Negative Brand Publicity and Consumer Attributions

Abstract

main research objective of this study is to investigate the impact of corporate brand dominance on the attribution processes formed for two different types of negative brand publicity, namely performance-related (e.g., product defects) and value-related (e.g., unethical practices). Corporate brand dominance refers as the visibility of a firm's corporate brand in product communications. It is expected to moderate the effect of negative brand publicity on consumer attributions. A firm with a high level of corporate brand dominance may be protected from being blamed for negative events. In addition, the role of individual thinking styles (analytic vs. holistic) is expected to affect the the moderating influence of corporate brand dominance. Holistic thinkers are more likely to consider external context-based explanations for negative publicity and tend to form non-firm-related attributions. In contrast, analytic thinkers are less likely to consider contextual factors and tend to form firm-related attributions which may lead to a greater impairment of consumer responses. In this study, consumers' product evaluations, company evaluations and purchase intentions are specified as the outcomes of the consumer attribution process. Performance- and value-related negative brand publicity would significantly affect consumers’ judgment and attributions of negative events.In order to examine the proposed research hypotheses, an experiment was conducted in a major city in mainland China. experiment aimed to examine the impact of the two types of negative brand publicity on consumer attributions regarding locus of responsibility and controllable-by-firm. A 2 (type of negative publicity: performance-related vs. value-related) x 2 (corporate brand dominance: high vs. low) x 2 (individual thinking style: analytic vs. holistic) experimental design was adopted. One hundred and sixty adult consumers were recruited and randomly assigned to one of the six experimental treatments and their consumer attributions regarding locus of responsibility and controllable-by-firm were measured. A fictitious brand of athletic shoe (Meiken) was used to manipulate the type of negative publicity and corporate brand dominance. subjects were asked to read a news release designed to represent a performance-related (i.e., product defect) or value-related (i.e., not keeping promises) event. Corporate brand dominance was manipulated by means of the prominent visbility of the brand in the four advertisements. subjects were required to expose to the four advertisements repeatedly. brand logo and name were big and very obvious for high corporate brand dominance while they were relatively small and not obvious for low corporate brand dominance. Analytic and holistic thinkers were identified by using a ten-item 7-point scale. subjects were asked to agree or disagree with a set of 10 statements such as “Everything in the universe is somehow related to each other” and “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” (1=strongly disagree; 7=strongly agree). Responses to all 10 statements were averaged and a median split was used to identify analytic and holistic thinkers. Locus of causality attributions were measured by three 7-point Likert-type items such as: “The firm was responsible for the negative event, The firm should be blamed for the negative event', and The firm did contribute to the unpleasant outcome (1=strongly disagree; 7=strongly agree). Controllability attributions were measured by three 7-point Likert-type items such as: The negative incident was controllable by the firm, “Nobody in this firm could have stopped the incident from happening”, and “Little could be done by this firm to stop what happened in the incident” (1=strongly disagree; 7=strongly agree). dependent variables (i.e., product evaluations, company evaluations and purchase intentions) were measured by a three-item 7-point scale (1=very bad/very unlikely; 7=very good/very likely).Two manipulation checks were employed to assess the success of corporate brand dominance manipulation. participants were asked about their familiarity with the brand on a 7-point semantic differential scale ranging from 1 (very unfamiliar) to 7 (very familiar). In addition, brand reputation was measured on a 7-point semantic differential scale ranging from 1 (not reputable not all) to 7 (very reputable). Significant mean differences between the two different conditions (high vs. low) were found (p results of ANOVA analyses generally support the proposed hypotheses (p