R1.1. The paper "Making a brand loved rather than sustainable? Consumers’ rejection of cosmopolitanism in the competing communication claims of sustainability attitude and brand love" correspond to the Journal area. The authors do not bad investigation. However, the paper in the present form could not be accepted to the Journal.

Author response: Thank you very much for your constructive comments which help us a lot improving the paper!

R1.2. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used; 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.

Author response: reformulated abstract as follows :

Abstract: Sustainability labels on products predominantly improve consumers’ product quality perceptions. However, for brand lovers with a very strong positive brand attitude, specific sustainability labels may not be compatible with their existing brand associations. (<= Background) The purpose of this study is to explore the case of a strong global bread spread brand to understand how attitudes towards sustainability and towards the brand interact. To do so, we contrast the branding view with the notion of moral consumer cosmopolitanism: the view that people consider sustainability issues a planetary challenge that must be met by the entirety of humanity. The effects of attitudes toward the brand on consumers’ intention to purchase the sustainability labelled brand product are contrasted with those of attitude toward firm-NGO collaboration (cosmopolitanism). Hypotheses are tested applying stepwise moderated regression analysis to a sample of 109 French responses from an online consumer survey. (<= Methods) Inspection of the data shows that for those who rated brand attitude in the highest category (brand lovers), this effect was significantly negative. This finding, going against the general assumption of that perception of sustainability issues and brand attitude go hand in hand, invites the thought that for loved brands, consumers might reject moral cosmopolitanism. (<= Results) Taking this into account in their brand strategies, firms might consider that instead of including sustainability issues in their product communication, they might want to work to increase consumers’ “brand love”. (<= Conclusions)

R1.3. Introduction. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses on your theme which uderlined the actuality of the investigation. Briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper. Add the originality of the paper, contribution to the current theoretical and practical framework.

Author response : We significantly added to the discussion and references. Now more than half of the paper’s 82 references are from the period 2018-2023. The paper’s contributions have been better highlighted.

R1.4. Literature review (Theoretical framework and hypotheses development) each hypothesis should be summerised by the analysis of the relevant publications. Thus, each sub-paragraphs should be finished by the coherent hypothesis.

Author response: links between theory discussion and hypothesis development have been made clearer. A high number of references from between 2018 and 2023 were added. Now more than half of the paper’s 82 references are from that period..

R1.5. Material and Methods. The authors should describe with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available. Add the social and demographic portraite of the respondents, add the list of questions, descriptive statisctics of the results. Add the result for alpha Cronbaha or other indicators which allow confirming the concordance of the respondents' answer.

Comment: R1.5. Material and Methods. The authors should describe with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available. Add the social and demographic portraite of the respondents, add the list of questions, descriptive statisctics of the results. Add the result for alpha Cronbaha or other indicators which allow confirming the concordance of the respondents' answer.

Author response: Thank you very much for highlighting how to improve the reporting of our methods and findings! We respond to each suggestion separately below.

Comment: The authors should describe with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited.

Author response: We have detailed the approach to allow others to take the same approach. Overall, we consider the methods quite established and see the novelty in our findings, we have thus kept the description of the approach rather brief:

« To test the model, we administered an online survey to a convenience sample of French consumers using a questionnaire instrument around the theme of sustainable consumption, firm-NGO engagement and labelling. The data collection was led by one of the authors and administered by a research student as part of a degree program. The questionnaire was set up in google forms and circulated in the wider personal and professional network of the research student. »

Comment: Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available.

Author response: We clarify in the text, that we used google forms as survey tool, AMOS 29 to assess the measurement model via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and SPSS 29 to perform all other analyses.

Comment: Add the social and demographic portrait of the respondents,

Author response: Thank you for this suggestion. We now include the social and demographic portrait of the respondents in Table 3.

Comment: add the list of questions, descriptive statistics of the results.

Author response: We include table 1 showing the wording of all items with the loadings resulting from the exploratory factor analysis (EFA); in the last row we include the Cronbach’s alphas for all latent multi-item constructs.

In addition, we include the descriptive details, i.e., means, standard deviations and correlations of all measures in Table 2.

Comment: Add the result for Cronbach’s alpha or other indicators which allow confirming the concordance of the respondents' answer.

Author response: We added « 2.3. Assessment of the measurement model » as a distinct section in which we discuss the goodness of the measurement model and present related metrics, i.e., Cronbach’s alphas, and results of a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

R1.6. The author should provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn. Table 1 - results, not method.

Author response : New tables created and place changed

R1.7. Discussion should be cardinarly enlarge by adding the comparison analysis with the previous similar investigations. Thus, see the following paper for idea:

Author response: some discussed and included. Authors significantly added to theoretical framework by including many more references from the last five years. Now, more than half of the paper’s 82 references are from the period 2018-2023.

R1.8. Conclusion should be added. The authors should summerised the results of investigation, explaine limitations and further directions for investigations.

Author response: according to the Journal’s instructions for authors - “Conclusions: This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex.”

The discussion of limitations and further directions for research is now in section 4.2

R1.9. Last one, the auhtors should read the Instruction for authors and use the template for paper. Submitted paper is not corespond to the Journal requirements. It shoud be cardinarly change. The style of English should be changed into the Profesional Academic English avoide to use the personall sentences: we, our,...

Author response: we are very grateful for your remark. The authors have grown up in a culture that also tends to avoid 1st person personal pronouns. We had to adapt to “Sustainability” culture.

Within the Journal, there is a great number of examples, e.g., Tseng, W.-C.; Yang, Y.-C.; Chen, Y.-J.; Chen, Y.-C. Estimating the Willingness to Pay for Eco-Labeled Products of Formosan Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla pentadactyla) Conservation. Sustainability 2021, 13, 9779;

Ratner, S.; Gomonov, K.; Revinova, S.; Lazanyuk, I. Ecolabeling as a Policy Instrument for More Sustainable Development: The Evidence of Supply and Demand Interactions from Russia. Sustainability 2021, 13, 9581;

Riskos, K.; Dekoulou, P.; Mylonas, N.; Tsourvakas, G. Ecolabels and the Attitude–Behavior Relationship towards Green Product Purchase: A Multiple Mediation Model. Sustainability 2021, 13, 6867.

R1.10. Comments on the Quality of English Language

The style of English should be changed into the Profesional Academic English avoide to use the personall sentences: we, our,...

Author response : see response to comment R1.9.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The study deals with unusual objects of research, particularly, due to including the consumers’ attitude towards NGOs impacting on purchase intention. The academic soundness of the research is appropriate in general, except for some gaps in the methodological section and theoretical background.

Some comments should be considered by the authors:
1) it seems that the study was prepared earlier, several years ago. The majority of the literature used is outdated. Except for the fundamental works in the field, the references should be significantly updated. It is surprising that in such a thriving area of research, the authors prefer to develop their conceptual framework based on outdated sources. Please, consider recent sources related to consumers' attitudes toward the brand in its different peculiarities, including value proposition for employees and related CSR issues, consumer choices with respect to credibility of the brand, patriotic motives etc (see, for instance: Samoliuk, N., Bilan, Y., Mishchuk, H., & Mishchuk, V. (2022). Employer brand: key values influencing the intention to join a company. Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society, 17(1), 61-72. https://doi.org/10.2478/mmcks-2022-0004 ; Park, J., Chenghui, X., & Kim, R. B. (2022). The effect of brand credibility on search and credence goods: A cross-country analysis of Korea, China & France. Journal of International Studies, 15(2), 199-209. doi:10.14254/2071-8330.2022/15- 2/13 ; Sułkowski, Ł., Ignatowski, G., Stopczyński, B., & Sułkowska, J. (2022). International differences in patriotic entrepreneurship – the case of Poland and Ukraine. Economics and Sociology, 15(1), 297-319. doi:10.14254/2071- 789X.2022/15-1/19);

2) The sample description in the methodology section is poor and should be developed. Particularly, the authors stress that there is "a convenience sample" (line 214). however, the number of responses (109) is doubtful to consider this sample as a representative one. So, the justification of the representativeness of a sample should be provided, using the typical statistical tools. Besides, the important details regarding the data collecting are missed - the period of the research, manner of communication, and selection of the respondents. These details should be added;

3) the Discussion should cover more recent sources in the field. The value of comparisons fulfilled using the experience of studies conducted from 1988 to 2019 is low for 2023 findings.

Please, carefully check the technical details, like the absence of capital letters in Figure and Table names.

If possible, try to find a more exact option for the title. The second sentence is too long and contains a conclusion. This approach can reduce the readers' interest in your research.

Author Response

Dear Professor,

please find the authors' responses to your comments below and in the attached file:

R2.0. The study deals with unusual objects of research, particularly, due to including the consumers’ attitude towards NGOs impacting on purchase intention. The academic soundness of the research is appropriate in general, except for some gaps in the methodological section and theoretical background.

Some comments should be considered by the authors:
R2.1) it seems that the study was prepared earlier, several years ago. The majority of the literature used is outdated. Except for the fundamental works in the field, the references should be significantly updated. It is surprising that in such a thriving area of research, the authors prefer to develop their conceptual framework based on outdated sources. Please, consider recent sources related to consumers' attitudes toward the brand in its different peculiarities, including value proposition for employees and related CSR issues, consumer choices with respect to credibility of the brand, patriotic motives etc (see, for instance:

Samoliuk, N., Bilan, Y., Mishchuk, H., & Mishchuk, V. (2022). Employer brand: key values influencing the intention to join a company. Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society, 17(1), 61-72. https://doi.org/10.2478/mmcks-2022-0004 ;

Park, J., Chenghui, X., & Kim, R. B. (2022). The effect of brand credibility on search and credence goods: A cross-country analysis of Korea, China & France. Journal of International Studies, 15(2), 199-209. doi:10.14254/2071-8330.2022/15- 2/13 ;

Sułkowski, Ł., Ignatowski, G., Stopczyński, B., & Sułkowska, J. (2022). International differences in patriotic entrepreneurship – the case of Poland and Ukraine. Economics and Sociology, 15(1), 297-319. doi:10.14254/2071- 789X.2022/15-1/19);

Author response: references from last five years significantly updated, now more than half of references are from 2018 or later.

R2.2) The sample description in the methodology section is poor and should be developed. Particularly, the authors stress that there is "a convenience sample" (line 214). however, the number of responses (109) is doubtful to consider this sample as a representative one. So, the justification of the representativeness of a sample should be provided, using the typical statistical tools. Besides, the important details regarding the data collecting are missed - the period of the research, manner of communication, and selection of the respondents. These details should be added;

Author response: Thank you very much for this important comment. We respond separately to the aspects of sample description, of representativeness vs effect identification, and of approach and data collection.

Comment: The sample description in the methodology section is poor and should be developed.

Author response: As detailed in our response to reviewer 1, we have elaborated on our sample description. In particular, we have structured the section 2. Methods, materials and measures along 5 subsections: 2.1. Approach, 2.2. Measures, 2.3. Assessment of the measurement model, 2.4. Sample, and 2.5. Analyses. This makes it much easier for the reader to assess any sought information. Specifically, we have added a lot of details on the sample in section 2.4. Sample and Table 3 in particular.

Comment: Particularly, the authors stress that there is "a convenience sample" (line 214). however, the number of responses (109) is doubtful to consider this sample as a representative one. So, the justification of the representativeness of a sample should be provided, using the typical statistical tools.

Author response: Thank you for raising this important point. It clarified that we need to better explain the rationale of using a convenience sample and to clarify that convenience sampling does not aim at representativeness. Ie, we were not aiming to create a sample that represents a specific consumer population like, e.g., all consumers in France. We focus on identifying an effect, here a difference between those brand loving respondents who rate the attitude towards the brand as 7 as compared to the other. The underlying logic is similar to that of experimental designs, in which researchers compare two groups that only differ in one specific aspect, to understand the effect of this aspect, not to represent a specific consumer population. We believe that this convenience sampling approach is suitable for our work because we aim to understand the specific effect of brand love in our model. In addition, moving from convenience to representative sampling always comes with the ethical challenge to ensure representation of those consumers who are less willing to respond, i.e. there is a tension between representativeness and consent to freely participate. In the text, we depict our argument for the convenience sample in 2.1 Approach.

Author response: We elaborated on the approach of our data collection in the 2.1 Approach section. We responded to your valuable suggestion and included the details in the following text:

“…we administered an online survey to a convenience sample of French consumers using a questionnaire instrument in French language around the theme of sustainable consumption, firm-NGO engagement and labelling. The data collection took place in June 2021 and was led by one of the authors and administered by a research student as part of a degree program. The questionnaire was set up in google forms and invitations including the survey-link were circulated via email and social media in the wider personal and professional network of the research student. This distribution approach aims at identifying a specific effect …”

R2.3) the Discussion should cover more recent sources in the field. The value of comparisons fulfilled using the experience of studies conducted from 1988 to 2019 is low for 2023 findings.

Author response: large number of references to consumer behaviour studies (with ecolabels) from last five years added

Comments on the Quality of English Language

R2.4) Please, carefully check the technical details, like the absence of capital letters in Figure and Table names.

Author response: Figure and Table names have been amended to start with a capital letter

R2.5) If possible, try to find a more exact option for the title. The second sentence is too long and contains a conclusion. This approach can reduce the readers' interest in your research.

Author response: Done

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript has publication potential and includes a relevant and current topic. Sustainability concerns have increasingly been incorporated into consumers’ purchase decisions, and firms’ product communication can be considered a major influence in this phenomenon. The present research work questions this, and, focusing on branded products, introduces brand attitude as an influence in the relationship between perception of sustainability issues and purchase intention. Analyzing the moderating function of brand attitude, it is discovered that for very high brand attitude, which is equated to “brand love”, the overall non-significant direct effect of sustainability perceptions on purchase intention becomes a significant negative direct effect. The latter finding, which goes against the general assumption of that perception of ustainability issues and brand attitude go hand in hand, invites the thought that for loved brands, consumers might reject moral cosmopolitanism.

However, I believe that the authors will have to substantially improve the theoretical framework (most of the references are not very current, many of them are outdated) and it is fundamental to respect the compliance with the APA norms or citation style foreseen in the mdpi (sustainability). It seems to me that the contribution (theoretical, practical, management) is not being properly justified. Authors should demonstrate more robustly the real contribution of the manuscript and what the implications (theoretical and practical). I also suggest that the limitations of the study and lines of future research be developed.

A suggestion that might be interesting to consider:

Veloso, C.M., Walter, C.E., Sousa, B., Au-Yong-Oliveira, M., Santos, V., & Valeri, M. (2021). Academic tourism and transport services: Student perceptions from a social responsibility perspective. Sustainability, 13(16), 8794.

A suggestion that might be interesting to consider:

Best regards

Author Response

Dear Professor,

please find the authors' responses to your comments below and in the attached file:

R3.1 “The manuscript has publication potential and includes a relevant and current topic. Sustainability concerns have increasingly been incorporated into consumers’ purchase decisions, and firms’ product communication can be considered a major influence in this phenomenon. The present research work questions this, and, focusing on branded products, introduces brand attitude as an influence in the relationship between perception of sustainability issues and purchase intention. Analyzing the moderating function of brand attitude, it is discovered that for very high brand attitude, which is equated to “brand love”, the overall non-significant direct effect of sustainability perceptions on purchase intention becomes a significant negative direct effect. The latter finding, which goes against the general assumption of that perception of ustainability issues and brand attitude go hand in hand, invites the thought that for loved brands, consumers might reject moral cosmopolitanism.”

R3.2 “However, I believe that the authors will have to substantially improve the theoretical framework (most of the references are not very current, many of them are outdated) and it is fundamental to respect the compliance with the APA norms or citation style foreseen in the mdpi (sustainability). It seems to me that the contribution (theoretical, practical, management) is not being properly justified. Authors should demonstrate more robustly the real contribution of the manuscript”

Author response: “we responded to the above comments by:

Utilising the above theoretical framework, we add to work researching consumer behaviour with respect to sustainability issues (e.g., Makrides et al 2022). The main contribution of this research is the realisation that the relationship between a perception of sustainability issues and purchase intention of products that are seen as more sustainable, is not always straightforward and positive. We decide to introduce a consumer’s brand attitude, and to observe its effects. From our data and its modelling we can deduce that not only has brand attitude a direct effect on purchase intention (e.g., Plumeyer et al. 2019; Faircloth et al. 2001), but that it may act as a moderator on the relationship between perception of sustainability issues on purchase intention. A further contribution of this study consists of an analysis, in a more detailed fashion, of that moderating relationship, by separating observations showing a very high brand attitude from all the others. In the case of the product at hand, benefitting from a “love brand” (Joshi & Garg 2021; Batra et al. 2012) perception, we arrive at the conclusion that sustainability issues might be perceived by consumers as competing communication claims to the brand image, and not as concomitant. (<= Introduction)

Author response: many more 2018-2023 references like for reviewers 1 and 2 added, now more than half of the 82 references are from the last five years.

Comment: “and what the implications (theoretical and practical).”

Author response: 4.3. Practical implications for brand managers

Our observation that very high brand attitude might make sustainability considerations pale into insignificance could provide brand managers with an alternative vision for available brand strategies.

Depending on the strength of brand image and a brand’s loyal following, a brand has these two strategic choices when faced with sustainability issues:

Should a firm, as seems to be established practice, incorporate these issues by making products appear “more responsible”? Or should the brand, on the contrary, not consider sustainability issues in its product communication, as it is regarded as, or may become, a love brand?

Comment: “I also suggest that the limitations of the study and lines of future research be developed.”

Author response: 4.2. Limitations of the study and implications for further research

The study’s limitations open up several avenues for future research projects: the generalisability of the present project’s insights (observing different influence of very high levels of brand attitude than of lower ones) might be tested by carrying out similar projects in different contexts. First of all, it would be the country context where different attitudes towards sustainability issues, and brands, could be observed, together with their effect on purchase intention. Secondly, we could postulate that the eco-label in question (here, the RSPO label) might be responsible for part of the effect. This could be tested with the use of different eco-labels. Lastly, the product group in question could also be playing an important role: what is the nature of the product’s benefits to the consumer? The product observed in our research (hazelnut spread) is purchased, consumed and loved because it provides pleasure, and even more so, a “guilty pleasure”. In the case of cosmetics or beauty products, for example, we might expect a different relationship between brand love, perception of sustainability issues and purchase intention. The sample size might also need to be increased in subsequent studies in order to make the data more robust.

R3.3. A suggestion that might be interesting to consider:
Veloso, C.M., Walter, C.E., Sousa, B., Au-Yong-Oliveira, M., Santos, V., & Valeri, M. (2021). Academic tourism and transport services: Student perceptions from a social responsibility perspective. Sustainability, 13(16), 8794.

Author response: included in literature

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper "Making a brand loved rather than sustainable? Consumers’ rejection of cosmopolitanism in the competing communication claims of sustainability attitude and brand love" correspond to the Journal area. The authors do not have a bad investigation. However, the paper in its present form could not be accepted by the Journal. The authors have partly incorporated my previous suggestion. The authors should pay attention to all suggestions.

Beside, the authors should carefully read the instruction for authors to improve their paper.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

REVIEWER 1
COMMENT R1.1: The paper "Making a brand loved rather than sustainable? Consumers’ rejection of cosmopolitanism in the competing communication claims of sustainability attitude and brand love" correspond to the Journal area. The authors do not have a bad investigation. However, the paper in its present form could not be accepted by the Journal.
Response R1.1: Thank you very much for your supportive evaluation and for pushing us to further develop our work.

COMMENT R1.2: The authors have partly incorporated my previous suggestion. The authors should pay attention to all suggestions.
RESPONSE R1.2: Thank you very much for these suggestions. We have revisited your initial comments. While we had responded to all comments before, we have revisited your earlier comments and have now further worked on those which we felt might deserve additional elaboration.

COMMENT R1.3: Beside, the authors should carefully read the instruction for authors to improve their paper.
RESPONSE R1.3: We have carefully followed the instructions for authors to give the paper the look and feel common in Sustainability. For specifics, please refer to Response iR1.9 below.

Initial Comment iR1.3. Introduction. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses on your theme which uderlined the actuality of the investigation. Briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper. Add the originality of the paper, contribution to the current theoretical and practical framework.
Author response iR1.3: We significantly added to the discussion and references. Now more than half of the paper’s 76 references are from the period 2018-2023. The paper’s contributions have been better highlighted.

Initial comment iR1.4. Literature review (Theoretical framework and hypotheses development) each hypothesis should be summerised by the analysis of the relevant publications. Thus, each sub-paragraphs should be finished by the coherent hypothesis.
Author response iR1.4: We have now developed each hypothesis separately to better clarify how existing literature, or a gap in it, motivates each hypothesis that we included in our model. This is reflected in a re-written section 2 in which each hypothesis is developed in and presented after a specific theory building section.

Initial comment iR1.6. The author should provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn. Table 1 - results, not method.

Author response iR1.6: The tables are now included in the text and placed close to the text where they are initially referred to. You see the tables included in a way that avoids page breaks within tables.

Initial comment iR1.7. Discussion should be cardinarly enlarge by adding the comparison analysis with the previous similar investigations. Thus, see the following paper for idea:

Author response: all included and discussed. Authors significantly added to theoretical framework and included many more references from the last five years. Now, more than half of the paper’s 76 references are from the period 2018-2023.

Initial Comment iR1.9. Last one, the auhtors should read the Instruction for authors and use the template for paper. Submitted paper is not corespond to the Journal requirements. It shoud be cardinarly change.
RESPONSE iR1.9: We have carefully followed the instructions for authors to give the paper the look and feel common in Sustainability. Specifically, we have performed the following changes:

We put “Article” as Type of Paper in line one.
We connected names and affiliations by hyperscript numbers.
We included an indication of the corresponding author.
We included corresponding details and connected them with a hyperscript asterisk *.
We put an empty line between affiliation and Abstract.
We shortened the abstract to 195 words.
We removed the line break after abstract.
We removed the superfluous line break between abstract and keywords.
We adjust headings to the font of the template.
We ensured consistent line and paragraph spacing throughout the document.
We ensured coherent italics.
We revised the figure to better match mdpi style.
We included the tables in the text.
We revised the references to match mdpi style (e.g. abbreviated journal titles, year following the outlet title, …).
We formatted the reference text in line with the mdpi style guide (Palatino Linotype 9pt, line spacing factor 0.95, non-indented).

Initial Comment iR1.10. The style of English should be changed into the Profesional Academic English avoide to use the personall sentences: we, our,... // The style of English should be changed into the Profesional Academic English avoide to use the personall sentences: we, our,...
Author response iR1.10: The paper has been edited by a professional copy editor who is a native speaker and experienced with work in the academic field of consumer response to sustainability.

Reviewer 2 Report

In general, corrections are sufficient, however, in further research authors should use more convincing samples for survey.

Author Response

REVIEWER 2 :

Comment : English language fine. No issues detected. In general, corrections are sufficient, however, in further research authors should use more convincing samples for survey.

Response : Thank you!!!

Reviewer 3 Report

The current version of the manuscript is more satisfactory and has significantly improved content. It is essential to bring the manuscript closer to the mdpi template / norms (I feel that the content / dimension are far from the mdpi template). However, my overall assessment is positive. The manuscript has publication potential.

Author Response

REVIEWER 3 :

Comment : The current version of the manuscript is more satisfactory and has significantly improved content. It is essential to bring the manuscript closer to the mdpi template / norms (I feel that the content / dimension are far from the mdpi template). However, my overall assessment is positive. The manuscript has publication potential.

Response : Thank you! We have brought the paper carefully in line with mdpi / Sustainability formatting.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, I strongly recommend critically reviewing your investigation. Are you sure that the research paper could have explanations of the results in 13 lines?

Minor editing of English language required

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Making a Brand Loved Rather Than Sustainable? Cosmopolitanism and Brand Love as Competing Communication Claims

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