impact of corporate social claims on consumer food choice

Impact of corporate socialresponsibility claims onconsumer food choiceA cross-cultural comparison

Simone Mueller LooseMAPP Centre for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector,

Department of Business Administration,Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, and

Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science,University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, and

Herve RemaudBordeaux Management School (BEM), Bordeaux, France, and

Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science,University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

Abstract

Purpose The study seeks to assess the impact of two different corporate social responsibility (CSR)claims, relating to social and environmental dimensions, on consumers wine choice acrossinternational markets. It analyses how point of purchase CSR claims compete with other food claimsand their awareness, penetration and consumers trust are examined.

Design/methodology/approach A discrete choice experiment with a visual shelf simulation wasused to elicit consumer preferences and to estimate marginal willingness to pay for CSR and other foodclaims across the UK, France, Germany, the US East Coast, the US Midwest, and Anglophone andFrancophone Canada.

Findings CSR claims relating to social and environmental responsibility have a similar awareness,penetration and consumer trust, but differ in their impact on consumer choice, where environmentalcorporate responsibility claims benefit from a higher marginal willingness to pay. Consumer valuationof CSR claims significantly differs across international markets, but is consistently lower than fororganic claims.

Originality/value This is the first cross-national study that analyses the impact of CSR claims onconsumer food choice relative to other food claims using large representative consumer samples. Thestrength of the paper also pertains to the utilisation of innovative choice experiments covering a largerange of choice relevant product attributes.

Keywords Discrete choice experiment, Food claims, Organic foods, Environmental responsible,Socially responsible, Carbon zero, Food, Consumers, Social responsibility, Consumer behaviour,Cross-cultural studies

Paper type Research paper

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0007-070X.htm

This research project was funded by the Association Vins de Pays dOc IGP and the EuropeanUnion. The authors thank Linda Filone at Vins de Pays dOc IGP and Dr Yann Chabin fromDycia Sarl for the realisation of this project. Two anonymous reviewers are thanked for theirvaluable suggestions.

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British Food JournalVol. 115 No. 1, 2013pp. 142-161q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0007-070XDOI 10.1108/00070701311289920

1. IntroductionThe past 20 years have witnessed the development of a research stream investigatinghow corporate social responsibility (CSR) can support the marketing of a company andits products to consumers. Despite this enduring research interest, only few studieshave examined the impact of CSR efforts on consumer product valuation (Taneja et al.,2011). Knowledge about the impact of CSR communication on consumer behaviourwould provide companies with valuable information to justify, manage andcommunicate their CSR activities (Wood, 2010; Du et al., 2010).

Of those studies existing, most either examine the effect of CSR for durable goodsand services (Auger et al., 2003; Salmones et al., 2005) or mainly use student samples(Brown and Dacin, 1997; Russell and Russell, 2010), for which effects sizes cannot beassumed to be representative of actual consumers (Peterson, 2001). Specifically for thefood sector, Hartmann (2011) provides an extensive review of corporate socialresponsibility studies and concludes that there still is no clear answer when, how andwhy consumers respond to corporate responsibility (Hartmann, 2011, p. 304). Thisresearch contributes to the existing body of knowledge by examining the impact ofpoint of purchase information on social and environmental responsibility, onconsumers food choices across seven international markets.

1.1 Concept and international dimensions of corporate social responsibilityThe concept of CSR can be broadly defined as a companys status and activities withrespect to its perceived societal or, at least stakeholder obligations (Brown and Dacin,1997), but there are a large number of competing definitions, both within and acrossdifferent countries (Carroll, 1999; Dahlsrud, 2008). For instance, in the UK definitions ofCSR range from the Confederation of British Industrys statement in 2001 that CSR ishighly subjective and therefore does not allow for a universally applicable definition( Jones et al., 2007 p. 583) to the considerably wider definition that CSR is the obligationof a firm, beyond that required by law or economics, to pursue long term goals that aregood for society (Crowther and Jatana, 2005, p. 31).

The origins of CSR can be traced back to business ethics under liberal andderegulated market conditions in the US in the 1950s (Walther et al., 2010). In contrast,the concept of CSR was only very recently introduced in traditionally more highlyregulated continental European markets, such as Germany and France, where formalstate regulations stipulated many of the obligations governed by CSR (Schoenheit et al.,2007). In fact, the concept of CSR has been controversially debated over the last 40 yearsand several facets of CSR are argued to exclusively lie in the domain of democraticallylegitimised governments (Benabou and Tirole, 2010).

In France, there is no specific strategic managerial approach and definition of CSR.The concept is broadly understood as practices and views that enlarge the numbers ofstakeholders in the businesses management process (Dupuis, 2008), with greaterconsiderations given to the management of economic externalities (Perez, 2005). Onemajor shift in the way CSR is practiced in France relates to managerial behaviour asthe manager is increasingly seen responsible and attentive to his/her internal andexternal business partners, (Perez, 2005) managing the company as the family man.

In Germany, the English term CSR was only established by the European Union inthe early 2000s and gradually replaced the more colloquial business term

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verantwortliches Unternehmerverhalten (Schoenheit et al., 2007). German consumersare mainly still unaware of the precise meaning of this term and perceive CSR asdiffuse concept, comprehending a broad palette of subjective social, environmental,economic and ethical corporate responsibilities (Walther et al., 2010). Securingemployment in Germany and environmental aspects are perceived as most importantaspects of CSR by German consumers (Schoenheit et al., 2007).

The concept of stakeholders is central to most CSR definitions and investors,employees, supply chain partners, government, communities and the general societywere referred as potential stakeholders besides a companys customers (Taneja et al.,2011; Cronin et al., 2011). Although the number and importance of these stakeholdersdiffers across countries and supply chains (Maloni and Brown, 2006), the finalconsumer stakeholder group are the focus of this research.

CSR has become an established umbrella term and according to Carroll (1999) is anoverlapping concept with business ethics, stakeholder management and sustainability.Within the multidimensional conception of CSR two key issues of social andenvironmental responsibility have been identified repeatedly (Lindgreen et al., 2009;Lockett et al., 2006). Thereby environmental responsibility mainly relates to corporateactivities protecting and/or not harming the natural environment and socialresponsibility comprehends initiatives that protect social welfare of key stakeholders(Bhattacharya and Sen, 2004). Adopting this two-dimensional concept of CSR, thisstudy examines the effect of communicating social and environmental responsibilityon consumer food choice.

1.2 Communication of CSR to consumersA number of key issues were identified affecting whether a companys CSR activitiestranslate into consumer purchases. The majority of these issues relate tocommunication, such as the creation of consumer awareness of companies CSRactions (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001) and the effective communication of appropriatemessage content through suitable message channels (Du et al., 2010). AccordingLindgreen and Swaen (2010), what to say and how to say it are still mainlyunresolved questions in CSR research.

So far companies CSR communication is still mainly confined to the internet andcorporate reports (Wanderley et al., 2008). There exists a wide range of potentialcommunication channels for CSR messages and point of purchase information washighlighted by Du et al. (2010) as a viable alternative to advertising, PR, mediacoverage and corporate websites. The majority of food and agricultural products aresold in retail settings, where product on-package claims and labelling, or retailer shelfinformation are effective communication means (Kiesel and Villas-Boas, 2011; Berninget al., 2010; Allenby and Ginter, 1995). For most food producers, such as small andmedium enterprise wine producers, product packaging claims and point of purchaseinformation are the most important consumer communication channels (Ahvenainenand Hurme, 1997).

Regarding its content, particularly CSR communication about social activities wasfound to potentially trigger stakeholders scepticism and cynicism (Schlegelmilch andPollach, 2005) and trust has been identified as an important mediator for consumeracceptance of environmental claims (Koos, 2011; Groza et al., 2011). Overall, it is still

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unknown, to what degree point of purchase information in the form of food claimsregarding social and environmental responsibility can impact consumers food choice.

1.3 Competition of CSR with existing food claimsWhen CSR is communicated to food consumers via on-package information or retailshelf talkers, it is likely to compete with a plethora of other existing food claims, suchas health information, organic and nutritional claims. Research into consumers foodvalues (Lusk and Briggeman, 2009) provides the first indication for the potentialcompetitive positioning CSR claims might adopt among other food claims. From the 11food values identified by Lusk and Briggeman (2009) safety, taste, nutrition and pricewere most important to US consumers, while environmental impact and social fairnessonly ranked as fifth and tenth most important. It therefore could be expected thatconsumers are more strongly impacted by food claims, which are related to the mostimportant food values and therefore will have a lower valuation for social rather thanfor environmental CSR claims.

Organic is a food claim, which has considerably increased in consumer awareness,purchase penetration and research interest over the last decade. The organic claim hasa singular position among all food claims as it uniquely combines a number ofimportant food associations, such as food safety (Harper and Makatouni, 2002), bettertaste (Chryssohoidis and Krystallis, 2005), healthiness (Bech-Larsen and Grunert,2003), environmental benefits (Magnusson et al., 2003) and ethical concerns andfairness (Briggeman and Lusk, 2011). Consequently, from the consumer perspective theorganic claim already covers benefits associated with social and environmentalresponsibility and can be expected to be more highly valued.

Over the last years a number of environmental food claims relating to resourcespecific environmental benefits were introduced by retailers. Carbon labels or carbonfootprints inform consumers about the carbon emissions during production andtransportation (Beattie and Sale, 2009). Carbon zero claims are one specific form ofcarbon labelling, which signal that producers and/or retailers undertook actions tooffset their carbon emissions, for instance by planting trees (Lovell et al., 2009). Point ofpurchase carbon labels were shown to have a significant effect on consumer choice(Vanclay et al., 2011), but little is known about their effect relative to CSR and otherfood claims. Specifically for glass packaged food and beverages such as wine, lightweight containers were introduced by retailers and producers to reduce packagingmaterials, transportation weight and carbon emissions (Colman and Paster, 2009,WRAP, 2009). Overall, it is unknown how existing organic and resource specificenvironmental claims compete with social and environmental CSR claims.

1.4 Research questionsMissing insights about the role of social and environmental responsibility claims onconsumer choice led to two research questions.

(1) What is the relative impact of social and environmental responsibility claimson consumer choice relative to other food claims?

Previous studies have identified cross-cultural differences, both in the extent of CSRcorporate activities and communication (Maignan and Ralston, 2002; Habisch et al.,


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2011) as well as in consumers willingness to support responsible businesses (Maignan,2001, Singh et al., 2008). Generally CSR has been found to receive less attention acrossEuropean nations compared to the US. Furthermore, country differences in retailingorganisation and penetration of environmentally labelled food (Koos, 2011) is likely tobe reflected in the competitive positioning of CSR food claims. While most CSR studiesare still limited to a local context, Lindgreen and Swaen (2010) requested more researchto adopt an international perspective. Following this request, the second researchquestion was derived.

(2) How does consumer valuation of social and environmental responsibilityclaims for food and agricultural products differ across international markets?

Wine was chosen as the specific food product for this study, because it is tradedinternationally in a relatively standardized format (750 ml bottles) and retail shelfinformation is a very common communication means for this product (Mueller et al.,2009). While the penetration of organic wine is lower than for other food products(Remaud and Sirieix, 2010), several wine producing countries have adopted nationalwine strategies, which use sustainability, environmentally and socially responsiblepositioning for competitive differentiation (Pugh and Fletcher, 2002; Corsi et al., 2011).Since a wide range of different food labels are currently used or could potentially beused at the point of purchase, wine was an appropriate product to examine the researchquestions in this study.

2. Material and methods2.1 Food claimsFor the two distinct CSR dimensions of social and environmental responsibility twovisual shelf claims were selected (see Figure 1). In the absence of an internationallystandardised logo, a graphic designer developed the socially responsible claim for thisstudy, depicting stylised persons reaching out to each other around the globe. In apre-test this logo was significantly related to the concept of social fairness. Theenvironmentally responsible claim was taken from an existing environmentalresponsibility program protect the planet[1], showing a stylised person holding alarge green leaf.

Figure 1.Food claims included instudy

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The organic claim contained a wine grape in a green circle with the written name on it.The resource specific environmental carbon zero claim was borrowed from thecompany Atlas Copco. The second resource specific reduced glass weight logo wasdeveloped by a graphic designer as a written statement with stylised bottle shapes.The social responsibility, organic and reduced glass weight claims where shown inmarket specific languages[2], whereas the existing logos protect planet and carbonzero were used uniformly in English across all countries.

2.2 Discrete choice experimentThe methodology of unconstrained survey responses eliciting purchase intention,attitudes, satisfaction or product liking, used in most previous research on consumervaluation of ethical behaviour, was criticised for social desirability bias (Auger andDevinney, 2007) and the attitude-behaviour gap (Carrington et al., 2010). To reduce thispotential bias these authors recommended using specific products, specific behaviouralconditions and incentive compatible research methods. Discrete choice experiments(DCE) were repeatedly found to provide forecasts of high external validity as they forceconsumers to trade off desirable and undesirable product attributes (Louviere et al., 2000).Particularly forwine, consumerchoices inaDCEwithvisual shelf simulationswere foundto be strongly related to actual scanner data market shares (Mueller et al., 2010c).

The food claims were included as levels of one attribute within a larger DCE thatcontained a total of nine attributes with four to 16 levels. The selection of attributeswas based on a literature review and advice from an industry advisory group to makesure that they covered those characteristics previously found important to influenceconsumers wine choice. Thereby this study avoided bias from over-estimating theeffect of food claims by neglecting other important attributes (Gao and Schroeder, 2009;Islam et al., 2007). The attributes food claim, price, brand, grape variety, Frenchregion/appellation, alcohol level, medal, bottling and sensory style were variedaccording a 16 86 42 orthogonal main effects maximum difference design in 128sets (Street and Burgess, 2007) with a choice set size of five. The design was partitionedinto eight versions of 16 choice sets to which respondents were assigned randomly.

Choice stimuli were presented in a visual shelf simulation to mimic a realistic purchasedecision and to capture potential subliminal effects of label design, brands and othervisual elements (Mueller etal., 2010b). The graphical simulation can represent shelves in atraditional brick and mortar supermarket store as well as an online wine store. Prices,sensory style and food claims were shown on a shelf talker in the upper part of the shelf.Price ranges were chosen specific for the market conditions of each country. Plate 1 showsa screen capture of the UK shelf simulation choice experiment.

As situational condition respondents were instructed to imagine that they wanted tobuy a bottle of wine to drink with their partner and/or friends. In each screen they werethen asked to indicate the bottle they were most likely to choose and if they wouldrealistically purchase their preferred bottle, representing a reference or no-choiceoption.

Before the choice experiment, respondents were asked to indicate their awareness(yes/no) for the five food claims in Figure 1, the degree of trust they have into them(structured five-point scale with dont trust at all and fully trust as anchors) and if theyhad ever purchased a wine with that claim (yes/no).


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2.3 Consumer samplesBased on existing findings of geographical and cultural differences in thecommunication and importance of CSR to consumers, seven traditional orestablished wine markets with considerable per capita wine consumption wereselected for this study. The selection covered four Anglo-Saxon cultural markets inNorth America and Europe (US Northeast New York metropolitan area, US Midwest Chicago metropolitan area, Anglophone Canada, UK) and two traditional Europeancountries Germany and France. Francophone Canada was selected as a culturallydistinct North American market with strong historic ties to France.

Sampling was conducted in early December 2009 as an online-survey. The surveyinstrument was developed in English and then translated into German and French. Anindependent back-translation ensured that all versions were equivalent. A reputedonline panel provider, actively managing large samples in each of the countries,provided nationally representative samples ranging between one and two thousandrespondents per market (Table I). To qualify, respondents had to have drunk wine atleast once in the last two months, had to have purchased a bottle of wine in the lastthree months, and were required to be of legal drinking age.

2.4 AnalysisThe awareness and purchase penetration measures were analysed for differencesacross the food claims and across markets with Chi-square tests. Responses to the trustscale were tested for measurement invariance across all markets (Steenkamp andBaumgartner, 1998), where scalar invariance could not be confirmed across all

Plate 1.Visual shelf simulationchoice experiment example for UK market

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markets. To avoid biased results from inappropriate scale averages across markets, thedata was analysed with appropriate nominal statistical techniques. The shares ofrespondents, who trust a claim (four and five on five-point scale) and those, whodistrust a claim (one and two) were analysed with Chi-square tests.

Responses to the discrete choice experiment were analysed with a conditional logitmodel (Louviere et al., 2000), after respondents who always choose the no-choice optionwere removed from the data set (about 5 per cent of total sample). Since part worthutility estimates cannot be compared across different experiments (here markets)because of differences in error variance (Swait and Louviere, 1993), marginalwillingness to pay (WTP) values were calculated by standardising the attribute levelutility estimates by the part worth value of price.

MarketUS

NortheastUS

MidwestCanada

AnglophoneCanada

Francophone France Germany UK

Sample size 1,617 1,614 1,036 982 2,027 2,025 2,021

GenderMale 49.7 50.2 46.5 49.6 40.8 50.0 52.5Female 50.3 49.8 53.5 50.4 59.2 50.0 47.5

Age(18)a 29 19.4 18.6 16.9 21.0 19.6 22.7 21.630 39 24.0 29.4 19.6 26.9 18.8 22.2 24.040 49 23.4 20.2 24.5 20.8 23.5 25.4 23.650 59 18.8 18.0 21.7 19.6 21.8 20.6 16.660 75 14.4 13.7 17.3 11.6 16.3 9.2 14.2

Income in 1,000 $/e/Under 20 18.8 2.4 8.7 16.2 3.5 17.5 3.720-40 37.1 8.3 23.1 41.4 14.6 27.7 14.440-60 20.8 12.7 22.2 19.0 20.0 19.0 18.160-80 9.3 15.7 15.7 8.4 20.9 11.6 18.180-100 3.0 14.9 11.3 2.6 15.4 5.7 14.1100-150 1.5 21.8 6.8 1.3 16.8 3.2 15.5150 and more 0.8 20.1 2.3 0.9 4.8 1.3 6.0Not disclosed 8.8 4.0 9.9 10.4 4.0 14.1 10.1

Highest level of educationSecondaryschool 20.7 1.2 11.6 3.8 1.2 22.2 7.0High school 11.8 14.2 22.8 16.3 20.5 19.5 14.6Professionaleducation 25.6 31.2 29.6 30.0 37.5 27.4 25.5Undergraduatedegree 30.1 34.4 24.9 25.7 28.1 30.9 40.9Postgraduatedegree 11.8 19.0 11.0 24.1 12.6 12.0

Notes: Lowest age determined by legal drinking age: 18 years in France, Germany and UK; 19 yearsin Canada, 21 years in US; total sample n 11,322

Table I.Sample composition in

percent


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3. Results3.1 Claim awareness, penetration and trustThe awareness of the claims differed strongly across claims and markets (Table II).The average awareness for claims across all countries was significantly highest fororganic (45 per cent), followed by both social and environmental CSR claims (around15 per cent) and lowest for the resource-specific environmental claims (below10 per cent). This relative rank order in claim awareness is consistent across allcountries but highest absolute differences in awareness across claims can be observedfor European countries. Awareness for social and environmental responsibility claimswas highest in the US (above 20 per cent) and below average in the European countriesand Francophone Canada, agreeing with previous findings by Maignan (2001). Incontrast, European consumers showed a significantly higher awareness for the organicclaim.

Generally one would expect claim awareness to be a strong predictor for itspurchase penetration (Sharp, 2010). Indeed, over all claims and markets the correlationbetween claim awareness and purchase penetration for wine is highly significant(r 0:568; p , 0:001). Hence, the findings for the purchase penetration of the foodclaims (Table III) closely reflect those observed for claim awareness (Table II).

UK France GermanyUS

EastcoastUS

MidwestCAN

AngloCAN

Franco AverageChi2

(df 6)Socialresponsibility 12.7 9.5 11.6 23.9 20.5 15.6 11.5 15.1 224.4Environmentalresponsibility 13.1 11.5 12.5 26.0 21.4 13.9 9.7 15.4 253.2Organic 44.4 75.2 56.0 39.6 39.7 34.3 27.0 45.2 1,003.9Carbon zero 11.8 6.3 4.4 19.3 14.8 10.9 5.7 10.4 314.310 per cent lessglass 7.0 2.5 4.1 16.9 11.7 6.8 2.3 7.3 401.3Chi2 (df 4) 1,255.6 4545.7 2,633.7 270.6 451.9 341.7 354.6 7,969.4Notes: All Chi2 are significant at p , 0.001

Table II.Awareness of claims inpercent of sample

UK France GermanyUS

EastcoastUS

MidwestCAN

AngloCAN

Franco AverageChi2

(df 6)Socialresponsibility 6.9 3.0 6.0 16.7 11.9 8.6 4.5 8.2 296.6Environmentalresponsibility 6.9 2.6 6.6 20.5 12.8 7.8 4.2 8.8 457.0Organic 19.7 33.4 34.9 28.8 26.0 19.2 14.4 25.2 276.3Carbon zero 4.1 1.5 2.6 13.4 7.1 5.4 1.4 5.1 359.110 per cent lessglass 5.3 1.1 3.2 15.3 8.4 5.9 1.9 5.9 421.5Chi2 (df 4) 413.2 2,096.5 1,588.9 156.4 319.8 155.6 216.8 3,738.1Notes: All Chi2 are significant at p , 0.001

Table III.Penetration of claims inpercent of sample

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By a large margin, organic is the food claim with the highest purchase penetration. Onaverage, every forth respondent stated to have purchased an organic wine, but thisshare was higher in Germany and France than in Canada and the UK. Both CSR claimshad a similar penetration, which was highest in the US Northeast and lowest in Franceand Francophone Canada. Wines with resource-specific environmental claims had onlybeen purchased by a small minority in most countries, only the US Northeast being anexemption with shares of above 10 per cent.

Trust has previously been identified as an important mediator for consumeracceptance of CSR and environmental claims. Table IV and Table V show the share ofrespondents across markets who trust and distrust the different food claims. Generallya stronger discrimination in respondents trust (higher Chi2-values) between the foodclaims can be observed for European countries. Also the degree of differentiation ishigher for trust than for distrust. Not surprisingly, there are similarities between thedegree of trust into a claim (Table IV), its awareness (Table II) and its purchasepenetration for wine (Table III), reflecting the complex interrelationship establishedbetween these three constructs (Pivato et al., 2008).

UK France GermanyUS

EastcoastUS

MidwestCAN

AngloCAN

Franco AverageChi2

(df 6)Socialresponsibility 21.6 19.8 22.2 40.3 32.8 25.7 29.6 27.4 284.4Environmentalresponsibility 22.8 21.0 19.6 41.1 35.1 23.6 29.2 27.5 339.0Organic 38.8 50.5 48.7 51.7 47.6 35.5 38.7 44.5 152.5Carbon zero 21.2 18.4 12.4 36.5 27.4 22.4 25.4 23.4 347.110 per cent lessglass 25.0 21.9 20.7 43.0 37.1 27.1 25.1 28.6 350.0Chi2 (df 4) 230.9 769.5 841.9 84.2 153.5 56.3 57.3 1,703.8Notes: All Chi2 are significant at p , 0.001

Table IV.Trust in claims (trust .3

on five-point scale) inpercent of sample

UK France GermanyUS

EastcoastUS

MidwestCAN

AngloCAN

Franco AverageChi2

(df 6)Socialresponsibility 13.7 23.7 23.0 11.6 11.7 16.3 12.4 16.1 214.4Environmentalresponsibility 13.5 21.5 22.4 11.3 10.7 14.6 12.2 15.2 190.5Organic 9.0 13.0 12.3 9.0 8.8 12.7 13.4 11.2 44.4Carbon zero 15.9 25.2 23.0 12.2 13.8 17.8 13.7 17.4 177.610 per cent lessglass 7.6 16.7 20.1 8.4 6.1 10.3 12.4 11.7 282.2Chi2 (df 4) 93.4 128.9 103.1 20.0 60.9 28.9 1.7 (n.s.) 330.5Notes: All Chi2 are significant at p , 0.001 except for distrust in claims for Canada Francophone

Table V.Distrust in claims (trust,3 on five-point scale) in

percent of sample


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Organic is the claim most trusted and least distrusted and shows the lowest differencesin trust across markets, agreeing with similar findings by (Snderskov and Daugbjerg,2011). About every second respondent trusts organic claims in France, Germany andboth US markets, while trust is slightly lower in the UK and Canada. The trust into thesocial and environmental CSR dimensions is largely similar. For both CSR claims, thetrust is significantly above average in both US markets and below average in Europe,with Canada taking the middle ground. The share of respondents trusting the reducedglass weight claim is similar to that of the CSR claims but benefits from a slightlylower share of respondents distrusting it. On average, the carbon zero claim shows thelowest level of trust and highest level of distrust, which is also consistent across themajority of markets. The low level of trust observed here concurs with similar findingsfor carbon neutral labelling campaigns by Dhanda and Hartman (2011).

3.2 Impact on choice and marginal willingness to payBecause of space limitations the part worth estimates from the conditional logit modelscan only be shown here for the food claim attribute; estimates for the other eightattributes in the DCE can be obtained from the authors. The parameter estimates inTable VI show the expected signs and the price parameter is significantly negative. Inall countries, except Francophone Canada, no claim has a significant negative partworth, indicating that consumers value food claims positively.

Comparing consumers valuation for food claims across countries, Table VII showsthe marginal WTP in local currency relative to the valuation of no claim, derived fromstandardising the part worth estimate for claims by the price estimate. In Table VIIIlocal currencies were converted into Euro values to allow the calculation of an averagemarginal WTP across all countries. Finally, the marginal WTP for each food claim(Table VII) was related to the average price chosen in the DCE in each country (bottomrow in Table VIII) and the resulting percentage valuation for food claims relative to theaverage wine price are provided in Table IX.

Agreeing with findings for awareness and penetration, the organic food claimreceives the highest implicit valuation by consumers overall and in each market. Onaverage over all markets, consumers were implicitly willing to pay 1.24e for theorganic claim with strong variations across markets. The highest WTP relative to theprice of wine was observed for Germany and France, followed by both US markets andAnglophone Canada.

Comparing the WTP derived in this study to estimates from previous studiesprovides an indication for external validity of the findings of this study. Barreiro-Hurleet al. (2008) and Brugarolas et al. (2005) reported estimates of 1.53e or 15 per cent and16.9 per cent of the wine price as estimates for the WTP of organic claims for Spanishwine consumers. These values are close to the average over all markets of this studybut are slightly lower than estimates for France and Germany. The estimates of twosuccessive DCE studies for red wine by Mueller and Remaud (2010) of AUD 0.79 in2007 and AUD 1.55 in 2009 indicate an increasing trend in consumer valuation fororganic wine and are close to estimates of this study for US markets and AnglophoneCanada. Overall, the WTP estimates for the organic claim in this study are congruentwith previous findings, indicative of the validity of the findings presented here.

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Table VI.Part worth utility

estimates for food claimlevels from conditional

logit model


choice

153

Although social and environmental responsibility claims had highly comparableawareness and penetration and similar consumer trust (see section 3.1), their relativevaluation by consumers differs significantly. On average, the marginal WTP forenvironmentally responsible CSR claim is about three times as high as for the specificsocially responsible claim analysed here, accounting for 6.6 per cent and 2.3 per cent ofthe overall wine price respectively. While the WTP for environmental responsibility isnon-negative across all markets, it is negative for the socially responsible claim inFrance and Francophone Canada. The similar cultural background of these two

UK France GermanyUS

EastcoastUS

MidwestCAN

AngloCAN

Franco

Social responsibility 0.03 20.27 e 0.44 e $0.78 $0.79 $0.42 2$0.23Environmentalresponsibility 0.19 0.49 e 0.51 e $1.55 $1.06 $1.41 $0.30Organic 0.23 2.04 e 1.69 e $2.61 $1.55 $2.05 $0.46Carbon zero 0.20 20.24 e 20.02 e $1.43 $0.75 $0.65 $0.5210 per cent less glass 20.09 20.34 e 20.51 e $0.17 $0.24 2$0.74 2$0.69

Notes: US: $ USD, CAN: $ CAD

Table VII.Absolute marginalwillingness to pay forfood claim (relative to noclaim) in local currency

UK France GermanyUS

EastcoastUS

MidwestCAN

AngloCAN

Franco Average

Socialresponsibility 0.03 e 20.27 e 0.44 e 0.56 e 0.56 e 0.28 e 20.16 e 0.21 eEnvironmentalresponsibility 0.22 e 0.49 e 0.51 e 1.10 e 0.76 e 0.96 e 0.20 e 0.61 eOrganic 0.26 e 2.04 e 1.69 e 1.86 e 1.10 e 1.39 e 0.31 e 1.24 eCarbon zero 0.23 e 20.24 e 20.02 e 1.02 e 0.53 e 0.44 e 0.36 e 0.33 e10 per cent lessglass 20.10 e 20.34 e 20.51 e 0.12 e 0.17 e 20.50 e 20.47 e 20.23 eAverage price 5.94 7.82 e 6.27 e $14.85 $14.50 $16.04 $15.94chosen in DCE 6.82 e 7.82 e 6.27 e 10.56 e 10.31 e 10.88 e 10.81 e

Notes: Exchange rate at time of study (December 2009): 1 1.15e, 1USD 0.71e, 1CAD 0.68e

Table VIII.Absolute marginalwillingness to pay forfood claim in Euro andaverage price chosen inDCE

UK France GermanyUS

EastcoastUS

MidwestCAN

AngloCAN

Franco Average

Social responsibility 0.5 23.4 7.0 5.3 5.4 2.6 21.5 2.3Environmentalresponsibility 3.2 6.3 8.2 10.4 7.3 8.8 1.9 6.6Organic 3.8 26.1 27.0 17.6 10.7 12.8 2.9 14.4Carbon zero 3.4 23.1 20.3 9.6 5.2 4.0 3.3 3.210 per cent less glass 21.4 24.3 28.1 1.2 1.7 24.6 24.3 22.9

Table IX.Relative marginalwillingness to pay forfood claim as percentageof average price chosen inDCE

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markets rejecting social CSR claims suggests that cultural differences in the perceivedimportance and valuation of CSR activities and claims are important drivers,congruent with similar findings by Maignan (2001; Maignan and Ralston, 2002) andSingh et al. (2008) and agreeing with the rather managerial than consumer centricdefinition of CSR in France discussed in section 1.1. The absolute Euro valuation of thesocially responsible CSR claim is highest in both US markets, where CSR has itstraditional roots, followed by Germany and Anglophone Canada. Surprisingly,German consumers were willing to pay the highest relative premium for socialresponsibility of all markets. A relatively similar rank order can be observed for theprice premium consumers are willing to pay for the environmental CSR claim, which ishighest in absolute terms for the US Eastcoast, Anglophone Canada and the USWestcoast.

The resource specific environmental claims were found to have the least impact onconsumer wine choice, reflected in their low relative marginal WTP. Consumerevaluation of these claims is very heterogeneous across markets and significantlynegative in some of them. Overall, the reduced glass weight is strongly disliked bymost consumers, resulting in strong price discounts. This finding is interesting as largesupermarket chains in the UK have significantly reduced the average glass weight forwine (WRAP, 2009) without communicating this directly to their consumers. Consumerconcerns about a higher probability of glass breakage (Mueller et al., 2010a) might beone reason for consumers rejection of this claim.

The carbon zero claim has received highest implicit price premiums from USconsumers and is discounted by French and German consumers. The higher mistrustof consumers from these two countries (Table V) might be a possible explanation forthis finding.

4. Conclusion and practical implicationsTo address the research question, this study compared the influence on consumerchoice of two CSR claims, communicating social and environmental responsibility asshelf talkers at the point of purchase, to other competing food claims. Although socialand environmental responsibility showed similar levels of awareness, purchasepenetration and trust, they differed significantly in consumer valuation. The implicitWTP derived from a choice experiment with visual shelf simulations was on averagethree times as high for the environmental than for the specific social responsibility foodclaim. This higher consumer valuation of environmental relative to social food benefitsagrees with previous research on consumer food values (Lusk and Briggeman, 2009).From a consumer perspective CSR food claims were confirmed to stand in competitionwith other existing food claims and are strongly dominated in awareness andconsumer valuation by organic claims. Over all markets, the average WTP for theorganic claim was more than twice as high as for the environmentally responsible CSRclaim. Consumers have been found to associate the organic food claim with a variety ofbenefits, including environmental and social fairness benefits, which likely result in ahigher salience and valuation than competing CSR claims.

Regarding the second research question, significant differences in consumervaluation, awareness, purchase penetration and trust into food claims were foundacross the markets analysed. Congruent with previous findings, there appears to be


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155

higher consumer awareness and trust into CSR claims in North American, particularlyUS markets, relative to European countries, where the concept of CSR was only morerecently introduced. While the price premium consumers are willing to pay forenvironmentally responsible claims was positive across all markets analysed,consumers demanded a discount for wine labelled socially responsible in France andFrancophone Canada. The French interpretation of CSR as rather focusing onmanagerial practices than consumer communication is one potential reason for thisnegative consumer evaluation.

If food producers have to decide between participating in the established organicproduction and labelling program and communicating their own CSR activities withaccording food claims, then the organic strategy will provide higher consumervaluation and the potential for higher price premiums. Producers also have to considerthat considerable communication efforts are required to reach awareness andconsumer trust into CSR claims that are similar to organic claims. If a company has todecide between communicating social or environmental CSR activities, then this studysuggests a focus on environmentally responsible programs, which are valued higherby food consumers.

Considerable differences were observed in the impact CSR claims have onconsumers across different markets. International food producers are recommended tofocus their communication efforts for environmental CSR activities in the US,Anglophone Canada and Germany. Social CSR activities should not be communicatedwith point of purchase claims in France and Francophone Canada, where they maylead to negative consumer reactions.

Despite the contributions of this study, it was limited to wine of French origin as afood product and future research should seek to generalise these findings to other foodcategories and different origins. One specific socially responsible CSR claim waschosen for this study and consumers reaction to other social claims should be tested. Ahigher positive impact of social CSR claims on consumer choice is likely for foodproducts originating in countries with more prevalent social problems.

Notes

1. Environmentally responsible program by wine producer Anne de Joyeuse in South ofFrance, available at: www.annedejoyeuse.fr/protectplanet.php?langue en (accessed on 20April 2011).

2. French: Socialement Responsible, Agriculture Biologique, 210 per cent de poids de verre.German: Sozial verantwortlich, okologischer Weinbau, 10 per cent weniger Glas.

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About the authorsSimone Mueller Loose is a Marie Currie Incoming International Senior Research Fellow at theMAPP Centre for Research on Customer Relations in the Food Sector at the Department ofBusiness Administration at Aarhus University and holds an Adjunct Senior Research position atthe Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia.Simones research focuses on research methods identifying sensory and non-sensory consumerchoice drivers for food. Simone Mueller Loose is the corresponding author and can be contactedat: [email protected]

Herve Remaud is a Professor of Marketing at Bordeaux Management School (BEM) and anAdjunct Senior Research Associate of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at theUniversity of South Australia. His research focuses on both consumers purchase behavior(especially for wine, spirits and seafood) and SMEs marketing strategies. Herve is the AcademicDirector of the Wine MBA delivered at BEM.


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