A Study on the Effectiveness of Clear and Ambiguous Response Strategies in Brand Crises

With the increasing frequency of brand crises, how companies effectively respond and maintain consumer attitudes has become an important topic in marketing research. This paper explores the impact of brand response strategies on brand attitude and analyzes the mediating role of perceived brand sincerity. Through experimental methods and surveys, a simulated brand crisis scenario was created to study the effects of different response strategies on consumer attitudes. The results show that, in the case of competence crises, a clear response strategy is significantly more effective than an ambiguous one in improving brand attitude. In contrast, in morality crises, an ambiguous response strategy is more effective in restoring emotional brand identification. Furthermore, perceived brand sincerity does not significantly mediate the relationship between response strategies and brand attitude. The findings provide empirical support for brand crisis management and suggest that companies should choose appropriate response strategies based on the type of crisis.