Consumer Skepticism of Claims in Food Ads vs. on Food Labels: An Exploration of Differences and Antecedents

Considerable evidence shows that consumers are skeptical of advertising, that is, have a tendency to doubt the truth of advertising claims. The main focus of our paper is to explore, in the context of food products, whether this typically high level of skepticism is also exhibited for product labels. In addition, we look at consumer skepticism associated with health claims in food ads and labels as well as with the Nutrition Facts Panel on food packages. Finally, we examine some individual difference factors that might influence consumer skepticism. We report the results of a large‐scale survey designed to explore these issues, and we discuss the implications of our findings for public policy and future research.     

跨境电商消费者参与价值共创对品牌偏好的影响

跨境电商是全新的贸易和销售方式,直接面对世界各地不同背景和多元化的的消费者。这些消费者具有个性化的消费需求与独特的创造愿望,能够为企业提供丰富的创意资源。通过价值共创提升消费者的品牌偏好成为了跨境电商领域的热点问题。文章从产品设计与产品营销两个阶段、创意共创与创意选择两大体系,建立了跨境电商消费者参与价值共创的四种类型对品牌偏好的影响模型,并展开实证研究。研究结果表明,创意选择体系主要影响品牌识别,创意共创体系主要影响品牌形象,品牌认知和品牌形象都有助于提升消费者对品牌的偏好。     

The Effect of Organic Food Labels on Consumer Attention

This paper aims to reveal consumer perceptions of organic food with a special emphasis on the labelling of organic products. The objectives were to find out, whether or not a significant difference between men´s and women´s perception existed. Two groups (88 subjects in the experimental group, 59 subjects in the control group) were shown various food labels; with organic product labelling (experimental) and without (control). Results suggest the importance of organic labelling using eye-tracking data and additional in-depth interviews to discover the importance of the labelling for participants. Based on eye-tracking data, the greatest visual attention was paid to product brand, graphic elements and organic labelling claims with additional information, such as a quantity or flavour, also being important. Additional in-depth interviews discovered that labelling, particularly of the origin, is important for most consumers. Contrary to what was expected, eye-tracking showed very little difference in the perception of organic product labelling based on gender. Although organic food is being purchased by more people, 50% of participants mentioned, during interviews, that they buy organic food only occasionally. The combination of eye-tracking and in-depth interviews shows that organic product labelling can play a role in decision-making, but regardless 27% of participants do not care about the organic quality labels or don’t pay attention to them.     

The Impact of Occupation on Responses to Positive and Negative Framing

Abstract

Recently, there has been a great deal of controversy around negative advertising. In this paper we examine the impact of negative as compared to positive frames for people in different occupations. For the product category of video cameras, using an experimental design, we found that occupation does indeed moderate the impact of positive and negative frames. While there is no difference in their effect for professionals, positive frames are more effective for social workers and blue collar workers. Here we focused not only on responses to the ads, but also to the brand and on purchase intent. The implications for marketing strategy are discussed.     

The Reliability of Certification: Quality Labels as a Consumer Policy Tool

Given the large number of certification systems in the food industry, it is surprising that there are only a few research approaches to the economics of certification. Certification schemes are used to ensure marketing claims for unobservable quality attributes. Under asymmetric information, process-oriented quality characteristics such as organic farming, animal welfare, or fair trade raise the question of mislabelling. In the long run, only a reliable control procedure can reduce the risk of food scandals. The article presents a model which includes several starting points to enhance the efficiency of certification systems and the corresponding labels. On the whole, tendencies towards price wars on the certification market and considerable differences in performance reveal the necessity of institutional changes. Strategies for reducing auditors dependence, intensifying liability, increasing reputation effects, and minimizing audit costs are suggested. Finally, policy implications for public and private monitoring are discussed.     

环境对国际贸易的积极作用和消极影响

环境和贸易之间有着复杂的关系和相互影响，一个领域的政策措施会不断地对另一个领域产生显著而重要的影响。环境对贸易既有积极影响又有消极作用。一方面环境为贸易的可持续发展提供了基础，另一方面，严格的环境保护政策，会给发展中国家的贸易带来不利影响。我国要保持贸易利益和促使经济持续发展，就必须认识到环境和贸易的密切关系，趋利避害，采取必要的应对和发展措施。     

Nutrition Labels: An Exploratory Study of Consumer Reasons For Nonuse

Studies of consumer usage of nutrition labels required by the Food and Drug Administration have found that usage levels are low. A mailback survey of food shoppers in Madison, Wisconsin was conducted to determine who uses nutrition labels as well as reasons for nonuse. Multiple regression analysis revealed that compared to users, nonusers did not rate themselves as highly on nutrition knowledge, were less likely to plan meals in advance, and were not as highly educated. When asked why they did not use labels, most nonusers said they did not need them, and a sizable group reported their shopping practices pre-empt label usage. Nonusers also felt that a sample label had too much information. When asked to perform computations from sample label information, nonusers were less successful than users. The implications of these findings for nutrition education efforts are discussed.     

The Impact of Advertising on Consumer Demand for Beef:

Thi study used two related data sets to obtain new estimates of food shopper responses to prices and advertising. Supermarket scan data comprised the source of information of sales and prices. Chain level newspaper and broadcast media advertising in the area measured the marketing program. Unique features of the study include the use of item movement and the accomodation of possible cross media effects. Consequently, the paper presents a way of monitoring promotions and relating them to sales. Three fresh beef aggregates (ground, roasts, and steaks) are used to estimate the impacts of broadcast media and newspaper adevertising by a supermarket chain. New estimates of direct and cross advertising impacts are also reported.     

Consumer Perceptions of Health Claims in Advertisements and on Food Labels

It has been hypothesized that consumers are more skeptical of health claims made in food ads than of health claims made on food labels. Therefore, the current research explores consumers' skepticism of health claims when the source of such claims is identified as a food ad or a food label. The study also examines whether consumers' beliefs are affected by nutrition information on food labels and whether health claims that have been challenged by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and by consumer groups are more likely to affect consumers' beliefs than are unchallenged health claims. The findings have implications for understanding the role of education in reducing consumer misperceptions of health claims.     

基于联合分析视角的精准营销及顾客偏好研究

中国制造已经不再是廉价的代名词,令人惊喜的中国品牌已经出现,2015年十大智能手机品牌中有八个是中国的,华为等跻身前列,而其他中国品牌正在快速瓜分着苹果和三星的市场份额。随着智能手机市场的迅速发展,营销方式的多元化,分析消费者的偏好意愿成为新服务、新产品取胜的关键因素,准确的把握用户需求,是实现精准营销至关重要的因素。本研究采用联合分析法,通过对手机消费者偏好的现实模拟,分析产品的特性效用值和特性水平重要性,建立消费者对手机产品的接受偏好模型,明确了消费者对手机产品特性接受偏好的重要性排序以及他们对每一特性水平的喜好态度,并根据手机消费者的性别、年龄统计变量进行对比研究,对生产商的产品设计和营销进行分析并提出改进建议。     

Theoretical Applicability vs. Environmental Straitjacket:

This article is concerned with the application of the marketing audit, a commercially derived marketing tool, to a public sector non-profit organization. The paper reviews the literature extensively before turning to research findings derived from interviews with internal and external publics in the organizational environment. While findings indicate that a marketing audit would indeed be useful in underpinning marketing orientation, possibly as a prelude to marketing planning, they also show that organizational constraints may militate against adoption of marketing orientation. The article concludes by suggesting that marketing itself, as a generic paradigm, may not be an appropriate mechanism for organizations like ERS (Employment Rehabilitation Service). Rather ERS, and its private sector counterparts, may require the development of an entirely new discipline which may be more applicable than marketing.     

Consumer Preference for Status Symbolism of Clothing: The Case of the Czech Republic

During the past three decades, consumer demand for luxury goods has been growing on a global scale. The luxury and status market base has expanded beyond the traditional affluent consumer segment to include an increasingly heterogeneous group of consumers. Despite the substantial size, greater reach, and significant growth of the luxury goods market, status consumption has been treated as an atypical and peripheral subject in consumer research. The authors develop a conceptual model of psychological determinants of status seeking through consumption. The model considers the effects of three general traits (namely, status concern (SC), public self‐consciousness (PSC), and self‐esteem (SE)) and one consumption‐related consumer trait (namely, susceptibility to normative social influence (SNSI)) on preference for status meaning, which in turn influences consumer interest in the product. The conceptual model is tested with data from a survey of 1000+ respondents drawn from the Czech Republic, a country where the recent market liberalization has unleashed an inflow of luxury goods from marketers from the West. Face‐to‐face home‐based structured interviews were conducted by an international market research agency. The hypothesized causal relationships are all supported. The effects of SC, PSC, and SE on SNSI and preference for status meaning (PSM) are significant and in the expected direction. Additionally, SNSI is found to exert a significant positive influence on PSM, and these two constructs, in turn, have significant positive effects on consumer interest in clothing. The conceptual model and empirical evidence enhance the existing knowledge of the antecedents and outcomes of status consumption. The study advances a better understanding of the psychology of consumer adoption of status consumption; equally important, it also highlights the value of extending consumer theories from established to emerging market economies and back again from still‐evolving to long‐standing marketplaces.     

The Effect of Product Innovation,Promotion, and Price on Consumer Switching to Private Labels

The channel conflict that exists between retailers and manufacturers of branded products has dynamically shifted as large retailers have expanded their offerings of private label products. This study investigates the ability of consumer packaged goods companies to exert influence in the channel by testing which marketing initiatives implemented by manufacturer brands are more efficient in preventing consumer switching to private labels. We use a hazard model to simultaneously measure the effects due to product innovation, promotion, and price on consumer switching and how strong those effects are. We find that as expected product innovation, promotion, and price exert a negative effect on the consumer likelihood of switching to private labels. However, we find the strongest effect on promotion suggesting the importance of understanding how consumers perceive value in the national brands offer.     

The Moderating Role of Local vs. Foreign Shopping Context in Consumer Experience

The current study seeks to provide a better understanding of how consumers experience shopping and whether it is contingent on local vs. foreign contexts (i.e., local vs. foreign brand department store). Using data collected by an intercept method with shoppers at a local and foreign brand department store in China, the current study finds that different types of values (i.e., emotional and intellectual) are associated with a local vs. foreign shopping context, which, in turn, affects consumer trust and customer loyalty. Results contribute to consumer experience and branding literature, and suggest that domestic companies should not blindly replicate management and operational practices of foreign companies.     

The Consumer Impact of Alternative Allocation Plans: The Case of Gasoline

This paper assesses the potential impact of rationing, “lifeline,” rationing with resale and tax-rebate approaches to extra-market allocation from the consumer's perspective. Basic microeconomic tools are used to demonstrate that the rationing with resale and tax-rebate plans have similar effects and that all consumers would prefer those policies to lifeline allocation. Conventional rationing is shown to benefit households consuming intermediate quantities of an allocated good while rationing with resale and tax-rebate programs provide large and small users with higher levels of satisfaction. These propositions are empirically confirmed for the case of gasoline. Quantitative results suggest that simple rationing and lifeline plans calculated to reduce aggregate gasoline consumption by 10 percent would have severe impact on high income consumers. Alternative policies would broaden the burden of conservation and cause income redistribution toward low income consumers.     

The Role of Qualifying Language on Consumer Perceptions of Environmental Claims

A copy-test of seven environmental claims on aerosol packages shows that consumers interpret general, unqualified claims (e.g., environmentally friendly or ozone friendly) as meaning the product is safe for the environment in both an absolute (safe) and a relative (safer) sense. These perceptions of environmental safety are enhanced by specific qualifiers for general claims such as No CFCs and general qualifiers for specific claims. In addition, the results show that almost all specific environmental claims improve consumers’ perceptions of the aerosol product relative to general claims for environmental benefits of the product. Implications for marketing and public policy professionals are presented.     

The Impact of Competitiveness on Consumer Responses to Comparative Advertisements

We examine the impact of consumers' competitive tendencies on responses to comparative advertising appeals and the underlying role of schadenfreude: pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. Consistent with our theory that the depiction of others' misfortunes is compatible with more-competitive consumers' concerns for distinguishing themselves via competition, our studies show that comparative ads are associated with greater schadenfreude, as well as more favorable attitudes and a greater willingness to pay (WTP), among more- (versus less-) competitive consumers. Further results indicate that such relatively more favorable responses among consumers with greater competitive tendencies are limited to comparative ads depicting misfortunes involving brands whose choice is more deserving of failure (i.e., lower-quality brands). Importantly, even less-competitive consumers are revealed to respond favorably to comparative ads and to experience more schadenfreude when they are assured that they will not suffer the depicted misfortune.