Moving beyond negative spillover: The positive consequences of an innocent brand's responses to another brand's crisis

Abstract

This study investigated (a) the negative spillover effects of brand's food-safety crisis on an entire industry, dominant and nondominant innocent brands in the same product, and (b) the impacts of the innocent brand's response on the responded brand and the entire industry. The study conducted a 2 (market position: dominant vs. nondominant) × 2 (response: no-response vs. response) between-subjects design with one additional control group. The findings showed that the negative impact of the dominant brand's crisis spilled over only to nondominant brands, but the innocent brand's response served to overcome the negative effect by recovering the consumer's deteriorated beliefs about the brand and its products to the pre-crisis level. However, the innocent brand's response did not significantly affect the industry.