Manipulating message variables for best practice in advertising CSR

Alan Pomering Lester W. JohnsonGary Noble

CSR Communication, Amsterdam, 2011

Introduction

An investigation of two message variables believed necessary for effective advertising about CSR initiatives:

Social topic information CSR Commitment information

Literature Review

Increasing stakeholder expectation for CSR

Consumers report such information will influence their purchase behaviour (Cone/Echo, 2011)

– “Consumers globally believe companies have an explicit responsibility to change the world.” – 10,000 consumers in 10 countries

Consumer responsibility can influence the fate of individual firms, but also the direction of industries and economies (Hansen and Schrader,1997)

Communicating CSR because…

Offers a new frontier of competitive advantage (Becker-

Olsen, Cudmore, and Hill, 2006; Pirsch, Gupta, and Landreth Grau, 2007) Enhance brand differentiation (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001) Brand equity (Hoeffler and Keller, 2002) Competitive advantage (Porter and Kramer, 2002) Customer loyalty (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003; Maignan, Ferrell

and Hult, 1999) Superior financial performance (Orlitzky, Schmidt, and

Rynes, 2003)

CSR-based Marcoms Examples

But

“If consumer response to CSR was reliable and strong, most companies would have embraced the concept by now”

(Mohr and Webb, 2005, p. 124)

Research Problem

Firms want to inform key audiences (e.g. consumers) about their CSR initiatives

Using corporate image advertising Obstacles to effectiveness

– E.g. Scepticism/cynicism

How to improve effectiveness?

Scepticism a Problem

Scepticism hinders persuasion Firms typically fail to specify the impact of their CSR

achievements, preferring vague or abstract claims instead (Pracejus, Olsen, and Brown, 2003/4)

Self-promoter’s paradox (Ashforth and Gibbs, 1990) Cognitive response theory (Wright, 1973) and social

judgment theory (Eagly &Chaiken, 1993) CSR claims are typically credence information

situations (Darby and Karni, 1973), so trust is important

Inhibiting Scepticism

Through the message?

An experimental test

Hypotheses

Social topic information H1: Social Topic Information should interact with (and

contextualise) CSR Commitment information to reduce scepticism

CSR Commitment information H2: Should have a main effect on scepticism toward

CSR advertising claims - greater specificity should reduce scepticism

Our Approach

Unknown brand

Global arms trade (social issue)

Message elements:– Social topic – CSR Commitment

Manipulating Message Variables

3 levels of Social Topic

3 levels of CSR Commitment

Method Scenario: a UK bank considering entering the Australian market Between-subjects design 3x3 full factorial design N=417 (18 years +) from an online consumer panel Pre- and post-exposure questions Effects of Ad Skepticism, Product Category Attitude (x2: Banks

and Arms trade), and CSR Attitude removed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)

Manipulation checks * Qs counter-balanced

Method: Dependent Variable

Scepticism toward CSR ad claims (4-item scale)– One item from Forehand and Grier’s (2003) firm evaluation

scale, “Premier seems like the kind of bank I can trust.”– Two items from Du, Bhattacharya, and Sen’s (2007) CSR

beliefs scale: “I think Premier is a socially responsible business.” and “Premier has had real impacts through its initiatives against the arms trade.”

– A fourth item was added which not only investigates overall belief but also situates Premier Bank within its competitive set: “Premier seems like the sort of bank I can believe.”

All items were measured on a seven-point scale (Strongly disagree/Strongly agree), and showed a PCA univariate solution, with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93, with item loadings ranged from 0.89 to 0.94

Results

No interaction effect observed (F=0.67; df=2; p=0.51)

H1 could not be supported

Main effect of CSR Commitment information was statistically significant (F=3.38, df=2; p=0.04)

H2 supported

Discussion

Social topic information’s role is likely issue-dependent (familiarity and attitude important)

Consumer scepticism can be inhibited with more specific message content (rather than information on policies)

An intuitive result

Question of message framing through image

Limitations

A single case (product, issue)

Unknown brand

Extreme social issue

Australian marketplace

Future Research

Check known brands

Good v. bad company reputation

Range of CSR issues

Role of image frame

Current work

Questions

Thank you for your attention!