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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

lse

Journal of Retailing and

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013) 529537under which naturalness claims actually lead to more perceivedsaintivesca@esc-larochelle.fr (C. Saintives).a mass marketing technique, and because such mass marketingtechniques undermine the feeling of product authenticity(Beverland et al., 2008), one may suggest that it could underminethe claim that the product is natural. Therefore, the conditions

0969-6989/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2013.05.006

n Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 3556845519.E-mail addresses: renaud.lunardo@bem.edu (R. Lunardo),In addition, the quest for naturalness leads consumers to lookfor more natural purchasing environments. For instance, the

leading consumers to perceive the claimed products to be morenatural. While claiming naturalness could contribute to make theproposing low-processed products that primarily reect natural-ness, brands also develop segments of natural products in highlyprocessed food markets. For instance, the global natural personalcare market increased by 15% between 2009 and 2010 (KlineGroup, 2010).

According to the Mintel Global New Products Dabecame in 2008 the leading claim for new produincluded on 23% of foods and beverages lau(Nutrition Unplugged, 2009). Despite the wide usit still remains undetermined whether their use cods), or BLiS Handcrafted Gourmet Natural Foods (purveyors oftroll-caught natural tuna) (Carroll and Wheaton, 2009). Beyond

their products always lead to more perceived naturalness. Amongtools of interest, naturalness claims appear of major importance.naturalness exist, including Niman Ranch (a network of 600farmers following strict protocols dedicated to all-natural meth-

natural in the point of purchase. Specically, readdress whether tools used by marketers to convexamples of food and drink purveyors apparently relying on lacking about what leads consumers to perceive a product assearch does not1. Introduction

As concerns over health and welincreasingly demanding natural proConsumers ascribe symbolic qualiti2005), such that natural products athier or more environment-friendlconsumers to consume natural proopportunity to exploit and build upomake it a point of differentiation inncrease, consumers are(Devcich et al., 2007).natural entities (Rozin,ceived as tastier, heal-ognizing the desire ofcompanies explore thedea of naturalness, andarketplace. Numerous

in the 1970 to over 3000 in 2001 (Brown, 2002). Facing thepopularity of natural purchasing environments with consumers,retailers offer point of purchase environments that signal natural-ness (Kozinets et al., 2002). Shopping and entertainment venues,like the Farmers Market in Los Angeles, are composed of arrays ofstores, restaurants, and movie theater complexes, but maintaina crucial sense of naturalness to draw millions of visitors per year.

Despite a wide body of potential examples highlighting themarketing actions implemented by brands and retailers to provideconsumers with perceived-as-natural products, research is stillThe effect of naturalness claims on percnaturalness in the point of purchase

Renaud Lunardo a,n, Camille Saintives b

a Bordeaux Management School, 680 Cours de la Libration, 33405 Talence Cedex, Franb Groupe ESC La Rochelle, 102 rue des Coureilles, 17024 La Rochelle Cedex, France

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 19 October 2012Received in revised form23 May 2013Accepted 25 May 2013Available online 3 July 2013

Keywords:Perceived naturalnessClaims

a b s t r a c t

Recent trends in marketingconsumer perception of prthis question in two experof points of purchase, thomore perceived naturalnenaturalness claim salienceproduct being displayed inthat the authority whichindependent naturalness

journal homepage: www.etions of food product

hlight an increased focus on naturalness claims with the hope of a higherct naturalness, but does this always make sense? This research examinesnts. Results show that the perception of naturalness depends on the typesat convey a sense of naturalness, such as traditional markets, leading toImportantly, results show that point of purchase type interacts withch that highly salient claims leads to higher perceived naturalness foroint of purchase that conveys a sense of naturalness. Finally, results showims the naturalness of the product is of major importance, brand-ms leading consumers to perceive the claim as more credible and

vier.com/locate/jretconser

Consumer Services

type and claim salience, it provides insights into the underlying

R. Lunardo, C. Saintives / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013) 529537530process. Our results highlight that perceived authority is animportant variable explaining how naturalness claims lead tocredibility and perceived naturalness. This article has the followingstructure: it starts by reviewing the literature offering theoreticalsupport for the interaction between salience of naturalness claimsand the naturalness of the point of purchase. Second, it presentsthe two experiments conducted to test the hypotheses and theirresults. Third, the discussion of ndings follows.

2. Theoretical background

2.1. The preference for naturalness and the interest of claimingnaturalness

The preference for natural products has long been recognized.Referring to the concept of biophilia which refers to the love of lifeand living systems (Fromm, 1964), this innate preference thathumans have for all things that are derived from nature deeplyaffects the relationship that people have with their naturalenvironment (Wilson, 1984). This preference for nature and livingsystems is driven by the role of nature in the survival of humanbeings, nature being an extensive source of food that protectshuman beings from hostile environments (Kahn, 1999). Contactwith nature may provide many specic physical and mentalbenets for human health. For instance, contact with naturefacilitates recovery from injuries, depressive disorders and cancers(Maller et al., 2002).

This evolutionary determinism profoundly shapes our prefer-ence for natural entities. As a consequence, naturalness is recog-nized as an attribute that improves the perception of the entity towhich it is applied (Rozin, 2006). Such attribution of positivequalities to natural entities may be universal, especially in the fooddomain. For instance, in Europe and the United States, theassociations individuals make with the word natural are almostentirely positive (Rozin, 2006). In this context of preference fornatural products, retailers may gain from providing consumersnaturalness remains to be determined, as well as the process bywhich such effects occur.

Hence, the present research focuses on the effects of natural-ness claims on perceptions of naturalness. As signals, claims are anappropriate mechanism to convey unobservable quality (Kirmaniand Rao, 2000), such as naturalness. Drawing on signalingresearch (Erdem and Swait, 1998, 2004; Miyazaki et al., 2005),this article posits that for the naturalness claims to have a positiveeffect on perception of naturalness, there must be a consistencybetween the naturalness conveyed by the salience of the claims(e.g., visual prominence) and the naturalness conveyed by thepoint of purchase. Therefore, the objective of this article is toexamine the interplay between salience of naturalness claims andpoint of purchase type (supermarket vs. traditional market) onconsumer perception of product naturalness. We argue that whenthere is a mismatch between salience of naturalness claims andpoint of purchase naturalness (i.e. when the naturalness claim ishighly salient and the point of purchase does not convey any senseof naturalness), consumers perceive less product naturalness.We also include perceived authority as a variable of major interest,arguing that perceived authority of the naturalness claim impactsclaim credibility and perception of naturalness.

The results of two experiments support the hypotheses andprovide new insights into two directions. To our knowledge, thisresearch is the rst that identies the interplay between point ofpurchase type and salience of claims on perceived naturalness.Also, beyond showing an interacting effect of point of purchasewith products that are claimed to be natural. Brands can also ndinterests in providing claimed-to-be-natural products. Productsexhibiting positive claims have often been showed to be perceivedas of better quality, this effect being exerted not only on thespecic attribute that is claimed but also on other attributes.For instance, research brings robust evidence that a single healthclaim can lead consumers to make the misleading generalizationsthat the food scores highly not only on healthy features but on allnutrition aspects (Andrews et al., 1998; Keller et al., 1997), andthus to categorize the claimed food as good or healthy(Chandon and Wansink, 2010). Since claims can reinforce theconsumers' perceptions of what is claimed (a health claim leadingto higher perceptions of healthy qualities), one may suggest thatnaturalness claims may lead to more perceived naturalness.

However, the question remains whether claims of naturalnessmight backre, and lead to negative outcomes. The main reasonfor such potential negative effects of naturalness claims is thefollowing. Naturalness has been identied as a dimension ofproduct authenticity (Beverland, 2005; Camus, 2004; Freedmanand Jurafsky, 2012). Meanwhile, previous research in the post-modern branding paradigm (Holt, 2002) agrees on the role ofcommercialization on perception of authenticity, a key propositionbeing that objects that appear motivated by commercial consid-erations lack authenticity (Beverland, 2005, 2006). To be accep-table as authentic the product should not seem to bemanufactured specically for the market. A product with a morenatural, handmade appearance has a greater likelihood of beingjudged to be authentic. Therefore, natural products may gain fromconveying the feeling that the product is not aimed at anyconscious presentation to the market (Fine, 2003). Hence, thequestion arises whether consumers really perceive products asmore natural when such products claim their naturalness throughthe salient use of mass marketing tools that can be associated tocommercial considerations. On the one hand, claiming naturalnessin a salient way would make the naturalness more salient, suchsalience increasing the likelihood of consideration (Alba et al.,1991) and thus being likely to lead consumers to perceive productsexhibiting such claims as more natural. On the other hand, salientnaturalness claims could be perceived as tools of mass marketingwhich are believed to undermine such claims (Beverland andLuxton, 2005) and which are rejected due to cynicism aboutmarketer claims (Beverland et al., 2008). On this basis, no predic-tion can be made about a potential main effect of the salience ofnaturalness claims. However, the type of point of purchase wherethe product is provided may play a crucial role, which isinvestigated next.

2.2. Interaction of the type of point of purchase and the salience ofnaturalness claims: the different effects of traditional markets andsupermarkets

Previous research suggests that consumers expect points ofpurchase to convey a feeling of naturalness and authenticity.For instance, Thompson et al. (2006) emphasize that consumersmay avoid brands like Starbucks because of their perception of theStarbucks coffee shops as commercialized servicescapes thatlacked an authentic personal touch. This example highlightingthe need for authenticity in the retail store also suggests thatnaturalness, as a dimension of authenticity, may positively affectconsumer responses. As a consequence, retail stores that conveya feeling of naturalness, like traditional markets, may gain apotential advantage. Traditional markets typically consist ofbooths, tables or stands, outdoors or indoors, where consumerscan buy fruits, vegetables, meats, and sometimes prepared foodsand beverages. Although very similar in many countries of theworld, such traditional markets are embedded in cultural environ-

ments, which may lead to potential differences between

products were expected to be natural were even clearer, all

R. Lunardo, C. Saintives / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013) 529537 531traditional markets in western countries, like United States andEurope, and traditional markets in Asia. For instance, traditionalmarkets in Asia are called wet markets and account for themajority of consumers' expenditure on food, while they are usuallyreferred to as farmers markets in US and in Western Europe, andplay a secondary role compared to supermarkets chains, such asWal-Mart and Tesco, that are the main source of food supply(Goldman et al., 1999). However, and despite such potentialcultural differences, traditional markets will here be consideredvery similar, and thus all being associated with a given sense ofnaturalness.

Beyond the consumer quest for natural environments, previousretailing research puts the focus on the crucial role of congruency,which refers to the degree of t between marketing elements(MacInnis and Park, 1991). Such a degree of t, or consistency, hasbeen showed to exert positive effects in various marketing con-texts, from pricing strategies (for instance a positive price pairedwith a positive country of origin, Miyazaki et al., 2005) to in-storedesign (for instance, a ower scent in a ower shop; Morrin andRatneshwar, 2003). Regarding in-store congruency, the rationalebehind its positive effects (e.g., Mattila and Wirtz, 2001; Mitchellet al., 1995; North and Hargreaves, 1998; Spangenberg et al., 2005;Yalch and Spangenberg, 1993) is that when there is a congruencybetween the in-store components, it simplies their processing,leading to more positive affect. On the contrary, incongruent cuesmay lead to cognitive interference, which may in turn translate toconfusing consumer's affect and interfering with their behavior(Mitchell et al., 1995). Such effects of congruent and incongruentcues may explain the results from previous research which showthat consumers view traditional outlets as more able to handlefeelings of quality and freshness than supermarkets (Goldmanet al., 2002), those feelings being close to the feeling of naturalness(Freedman and Jurafsky, 2012). Considering both the positiveeffects of congruency and the ability of traditional markets tohandle feelings of quality and freshness, we hence expect thatproducts claimed to be natural in points of purchase that are seenas conveying a sense of naturalness, like traditional markets, willlead to more positive outcomes, that is more perceived natural-ness. By contrast, products claimed to be natural in points ofpurchase that do not convey a sense of naturalness may not leadmore perceived naturalness. Specically, we hypothesize that:

H1. Retail type will interact with naturalness claims salience toaffect perceived naturalness. For products displayed on the shelf ofa traditional market, a high level of naturalness claim salience willinduce more perceived naturalness (H1a). On the contrary, forproducts displayed on the shelf of a supermarket, a high level ofnaturalness claim salience will not induce more perceived natur-alness (H1b).

3. Study 1

3.1. Method

Our goal was to manipulate the level of salience of naturalnessclaims and the point of sale type to see whether there was aninteraction effect on consumer's perceived naturalness. Thus, thisexperiment employed a 2 (low or high level of salience ofnaturalness claims)2 (point of purchase type: traditional marketor supermarket) between-subjects design. The participants were156 undergraduate students (62 men and 94 women) whovolunteered to participate in the study in return for extra creditsin marketing classes.

Before running the experiment, a pretest using undergraduatestudents was conducted to ensure that traditional markets and

supermarkets actually differ in the perceived naturalness they arerespondents (40 times, or 100%) seeing traditional market as such.These results bring support to the opposition between traditionalmarkets and supermarkets regarding their ability to conveya sense of naturalness.

Since the goal of the study was to manipulate the low or highlevel of salience of naturalness claims while holding the productcategory unchanged between the two conditions, we decided toretain a food product for the experiment. Food products have beenshown to be perceived either as natural or as lacking naturalnesswhen their package, brand name or country of origin informationdoes not convey naturalness (Groves, 2001). A pack of chocolatecookies was selected as the product to use for the experiment, thatproduct being actually displayed both in traditional markets and insupermarkets. To make it realistic, we chose a real pack ofchocolate cookie from the French brand Fossier.

The salience of the naturalness claim was manipulated throughthe small (low salience) or large (high salience) size of the claimon the packaging. The type of point of purchase was manipulatedby changing picture of the type of point of purchase in which thepack of chocolate cookies was displayed. The manipulation ofclaim salience and point of purchase type consisted of changingwith computer software (Photoshop 7.0) on the full-color photo ofthe pack of chocolate cookies the size of the claim and the type ofpoint of purchase. The claim retained for the experiment was theclaim 100% Natural. Thus, four versions of the photo were createdand used in the experiment.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four experi-mental conditions. They were thus presented with one of the fourphotos of the pack of chocolate cookies, this photo presenting thepack of chocolate cookies in one of the two conditions of natural-ness claims salience and in one of the two conditions of point ofpurchase type. In order to make the claim easily readable in eachcondition of salience, each photo was displayed on an A4 formatpaper (see Appendix A). All participants were exposed to thepicture for the same amount of time (i.e., 20 s).

Perceived naturalness was measured using the four-itemseven-point Likert food-specic naturalness scale from Camus(2004) (e.g., these chocolate cookies, : are natural, we can tellhow they have been produced, are made from natural productsonly, we know where they come from; .80).

3.2. Results

3.2.1. Manipulation checksTo check the effectiveness of the manipulation of salience, we

rst used a two-item scale and asked respondents to report ona seven-point scale the extent to which they noticed at the rstsight the naturalness claim on the packaging (from Not at all toVery much) and the extent to which they found the naturalnessclaim was visible (from Not at all to Very much) ( .94). Theeffect of the point of purchase type manipulation was checked byasking participants to rate their perception of the kind of point ofassociated with. A set of 40 undergraduate students were provideda list of different points of purchase types (supermarkets, grocerystores, specialty point of purchases, traditional markets) and wereasked to say for each one whether or not consumers could expectfrom them to provide natural products. For each naturalnessexperimental condition, points of purchase types that wereselected by the highest number of respondents were consideredfor use in the experiment. Results regarding the point of purchasetype in which products are not expected to be natural were clear,supermarkets being the most frequently selected (37 times, or92.5%). Results regarding the type of point of purchase in whichpurchase where the pack of chocolate cookies was displayed. They

had the choice between A supermarket, a traditional market,and other. No participants answered Other.

Both the salience of naturalness claims and the point ofpurchase type treatments were found to have signicant effects.The participants in the high salience condition rated the salienceas signicantly larger than the participants in the low saliencecondition (F(1, 154)53.30, po .001; MHigh5.00 vs. MLow2.85).Point of purchase type manipulation was checked using a Chi-square test. The test was signicant (2100.82, po .001) andindicated that for each point of purchase type condition, thenumber of participants identifying correctly the point of purchasewas signicantly higher than the theoretical number of partici-pants each experimental cell should contain. Also as expected, anANOVA revealed that traditional markets (M5.19) were seen asconveying more naturalness than supermarkets (M2.01,F(1, 154)181.66, po .001).

facing a claim, consumers can attribute the claim to either the

R. Lunardo, C. Saintives / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013) 529537532Finally, as we chose a pack of real cookies, we made sure thatthe participants were not familiar with the brand. Brand famil-iarity was measured with two items from Laroche et al. (1996) onseven-point scales (no information/a great deal of information; noprevious experience/a lot of previous experience). A one-sampletest yielded a statistically signicant difference between thesample mean and the assumed null value of 2.00 (M1.27,t10.21, po .05), conrming that consumers were not familiarwith the brand. Also of importance, brand familiarity did not differamong the conditions of salience (F(1, 154) .009, p4 .10) andpoint of purchase type (F(1, 154)1.57, p4 .10). Manipulations canthus be considered effective.

3.2.2. Hypothesis testingOur dependent variable was consumers' perceived naturalness

of the product. Regarding the effects of naturalness claims andpoint of purchase on perceived type, an ANOVA yielded no maineffect of the level of salience of naturalness claims (F(1, 154)3.39,p4 .05), suggesting that consumers do not perceive more natural-ness when products exhibit a highly salient claim. Results revealedon the contrary a main effect of point of purchase type (F(1, 154)5.36, po .05), traditional markets (M4.69) leading to a higherperception of naturalness than supermarkets (M4.20). Moreimportantly and as expected, this analysis yielded an interactingeffect between naturalness claims and point of purchase type(F(1, 152)4.47, po .05; see Fig. 1). When products exhibit highlysalient naturalness claims, perceived naturalness is higher forthose displayed on a traditional market (M5.06) than for thoseon the shelf of a supermarket (M4.17). However, when productsexhibit lowly salient naturalness claims, perceived naturalness isnot signicantly different among products displayed on the shelfof a supermarket (M4.23) and those displayed in a traditional

3

4

5

6

Traditional Market Supermarket

Perc

eive

d N

atur

alne

ss

Point of Purchase Type

Low salience of claims

High salience of claims

Fig. 1. Perceived naturalness as a function of point of purchase type and natural-

ness claim salience.actual characteristics of the product or to the marketer's desire tosell the product. If a claim is attributed to the actual characteristicsof the product, consumers perceive the claim as more credible,while if the claim is attributed to the marketer's desire to sell theproduct, consumers perceive the claim as less credible (Smith andHunt, 1978). Hence, it seems plausible that consumers will notappraise the perceived naturalness only through the interaction ofclaim salience and point of purchase type but also through theorganization that is perceived as the origin of the claim. Claims canbe awarded by many organizations, including manufacturers,retailers, government bodies, certiers and independent organiza-tions (Moussa and Touzani, 2008). In other words, claims cancome from the brand itself, or from an independent organization.It thus may be possible that consumers will appraise the cred-ibility of the claim (Moussa and Touzani, 2008; Skurnik et al.,2005) through the evaluation of the perceived authority at theorigin of that claim. In other words, the authority claiming theproduct naturalness may exert an inuence on perceptions ofcredibility of the claim, and consequently on perceptions ofproduct naturalness. Thus, one potential weakness in the proce-dure used in Study 1 is that the perceived authority of the claimwas not manipulated, while consumers may rely on such authorityto assess claim credibility and perceived naturalness. This leads usto next analyze the impact of the perceived authority of the claim.

4. Study 2

Claims can either be made by third party agents who play theroles of auditor and certier (e.g., organic certication, Fairtrade),or by brands. The word natural is not regulated by governments, soit can easily be put on any packaging as manufacturers please.Examples of such naturalness claims coming from brands areabundant in the everyday life, especially in the cosmetic and thefood industries. Companies like Kraft food, Breyers, Newman'sown, or Tostitos propose products that clearly mention on thepackaging of their products either the word Natural or theexpression 100% Natural. Others, like Snapple, claims that theyhave The Green Tea with the most EGCG on Earth, EGCG beinga avonoid antioxidant that can lower blood pressure, promoteblood ow, and prevent clot formation. Further, Organic Monitorassessed over fty international brands of natural cosmeticproducts and ranked them in terms of their naturalness. A majornding was that the formulations of most natural brands do notmeet their marketing claims, many brands being classied asmarket (M4.27). Importantly, t-tests indicated that individuals inthe traditional market condition perceived more naturalness whenthe claim was highly salient (po .05), supporting H1a, while in thesupermarket condition they did not perceive more naturalnesswhen the claimwas highly salient (p4 .05), supporting H1b. Takentogether, these results support H1.

3.3. Discussion

These results conrm that naturalness claims can eitherincrease or decrease consumers' perceived naturalness, dependingon whether or not there is a consistency between the salience ofthe claim and the sense of naturalness conveyed by the point ofpurchase. Specically, Study 1 highlights that claims can inducemore perceived naturalness, but only when the point of purchaseis seen as conveying a sense of naturalness.

Nevertheless, previous research on the effects of claims showsthat consumers process the claim in a way that evokes attribu-tional processes (Settle and Golden, 1974). Specically, whensemi-natural or naturally inspired even though they claim to be

R. Lunardo, C. Saintives / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013) 529537 533100% natural (Organic Monitor, 2011). Such a lack of institutionalconstraints regarding the use of naturalness claims can thus makeit hard for consumers to accurately appraise the real degree ofnaturalness of a product.

In this context, the question of who validates the claimsbecomes crucial, and it thus remains to be determined whetherperceived authority of the naturalness claims can have a greaterinuence on consumers' perceived naturalness of the product thanthe interactive effect of salience and point of purchase type foundout in Study 1. What we suggest is that claims coming from thirdparty agents may lead to more claim credibility, and consequentlyto more perceived naturalness. This assumption is based on twoimportant components of the denition of credibility. First, cred-ibility is composed of a dimension referring to the believability ofan entity's intentions at a particular time (Erdem and Swait, 2004).Considering that brands may have more interests in claiming thenaturalness of their products than third party agents, it may occurthat brands using their own naturalness claims lead consumers todoubt the credibility of the naturalness claims, and in turn of theproduct naturalness. Second, claim credibility also lies in twocomponents of the source of the claim, namely trustworthinessand expertise (Erdem and Swait, 2004; Kelman and Hovland,1953). Thus, claim credibility requires that consumers perceivethat the agent at the origin of the claim is trustable and has thesufcient expertise. This focus on source credibility in the assess-ment of claim credibility trust and expertise in the assessment ofcredibility induces that claims coming from a trustable and expertindependent organization may lead to more perceived credibilityof the naturalness claim. Thus, we propose the following:

H2. Naturalness claims perceived as from a brand-independentauthority will lead to higher credibility than naturalness claimsperceived as coming from the brand.

Considering the powerful positive impact of brand-independentauthority on credibility (Moussa and Touzani, 2008), it is also bothexpected that credibility mediates the effect of authority on per-ceived naturalness, and that the authority of the claim is a betterpredictor of perceived naturalness than the interactive effect of claimsalience and point of purchase type found in Study 1. Therefore, wepropose the following:

H3. Claim credibility will mediate the effect of perceived authorityon perceived naturalness.

H4. Perceived authority is a better predictor of perceived natural-ness than the interactive effect of claim salience and point ofpurchase type.

4.1. Method

A total of 169 respondents (50.3% women, 61.5% over 30 years,36% students) participated in the experiment. None of the subjectsin Study 2 had participated in Study 1. The procedure mirroredthat of experiment 1 but included a third experimental condition,perceived authority of the claim. Participants were randomlyassigned to one of the cells in a 2 (salience of the naturalnessclaim: high size or low size)2 (point of purchase type: tradi-tional market or supermarket)2 (perceived authority of theclaim: independent from the brand or the brand) between-subjects design.

A pack of prunes was selected for the experiment. Prunes werechosen because they are very natural products. Therefore, ndingout that under specic conditions of salience, point of purchasetype, and authority, the perceived naturalness of highly naturalproducts could decrease would be quite surprising and of parti-

cular interest. On the contrary, if no effect is found, it would alsobe of interest since it would suggest that a product that is notnatural in its self could get their perceived naturalness enhancedby the interactive effect of claim salience and point of purchasetype. Full-color photos depicting the pack of prunes in the twoconditions of salience, the two conditions of point of sale type andthe two conditions of perceived authority were thus used in theexperiment. Here again, salience of naturalness claimwas manipu-lated through the small (low salience) or large size (high salience)of the claim on the packaging. We also relied on the pretest andthe manipulation checks used in Study 1 to select the type of pointof purchase to be manipulated (i.e., traditional market vs. super-market). However, unlike Study 1, we manipulated here theperceived authority of the naturalness claims. A pretest was thusconducted using 36 undergraduate students to facilitate theselection of the claim to be displayed on the pack of prunes. Theclaims had to be accurately chosen in order to manipulateperceived authority. Since previous research shows that the mostpreferred and credible source of authority is an independentorganization (Groves, 2001), manipulating perceived authorityrequired manipulating claims that scored differently in terms ofindependency. A list combining 8 naturalness claims from realindependent organizations and 4 claims not making any referenceto an independent certier was compiled. Subjects were asked torate those claims in terms of independency of the perceivedauthority making the claim (from the brand1, from an inde-pendent institution7). Based on this pretest (F(1, 35)8.19;po .05), we selected Naturland as the claim perceived from anindependent authority (M4.47), and the claim 100% Natural asthe one perceived as coming from the brand (M3.05). Claims'mean scores of familiarity were not signicantly different fromeach other (p4 .10).

As in Study 1, the manipulation of claim salience, point ofpurchase type and perceived authority consisted of changing withcomputer software (Photoshop 7.0) on the full-color photo of thepack of prunes the size of the claim, the type of point of purchaseand the authority making the claim. As a result, each subject wasexposed either to the pack of prunes exhibiting the claim Natur-land (brand-independent authority condition) or simply to thepack exhibiting the claim 100% Natural (brand-dependentauthority condition), this claim being either lowly or highly salient,and on the shelf of either a supermarket or a traditional market.The types of point of purchase were the same as in Study 1. Also, tomake it realistic, we used the same unfamiliar brand Fossier as inStudy 1. Again, to make sure that the claim was easily readable ineach condition of salience, each photo was displayed on an A4format paper (the point of purchase type conditions being thesame as in Study 1, Appendix A provides a pictorial description ofthe two types of claims, each in one of the two conditions ofsalience). Again, all participants were exposed to the picture forthe same amount of time (i.e., 20 s).

Participants were then asked to answer a questionnaire. Per-ceived naturalness of the product was measured using the samescale as in Study 1 ( .79). Credibility was measured using threeitems from Beltramini (1988) (Unbelievable/Believable, Untrust-worthy/Trustworthy, Not credible/Credible; .91). Scales forthe manipulation checks were the same as in Study 1, except thatrespondents also had to rate whether the organization claimingthe product naturalness was perceived as independent from thebrand or the brand.

4.2. Results

4.2.1. Manipulation checksANOVA used to test the effectiveness of the manipulations of

the salience of naturalness claims and the point of purchase type

treatments was found to have signicant effects. The participants

procedure has been used to counteract the assumption of normal-

e ex

ce

De

3.93.2

R. Lunardo, C. Saintives / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013) 529537534ity of the sampling distribution of the indirect effect (a b) whichis required by the Sobel test (Hayes, 2009). For each mediationanalysis, the independent perceived authority condition wascoded 0 and the brand-dependent perceived authority conditionwas coded 1, so that a negative effect of the independent variableon the mediator in the indirect path can be interpreted as theeffect of the brand-dependent perceived authority and a positiveeffect as the one caused by the brand-independent perceivedauthority. The indirect effect of perceived authority was signicant(a b.62; po .001), with a 95 condence interval excludingzero (.91 to .40), suggesting that mediation is established (Zhaoet al., 2010). In the indirect path, being exposed to a claimin the high salience condition (M4.87) rated the salience of theclaims as signicantly higher than the participants in the lowsalience condition (M4.16, F(1, 165)7.05, po .01). Participantsin the traditional market condition rated the point of purchase asconveying a higher feeling of naturalness (M5.08) than partici-pants in the supermarket condition (M3.14, F(1, 167)50.99,po .001). The authority manipulation also had its intended effect.This treatment produced signicant differences on the indepen-dent or brand authority, respondents exposed to brand-dependentclaims perceiving signicantly more the brand at the origin of theclaim (286.41; po .001).

4.2.2. Hypotheses testingTurning to the tests of hypotheses, one-way ANOVAS revealed

that perceived authority of the claim has a prominent main effecton credibility (F(1, 167)47.29, po .001), supporting H2, and,although not hypothesized, on perceived naturalness (F(1, 167)41.29, po .001). Subjects having been exposed to an independentnaturalness claim (M5.14) perceived the claim as signicantlymore credible than those exposed to a brand-dependent claim(M3.85). Also, those having been exposed to an independentnaturalness claim perceived the product as more natural(M5.54) than those exposed to a brand-dependent claim(M4.43). Table 1 shows the cell means.

Turning to the test credibility of credibility as a mediator of theeffect of perceived authority, we followed the recent procedurerecommended by Zhao et al. (2010). We used Preacher and Hayes'(2008) macro and 5000 bootstrapped samples to determinewhether the indirect effect was signicant. The bootstrapping

Table 1Means and standard deviations of perceived naturalness and claim credibility in th

Supermarket

Low claim salience High claim salien

Independent Dependent Independent

Perceived naturalness 5.60 (1.03) 4.32 (1.35) 5.25 (1.11)Claim credibility 4.75 (1.38) 3.78 (1.34) 4.92 (1.27)perceived as brand-dependent decreases credibility by 1.28 (a1.28); b .48, so a unit increase in credibility increases perceivednaturalness by .48 units. The direct effect c is not signicant (c.48; po .05), and the product a b c is positive, leading toconclude to a complementary mediation of credibility. Therefore,this mediation supports our conceptualization, and H3, thatperceived authority impacts credibility of the claim which in turninuences perceived naturalness. Specically, our results showthat this mediating effect of credibility is positive when claims areindependent of the brand.

Our conceptualization predicts that perceived authority isa better predictor of perceived naturalness than the interactive5. General conclusion

5.1. Theoretical implications

The goal of our research was to investigate the suggestion thatunder certain conditions naturalness claims may lead to unex-pected negative outcomes and backre. Overall, the results of twoexperiments conrm our suggestion. Along with previous litera-ture on congruency (e.g., MacInnis and Park, 1991), results showthat consumers perceive more product naturalness when there is aconsistency between the sense of naturalness conveyed by a pointof purchaselike a traditional marketand the salience of thenaturalness claims. As predicted, perceived naturalness is thehighest under the conditions of high perceived naturalness ofthe point of purchase and high salience of naturalness claims.However, when there is a mismatch between the high perceivednaturalness of a point of purchase and the low salience ofnaturalness claims, naturalness claims do not lead consumers toperceive products as more natural. Such a result appears of majorinterest since it suggests that naturalness claims are efcient onlyunder very specic conditions. They indeed lead to more perceivedeffect of salience and point of purchase. In other words, our modelpredicts that when perceived authority is included in the analysis,perceived naturalness is more impacted by perceived authoritythan by the interactive effect of salience of naturalness claims andpoint of purchase type. Results show that when included in theanalysis, perceived authority exerts a main effect on perceivednaturalness (F(1, 165)34.56, po .001) while the interactive effectof claim salience and point of purchase type is not signicant(F(1, 165) .930, p4 .05). These results support our conceptualiza-tion and H4.

4.3. Discussion

Study 2 provides evidence for the crucial role of perceivedauthority in the effect of naturalness claims, affecting both cred-ibility and perceived naturalness. Specically, when the natural-ness claim is from an independent authority, it leads to morecredibility and more perceived naturalness. Also, this effect ofclaim authority on perceived naturalness is stronger than theinteractive effect of claim salience and point of purchase type.

perimental conditions.

Traditional market

Low claim salience High claim salience

pendent Independent Dependent Independent Dependent

2 (1.12) 5.81 (1.39) 4.60 (1.19) 5.80 (.89) 4.67 (1.11)1 (1.02) 4.83 (1.29) 3.92 (.74) 5.90 (.88) 4.20 (1.12)naturalness only when exhibited in a salient way and displayed onproducts that are sold in environments that convey a sense ofnaturalness. Also of interest, ndings from Study 1 show that suchan effect of claim salience and point of purchase type on perceivednaturalness may occur for lowly natural products, like chocolatecookies. This implies that even the perceived naturalness ofproducts that are not natural could be enhanced just by improvingthe salience of the claim and by choosing to sell them ontraditional markets. Findings of the second study extend previousliterature on the effects of labels (e.g., Balasubramanian and Cole,2002) and show that perceived authority is a variable of mainimportance in the understanding of the effects of naturalness

and point of purchase type. Further, they show that credibilitymediates the effects of perceived authority on product naturalness.

claims can occur even with highly natural products; Study 2 shows

H

im i

R. Lunardo, C. Saintives / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013) 529537 535From a theoretical perspective, these ndings have implicationsfor the retailing literature and for the brand literature that focuseson the effects of claims. For the retailing literature, to our knowl-edge, practically no research has specically considered both pointof purchase type and naturalness claim salience as factors thatoperate jointly to inuence perceptions of product naturalness.Our theoretical framework clearly identies point of purchase typeas a situational variable that interacts with the salience ofnaturalness claims to affect perceived naturalness. Results showthat whatever their low or high degree of naturalness claimsalience, products in points of purchase that do not convey asense of naturalnesslike supermarketslead consumers toattribute only a low level of naturalness to the product. On thecontrary, for points of purchase that convey a sense of naturalnesslike traditional marketsa high level of salience of the natural-ness claim will lead to higher perceptions of product naturalness.For the brand literature, our framework identies perceivedauthority as a variable of major importance to understand theeffect of naturalness claims. Perceived authority plays a crucial roleby leading to more credibility, which exerts a mediating effect onperceived naturalness.

Thus, by identifying these antecedents that determine theperception of naturalness, the framework offers an explanationfor important aspects of consumer behavior and furnishes guide-lines for effectively managing retail environments and brands.

5.2. Managerial implications

From a managerial perspective, the idea that perceived natur-claims. Indeed, results highlight that perceived authority exerts amore powerful effect on credibility of the claim and in turn onperceived naturalness than the interactive effect of claims salience

Lowly salient claim in a supermarket

Fig. A1. Examples of stimuli used in Study 1. Lowly salient claalness depends on the interaction between the point of purchasetype and the salience of the claims should be of considerableinterest to both brands and retailers. For brands that are willing tosell products that are perceived as natural, our results suggest thatreaching a given level of perceived naturalness implies that theydetermine the types of stores which can be considered conveyingenough feelings of naturalness. For retailers, our results suggestthat if their goal is to sell natural products, they should create storeenvironments that can be perceived by consumers as conveyinga sense of naturalness. Such a perception of naturalness of thepoint of purchase will result in an increase in the consumer'sperception of product naturalness. A high level of perception ofnaturalness of the point of purchase can be achieved through theactual use of natural componentslike wood or stones. Ourrecommendation for retailers is thus to include such natural whensetting up the store's interior decoration and architecture.that when consumers are exposed to a brand-dependent natural-ness claim, they perceive the product as less natural, even thoughthe product is natural in its self (a pack of prunes). What such aresult implies for brand managers is that they can improve theperceived naturalness of their products by providing independentnaturalness claims. It also implies that brands may avoid providingtheir product with their own naturalness claims, such claimsleading to a decrease in the perceived naturalness of the product.

Along with this recommendation, our results also suggest thatbrands aiming at selling perceived-as-natural products shouldplace trustand more specically credibilityat the core of theirstrategies. They should not claim naturalness in a salient way if thepoint of purchase cannot contribute to offering a feeling that theproduct is actually natural.

5.3. Limitations and further research

Some important caveats apply to the results described above.First, because the two experiments reported here have focused onfood, our results are likely to be limited by some contextspecicity, and hence we do not make any claims about general-izability. Clearly, food products do not represent the universe ofproducts, and the inuence of the antecedents identied here hasto be determined in other contexts.Regarding brands, some companies may hesitate betweenclaiming themselves the naturalness of their products or makingwhat is necessary to obtain a naturalness claim from an indepen-dent certifying organization. What our results show is that such aquestion gets a straight answer. Clearly, a claim from an indepen-dent organization leads to more perceived naturalness, this effectbeing mediated by claim credibility, while a brand-dependentclaim leads to a decrease in perceived naturalness. Of particularinterest is the fact that such a negative effect of brand-dependent

ighly salient claim in a traditional market

n a supermarket. Highly salient claim in a traditional market.Second, the products manipulated in the two studies aredifferent, namely a pack of chocolate cookies in Study 1 and apack of prunes in Study 2. Although manipulating two differentproducts improves the external validity of the research, weacknowledge that the product chosen for Study 2 could haveinduced some biases: prunes are highly natural products thatcould affect perceived naturalness. Study 2 did not replicate theresults from Study 1 and this may be due to the naturalnessembedded in the product, a pack of prunes. Since this product isnatural in itself, naturalness claim salience and point of purchasetype may not exert any effect. Further research should moredeeply investigate how consumers process such situational vari-ables to appraise the perceived naturalness of highly and lowlynatural products. For instance, variables like consumer involve-ment with naturalness may explain how consumers processperceived naturalness from different situational cues.

Fig. A2. Examples of stimuli used in Study 2. Highly salient independent claim. (Certie

R. Lunardo, C. Saintives / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013) 529537536Third, in this paper we tested perceived naturalness as depend-ing on a legitimating authority, thus resulting from an objectivefeature, and not from a cultural construction. We did not includesymbolic meanings that consumers can associate to an object andrely on in their assessment of naturalness. Yet, as a dimension ofauthenticity, previous research on naturalness suggests that such aconstruct can refer to a cultural construct (Pealoza, 2000, 2001).Research suggests that xed criteria are difcult to establish tounderstand how naturalness is elaborated for social subjects.Symbolic meanings can prove more helpful to consumers indistinguishing between the naturalness and the non-natural(Grayson and Martinec, 2004; Thompson et al., 2006). Suchsymbolic meanings should be included in further research dealingHighly salient independent claim

(Certified 100% Natural by Naturland)with naturalness claims.

Appendix A

See Figs. A1 and A2.

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R. Lunardo, C. Saintives / Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 20 (2013) 529537 537

The effect of naturalness claims on perceptions of food product naturalness in the point of purchaseIntroductionTheoretical backgroundThe preference for naturalness and the interest of claiming naturalnessInteraction of the type of point of purchase and the salience of naturalness claims: the different effects of traditional...

Study 1MethodResultsManipulation checksHypothesis testing

Discussion

Study 2MethodResultsManipulation checksHypotheses testing

Discussion

General conclusionTheoretical implicationsManagerial implicationsLimitations and further research

Appendix AReferences