“Brand fans” has always been a buzz word in marketing research. Brand fans’ extraordinary
consumption and extreme loyalty make them different from average consumer. How will fans behave
when brand transgression occurs? How will their attitudes towards brand change? Will they tolerate
that brand makes mistakes? This study borrows the conception named “fault tolerance” in computer
science and tries to find out what factors affect fans’ fault tolerance. In this paper, Apple fans, a
representative group of brand fans, are selected as the research object. This research is divided into
two parts. In the first part, we obtain the fans’ perception of the brand and their comprehension and
reaction in the face of brand transgressions by in-depth interviews. Then using grounded theory to
code non-structured interview materials to extract the dimensions that influence fans’ evaluation
of brand transgressions, e.g. initiative in learning, technical concerns, imagination of intimacy, selfevaluation
of rationality. In the second part, we proposed the hypothesis based on the conclusions of
qualitative research. Then we explore the different fault tolerance among fans in different experimental
contexts (external vs. internal attribution). At last, the theoretical contribution, practical implication
and shortcomings of this research are summarized.