Beyond the Label: Measuring Consumers’ Trust and Attitudes Toward Beef Sustainability Messages on Social Media

Sustainability is changing the agricultural industry. As consumers’ demand for sustainably produced products rises, the industry has had to conform and adapt. Despite doing so, it has been under attack. The beef industry, specifically, has been scrutinized for its environmental impacts. Consumers believe cattle are to blame for greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental degradation. The beef industry has been working to contradict these allegations. Some producers are working to implement sustainable practices, beef organizations are launching campaigns to raise awareness, and new sustainable beef brands are being developed. Those efforts have not been effectively communicated as consumers are still skeptical. Therefore, an understanding of consumers’ trust and attitudes in messages needed to be established. This study examined two message frames (gain & loss) and message content (less vs. more) in beef sustainability messages to determine what combination of the two components influenced consumers trust in beef sustainability messages. A conceptual message construction framework guided message development. Additionally, message framing and the Elaboration Likelihood Model were the two theoretical frameworks that guided the exploration of the influence of framing and message content on consumers’ attitudes toward beef sustainability, trust toward the message, and processing of the frames. A web-based questionnaire was distributed through Qualtrics, and 803 responses were recorded. Descriptive data was collected on consumers’ prior attitudes, beef sustainability practice impact, general trust, and cognitive and affective trust. Analysis revealed that the message frames and message content were not significant on trust, trust toward the message, and cognitive and affective trust. Impactful findings were found in the individual trust scale items. However, significance was found within the relationship between pre-existing characteristics and the four types of trust. The results revealed that consumers believe beef sustainability is important and claim water quality is the most important practice impact. Importantly, consumers cognitively trusted beef sustainability messages. Pre-existing characteristics were significant on trust, trust toward the message, and cognitive and affective trust, signifying the importance of those characteristics. The findings inform message creation through caption curation. Message content should be factual and aim to engage consumers in cognitive processes to effectively communicate about beef sustainability. When developing messages, practitioners should take consumers’ pre-existing characteristics into account, for they inform topic relevancy and processing route. Future research should test the relationship between cognitive and affective trust and the ELM to discover how to ensure long-term trust and attitude change.