How Consumers Respond to Competing Market Signals: the Effects of Conflicting Quality Information and Consumer Thoughtfulness

EXTENDED ABSTRACT - To credibly communicate the quality of their products to consumers in markets where quality is unobservable, marketers often send quality signals. Instead of directly addressing a product’s quality, signals provide information external to the product which consumers can use to make quality inferences (Bloom and Reve, 1990). Quality signals that have received attention in the marketing and economics literature include brand name (e.g., Price and Dawar, 2002), price (e.g., Rao and Monroe, 1989), advertising (e.g., Kilhlstrom and Riordan, 1984), retailer reputation (e.g., Purohit and Srivastava 2001), and warranties (e.g., Boulding and Kirmani 1993).

Citation:

Subimal Chatterjee, Yong Soon Kang, and Debi Prasad Mishra (2004) ,"How Consumers Respond to Competing Market Signals: the Effects of Conflicting Quality Information and Consumer Thoughtfulness", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 31, eds. Barbara E. Kahn and Mary Frances Luce, Valdosta, GA : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 24-26.