Consumer response to brand involved in food safety scandal: An exploratory study based on a recent scandal in India

Abstract

This paper focuses on the product-harm oriented brand crisis situation from the perspective of food safety scandal. Food safety scandals cause the deterioration of consumer confidence and thereby affect consumer food choices. However, there exists a lack of studies that examine the consumer response to a brand involved in a food safety scandal. The main research questions addressed are (a) to explicate a detailed mechanism of the consumer response towards a brand involved in food safety scandal and (b) what prompts a consumer to trust the faulty brand again.Further, this study presents empirical contextualization from a real brand-specific food safety scandal, the 2015 monosodium glutamate scandal of Nestlé Maggi noodles in India. The study is based on 308 Indian consumers and employs structural equation modeling to analyze the data.The results show that the emotional attachment with the brand forms the basis of the restoration of brand trust by enhancing the authenticity perception of the brand among consumers. This, in turn, forms the basis for the enhancement of healthiness perception of ingredients in order to restore the purchase intention and mitigate blame attribution among consumers. The results are further analyzed from the brand perspective to outline critical implications toward food brand crisis management. This study is among the initial studies to focus on the aftermath of food safety scandals from the brand and consumer perspective. (Zou & Li, 2016). In this paper, we focus upon the specific brand crisis wherein the product is found to be dangerous and/or defective (Dawar & Lei, 2009). Commonly referred to as the productharm crisis situation, a great need is often felt to understand the consumer evaluations towards a faulty brand (Gao, Knight, Zhang, & Mather, 2013). This understanding is especially helpful in guiding crisis management and risk analysis (Dutta & Pullig, 2011). Further, in this paper, we seek an empirical contextualization of the product-harm crisis situation in the food industry.As recurring events in the food industry, food safety scandals trigger overwhelming reactions towards food safety (see Bánáti, 2011). the finer nature of the crisis management approach to be undertaken by the faulty brand. As such, only Falkheimer and Heide (2015) present grained empirical insights on crisis management. Apart from rectifying the flaws erupted in the scandal, the authors further outline the significance of denial and blame shifting towards suppliers as an important intrinsic aspect to govern the redemption. In order to address these concerns, we develop an exploratory framework for the evaluation of the consumer response to a brand involved in food safety scandal.We further seek an empirical contextualization from the 2015 monosodium glutamate (MSG) scandal of Nestlé Maggi noodles inIndia. This is a well-known product-harm crisis that was spread throughout India and witnessed overwhelmingly negative reactions from consumers towards the brand and food safety. In this food safety sca...

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