Deceptive Use of the "Regionality" Concept in Product Labeling and Branding Strategies
- Author(s)
- Marc Herz, Adamantios Diamantopoulos
- Abstract
In many situations, consumers prefer regional over non-regional products and are even willing to pay a price premium. Yet, the concept of regionality can be ambiguous and misleading. While consumers perceive something ‘regional’ as being produced within their direct home region, legally the term only describes something produced within any specific region. This discrepancy between consumer perceptions and legal requirements allows for loopholes in branding strategies through which consumers may intentionally be deceived. By using regionality-brand strategies, managers may (legally) deceive consumers, create false associations and subsequently boost brand attitudes. However, when consumers detect such a deception, they may react strongly negatively. Consumers may feel tricked through such practices and subsequently, their brand attitudes may deteriorate. Managers should therefore carefully weigh the potential gain of (deceptive) regionality-brand strategies against the potential deterioration in brand attitudes should such deception become apparent to consumers. In the present study, we assess the concept of regionality by exploring the discrepancy be-tween legal requirements and consumer perceptions. We analyze how consumers interpret the concept of regionality and which associations are linked to the concept. We further dis-cuss different regionality-brand strategies and examine how they may impact consumers’ brand attitudes. Finally, we assess the ‘dark’ side of potential deceptive regionality-brand strategies by exploring consumers’ negative reactions when they find out that they were deceived. We, thus, shed light on the understudied topic of regionality from a theoretical perspective and also provide concrete managerial insights regarding the use of regionality-based branding strategies.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Accounting, Innovation and Strategy
- External organisation(s)
- kleinundpläcking
- Publication date
- 2019
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 502052 Business administration, 502019 Marketing
- Keywords
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/622882bb-e617-4f6f-85ed-7ada5a5e10ec