IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fan/ecaqec/vhtml10.3280-ecag2016-003002.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Qualitative Exploratory Investigation on the Purchase Intention of Consumers Affected by Long-term Negative Advertising: A Case from the Chinese Milk Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Yubao Cui
  • Luca Cacciolatti
  • Patrick Woock
  • Yinghua Liu
  • Xuehe Zhang

Abstract

Although China has a short history of dairy products consumption (Xiu & Klein, 2010), the landscape of China?s dairy industry has dramatically changed over the past two decades. From 1995 to 2015, per capita consumption of dairy products for urban residents increased from 4.6 kg to 30 kg. Rapid income growth gave China?s urban residents access to refrigerators and pushed up the purchase of luxury items such as ice-cream. Income growth also started providing access to imported infant formula milk powder (Fuller, Huang, Ma, & Rozelle, 2006). In spite of increasing year-to-year production, dairy sales stagnated in 2008 after a milk contamination scandal. Our study qualitatively explores consumers? post-event perceptions of dairy products to explore the long-term effects of negative advertising and how this affects consumers? long-term purchase intention. Our results from ten focus groups with different demographics indicate that the negative effects of food scares are reduced over time and, in spite of initial drops in sales, time itself heals drops in consumers? demand. While demand for the product does not drop ad libitum, preferences seem to shift from local products to imported products, hampering the growth of local industries but favouring FDI.

Suggested Citation

  • Yubao Cui & Luca Cacciolatti & Patrick Woock & Yinghua Liu & Xuehe Zhang, 2016. "A Qualitative Exploratory Investigation on the Purchase Intention of Consumers Affected by Long-term Negative Advertising: A Case from the Chinese Milk Sector," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 18(3), pages 263-282.
    • Handle: RePEc:fan:ecaqec:v:html10.3280/ecag2016-003002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista.aspx?IDArticolo=58379&Tipo=ArticoloPDF
    Download Restriction: Single articles can be downloaded buying download credits, for info: https://www.francoangeli.it/DownloadCredit
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cleeren, K. & Dekimpe, M.G. & Helsen, K., 2008. "Weathering product-harm crises," Other publications TiSEM 283b51f8-dd35-4a10-930a-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Baker, Gregory A., 2003. "Food Safety And Fear: Factors Affecting Consumer Response To Food Safety Risk," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 6(1), pages 1-11.
    3. Ahluwalia, Rohini, 2002. "How Prevalent Is the Negativity Effect in Consumer Environments?," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 29(2), pages 270-279, September.
    4. Herr, Paul M & Kardes, Frank R & Kim, John, 1991. "Effects of Word-of-Mouth and Product-Attribute Information on Persuasion: An Accessibility-Diagnosticity Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 17(4), pages 454-462, March.
    5. Henson, Spencer & Caswell, Julie, 1999. "Food safety regulation: an overview of contemporary issues," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 589-603, December.
    6. Xiu, Changbai & Klein, K.K., 2010. "Melamine in milk products in China: Examining the factors that led to deliberate use of the contaminant," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 463-470, October.
    7. Gefen, David & Straub, Detmar W., 2004. "Consumer trust in B2C e-Commerce and the importance of social presence: experiments in e-Products and e-Services," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 407-424, December.
    8. Mizerski, Richard W, 1982. "An Attribution Explanation of the Disproportionate Influence of Unfavorable Information," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(3), pages 301-310, December.
    9. Joëlle Vanhamme & Bas Grobben, 2009. "“Too Good to be True!”. The Effectiveness of CSR History in Countering Negative Publicity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 85(2), pages 273-283, April.
    10. Beghin, John C., 2006. "Evolving dairy markets in Asia: Recent findings and implications," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 195-200, June.
    11. Gefen, David, 2000. "E-commerce: the role of familiarity and trust," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 725-737, December.
    12. J. Vanhamme & B. Grobben, 2009. "Too good to be true ! : the effectiveness of CSR History in Countering Negative Publicity," Post-Print hal-00581630, HAL.
    13. Dowling, Grahame R & Staelin, Richard, 1994. "A Model of Perceived Risk and Intended Risk-Handling Activity," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(1), pages 119-134, June.
    14. Fuller, Frank & Huang, Jikun & Ma, Hengyun & Rozelle, Scott, 2006. "Got milk? The rapid rise of China's dairy sector and its future prospects," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 201-215, June.
    15. Lobb, Alexandra E. & Mazzocchi, Mario & Traill, W. Bruce, 2006. "Risk perception and chicken consumption in the avian flu age - a consumer behaviour study on food safety information," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21464, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. Laroche, Michel & Kim, Chankon & Zhou, Lianxi, 1996. "Brand familiarity and confidence as determinants of purchase intention: An empirical test in a multiple brand context," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 115-120, October.
    17. Vassilikopoulou, Aikaterini & Siomkos, George & Chatzipanagiotou, Kalliopi & Pantouvakis, Angelos, 2009. "Product-harm crisis management: Time heals all wounds?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 174-180.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chieh-Peng Lin & Shwu-Chuan Chen & Chou-Kang Chiu & Wan-Yu Lee, 2011. "Understanding Purchase Intention During Product-Harm Crises: Moderating Effects of Perceived Corporate Ability and Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(3), pages 455-471, September.
    2. Francesca Magno & Fabio Cassia & Marta Ugolini, 2017. "Impact of voluntary product recalls on utilitarian and hedonic attitudes: Is it the same for all brands?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 42(1), pages 161-174, February.
    3. Zhihui Sun & Dejun Wu & Min Zhang, 2021. "Better late than never? Corporate social responsibility engagement after product-harm crises," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 1209-1259, December.
    4. Skarmeas, Dionysis & Leonidou, Constantinos N., 2013. "When consumers doubt, Watch out! The role of CSR skepticism," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(10), pages 1831-1838.
    5. Su‐Jung Nam & Hyesun Hwang, 2019. "What makes consumers respond to creating shared value strategy? Considering consumers as stakeholders in sustainable development," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(2), pages 388-395, March.
    6. Chang-Hyun Jin & Jung-Yong Lee, 2019. "The Halo Effect of CSR Activity: Types of CSR Activity and Negative Information Effects," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-20, April.
    7. Béatrice Parguel & Florence Benoît-Moreau & Fabrice Larceneux, 2011. "How Sustainability Ratings Might Deter ‘Greenwashing’: A Closer Look at Ethical Corporate Communication," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 15-28, August.
    8. Kim, Jikyung (Jeanne) & Dong, Hang & Choi, Jeonghye & Chang, Sue Ryung, 2022. "Sentiment change and negative herding: Evidence from microblogging and news," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 364-376.
    9. Hajli, Nick & Sims, Julian & Zadeh, Arash H. & Richard, Marie-Odile, 2017. "A social commerce investigation of the role of trust in a social networking site on purchase intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 133-141.
    10. Yuan, Denghua & Lin, Zhibin & Filieri, Raffaele & Liu, Ran & Zheng, Mengqin, 2020. "Managing the product-harm crisis in the digital era: The role of consumer online brand community engagement," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 38-47.
    11. Nejad, Mohammad G. & Amini, Mehdi & Sherrell, Daniel L., 2016. "The profit impact of revenue heterogeneity and assortativity in the presence of negative word-of-mouth," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 656-673.
    12. Mingzhou Yu & Fang Liu & Julie Anne Lee, 2019. "Consumers’ responses to negative publicity: the influence of culture on information search and negative word-of-mouth," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(2), pages 141-156, March.
    13. Sofie Bitter & Sonja Grabner-Kräuter, 2016. "Consequences of customer engagement behavior: when negative Facebook posts have positive effects," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 26(3), pages 219-231, August.
    14. Constantinos N. Leonidou & Dionysis Skarmeas, 2017. "Gray Shades of Green: Causes and Consequences of Green Skepticism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 401-415, August.
    15. Li, Hui & Xu, Yunjie & Huang, Lihua, 2021. "When less is more? The contingent effect of product supply limitation in the release of new electronic products," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    16. Mariconda, Simone & Lurati, Francesco, 2015. "Does familiarity breed stability? The role of familiarity in moderating the effects of new information on reputation judgments," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 957-964.
    17. Mark Groza & Mya Pronschinske & Matthew Walker, 2011. "Perceived Organizational Motives and Consumer Responses to Proactive and Reactive CSR," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(4), pages 639-652, September.
    18. Joon Sung Lee & Dae Hee Kwak, 2016. "Consumers’ Responses to Public Figures’ Transgression: Moral Reasoning Strategies and Implications for Endorsed Brands," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 101-113, August.
    19. Yuan-Shuh Lii & May-Ching Ding & Chih-Huang Lin, 2018. "Fair or Unfair: The Moderating Effect of Sustainable CSR Practices on Anticipatory Justice Following Service Failure Recovery," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-21, December.
    20. Dutta, Sujay & Pullig, Chris, 2011. "Effectiveness of corporate responses to brand crises: The role of crisis type and response strategies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(12), pages 1281-1287.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dairy; China; Consumer Preference; Negative Advertising; Scandal;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fan:ecaqec:v:html10.3280/ecag2016-003002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Stefania Rosato (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/sommario.aspx?IDRivista=214 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.