Research on the Influence of Conflicting Brand Crisis Information on Consumers’ Brand Attitude

Abstract

In recent ten years, brand crises occur frequently. Consumers are often faced with the situation that they don’t even know whether the involved brand is innocent or not. This paper aims to explore how conflicting information influences the information selection and brand attitude change of consumers in contradictory situation—defensible brand crisis. We carried out an experiment using a two-level single factor (brand commitment: high vs. low) between-subjects design. The results show that conflicting information has a significant negative impact on consumers’ brand attitude. And brand commitment plays as a moderating role between the relationship of conflicting information and brand attitude. Implications of the results are discussed.