Abstract
Reports on industrial crises are increasing in frequency and becoming part of the everyday life of consumers and companies. The purpose of this paper is to draw a clear line between two common crisis types: product-harm crises and brand crises, and their impact on consumer behavior. In a product-harm crisis, the product is defective and/or dangerous, whereas a brand crisis results from claims that a key brand proposition is unsubstantiated or false. Using a real-life product-harm crisis and a brand crisis as stimuli in an experimental setting reveals that consumer responses differ between the crisis types. When consumers are faced with a brand crisis, they are more likely to accept the negative information than consumers confronted with a product-harm crisis. Buyers of a brand that faces a crisis are more influenced by the negative news and evaluate the brand worse than non-buyers or consumers confronted with a product-harm crisis. Moreover, consumers are more aware of brand crises than product-harm crises. This research contributes to a better understanding of consumer reactions to negative publicity about products and brands and provides a basis for future research in this area.
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© 2017 Academy of Marketing Science
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Haas-Kotzegger, U., Schlegelmilch, B.B. (2017). There is Bad and there is Worse – A Comparison of Consumer Reactions to Product-Harm Crises and Brand Crises. In: Campbell, C.L. (eds) The Customer is NOT Always Right? Marketing Orientationsin a Dynamic Business World. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50008-9_97
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50008-9_97
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-50006-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-50008-9
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