How confusion impacts product labeling perceptions

Purpose: Consumer confusion is an often discussed, but seldom investigated, construct central to marketing. This study aims to conceptualize consumer confusion as an intellectual emotion with cognitive and emotional components, and examine it in the context of qualified health claims and conflicting marketplace information. Design/methodology/approach: A between-subjects experimental design is used to test the hypotheses. Findings: Structural equation modeling suggests that weak science discussions and conflicting information on dietary supplements evoke consumer confusion. Confusion, in turn, impacts scientific certainty perceptions, product quality and firm credibility. Incorporating confusion measures in theoretical models significantly increases the amount of variance explained in consumer perceptions. Implications are offered for businesses, consumer behaviorists and public policymakers. Originality/value: It is hard to think about many of marketing’s focal issues (e.g. trademark theory, disclosures and warnings, advertising deception, search and shopping behavior) without using the term confusion. While confusion is central to discussions of these domains, it has evaded focused attention and study. Indeed, no previous research in marketing has directly addressed the experience of consumer confusion per se. The current research fills a gap in the marketing literature by explicitly defining the construct of confusion and offering a measurement approach that is easily adapted to many business/consumer interactions. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate the role of confusion in the context of qualified health claims by showing how conflicting information between health claims, qualifiers and external information can create confusion, and in turn, lead to negative consumer perceptions.