More than Just a Number: The Negative Effect of 100% Claims

Many product labels include numerical claims. Consumers interpret these claims in different ways, beyond their numerical value. Non-round numbers, for example, are considered more informative and scientific than round numbers (Guang-Xie and Kronrod 2012). Correspondingly, evaluations of products associated with non-round numbers are based more on cognitions, whereas evaluations of products associated with round numbers lean more on feelings (Wadhwa and Zhang 2015). Round numbers, on the other hand, symbolize completion, and consumers are therefore more willing to accept offers with round prices (Yan and Pena-Marin 2017). In the current research we focus on a common yet underexplored numerical claim, a 100% claim (e.g., “100% natural”). More than any other round number, 100% mathematically denotes completeness, and accordingly, in everyday language, the term “100%” stands for completeness, fullness or perfection (Lee 2014). Thus, it is not surprising that marketers intuitively believe that a 100% claim can make products more appealing, an intuition reflected in their extensive use of such claims. Indeed, Canadian consumers perceive a “100% Canadian milk” claim on milk and ice cream as an indication of product quality (Forbes-Brown et al. 2016). We suggest that this intuition may backfire when the 100% claim is pseudo-informative, namely, does not convey meaningful information regarding the associated product—for example, a claim stating that a drink contains “100% juice”, which does not specify percentages of fruit content or other similar information. In these cases, consumers may rely less on the numerical information conveyed by the claim, and refer more to its symbolism. In addition, because the perfection symbolized by the term “100%” might be perceived as “cheap talk” that cannot actually be measured, consumer’s product evaluations decrease.