Impact of Regulatory Fit on Consumers’ Evaluation of Brands’ Fair Labor Messages: An Abstract

Abstract

In response to the conscious consumer movement, brands are communicating about their fair labor initiatives through their marketing messages to create a niche for themselves and to show that they are doing their part for social improvement. In this study, we particularly focus on how framing of brands’ fair labor-related messages, particularly using regulatory ‘fit’, can influence consumers’ message evaluations through three measures of message effectiveness, namely, perceived message credibility, attitude toward message, and perceived message persuasiveness. Adult participants (n = 199) were recruited using a national research firm, Qualtrics for an online experimental study and data was subjected to univariate ANOVAs. For promotion focused messages, participants considered eager framing as more credible, and more persuasive, and had more favorable opinions than vigilant framing. However, for prevention focused messages, participants considered vigilant framing as more credible than eager framing although no such difference was observed regarding opinion or persuasiveness. Given the importance and popularity of FL initiatives from brands in the fashion industry, focusing on how consumers perceive brand messages regarding the same is beneficial to the industry as well as academia. From a theoretical perspective, overall, the findings are encouraging for the hypotheses that regulatory fit can enhance the perceived message credibility, attitude towards message, as well as perceived persuasiveness of FL message from a brand, thereby filling a gap in literature. Further, given that consumers often lack trust in brand’s FL initiatives and question the authenticity of such efforts (Bhaduri and Ha-Brookshire 2009), it might be beneficial for brand managers to ensure ‘fit’ in their messages (eager framing if using promotion focused messages or vigilant framing if using prevention focused messages) to come across as more credible in their FL claims. In this light, several brands spend substantial resources on certifications/accreditations to portray their credibility. However, for brands with limited resources (such as smaller/new enterprises), ensuring fit, than investing resources on certifications, might be a more cost-effective way to ensure credibility of their FL claims. In addition, ‘fit’ also seemed to play a role in consumers’ attitude toward FL messages as well as their perceived message persuasiveness. Although no significant difference was observed for ‘fit’ versus ‘non-fit’ for prevention focused messages, eager framing seemed to be more favorable for promotion focused messages. Thus, brand managers might find it beneficial to frame their FL messages with ‘fit’ in mind, particularly using promotion focused messages with eager framing (based on study results) to elicit favorable responses from consumers as well as come across as more persuasive.