Research On The Impact Of International Brand’s Ethical Crisis Public Relations Strategy On Consumer Forgiveness

In recent years,there have been many crises of international brands in the Chinese market,among which the negative impact of ethical brand crises on international brands is enormous.To this end,it is necessary to conduct a research on the mechanism of the impact of PR strategy stimulation on consumer forgiveness in the context of ethical crisis of international brands,to help international brands explore crisis PR strategies adapted to the Chinese market,to promote the localisation of international brands,and to provide suggestions for their deeper penetration into the Chinese market.Based on a literature review of theories and research on ethical brand crises,crisis PR strategy,perceived sincerity,ethnocentrism,cultural tightness and consumer forgiveness,this paper firstly constructs a theoretical model with perceived sincerity as the mediating variable,consumer forgiveness as the outcome variable,and ethnocentrism and cultural tightness as the moderating variables.Secondly,taking into account the specific practice of PR crises,this paper uses a two-step experimental stimulus using a between-subjects psychological experiment,in which subjects were randomly divided into six groups.In the first stage,subjects were randomly assigned to different international brand ethical crisis situations(sweatshops vs.unethical advertising),and in the second stage subjects were randomly assigned to different PR strategy response stimulus groups(defence strategy vs.reconciliation strategy vs.silent strategy).Finally,SPSS data analysis was conducted based on the 563 valid data collected from the three formal experiments,and the main findings from the three formal experiments were as follows.(1)Experiment 1 aimed to test the main effect of this study,with 199 valid questionnaires collected.The results showed that there was a significant difference in consumer forgiveness between the three types of PR strategies(defence strategy vs.reconciliation strategy vs.silent strategy)in the international brand ethical crisis scenario(p<0.05,F=27.042).In the moral crisis situation,consumer forgiveness was highest in the reconciliation strategy stimulus(M=3.5685),second highest in the defence strategy stimulus(M=2.5109),and lowest in the silent strategy stimulus(M=2.0441).(2)The purpose of Experiment 2 was to test the mediating effect of this study.180 valid questionnaires were collected.The results showed that the mediating role of perceived sincerity in the mechanism of action between perceived offense and consumer forgiveness was not significant in the international brand ethical crisis scenario with PR strategy stimuli(95%Bootstrap confidence interval [-0.3462,0.0117] in the test of mediating effect,upper and lower bounds contain 0).However,there was a significant difference(p < 0.05,t = 2.015)in consumer perceived offense across ethical crisis situations(high level of ethical judgement vs.low level of ethical judgement).Moreover,consumers’ perceived sincerity differed significantly(p<0.05,F=121.331)between the three types of PR strategy stimuli(defence strategy vs.reconciliation strategy vs.silent strategy),and perceived sincerity had a significant positive effect on consumer forgiveness(β=0.863,p<0.05).(3)Experiment 3 was designed to test the moderating effect of this study,with 184 valid questionnaires collected.The results showed that in the international brand ethical crisis situation,perceived offense significantly negatively influenced perceived sincerity(β=-0.4395,t=-3.0513,p<0.05)and the product term of perceived offense and ethnocentrism significantly negatively influenced perceived sincerity(β=-0.2467,t=-2.153,p<0.05)under the PR strategy stimulus,so ethnocentrism positively moderated the predictive effect of perceived offense on perceived sincerity.In addition,perceived sincerity significantly and positively predicted consumer forgiveness(β=0.6686,t=20.0397,p<0.05)and the product term of perceived sincerity and cultural tightness significantly and positively predicted consumer forgiveness(β=0.1096,t=1.9812,p<0.05),so cultural tightness positively moderated the predictive effect of perceived sincerity on consumer forgiveness when stimulated by PR strategies.This paper uses a psychological experiment to explore the mechanism of consumer forgiveness in the context of ethical crisis for international brands,and to provide suggestions for localised PR strategies for international brands in China.