The cause effect: the impact of corporate social responsibility advertising on cause consumer engagement behavior after brand affiliation ceases

Abstract

Brands often engage in cause involvement out of a sense of social responsibility. While these associations with causes can positively impact brand equity, brand loyalty, and brand-favorable consumer choice, it is less understood whether corporate cause involvement has the ability to create cause associations in consumers that transcend the brand’s involvement and lead to enduring cause-oriented behaviors. This study uses social media analytics and hierarchical linear regression to investigate the Twitter activity of a random sample of 3,090 individuals who engaged directly with the anti-bullying cause in direct response to Secret’s ‘Mean Stinks’ CSR advertising campaign. This research identifies the influence that those individuals’ campaign-specific consumer engagement behavior (i.e. volume of activity and length of participation time) in the brand’s cause campaign, as well as their engagement with the broader anti-bullying cause had on the persistence of their cause-related activity following the end of Secret’s active advertising of the cause. This is done in an effort to identify whether cause affiliations that are inspired and influenced by a brand can endure beyond the brand’s campaign, and ultimately comment on the longitudinal social influence of brand involvement in social causes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data access was made possible by the Public Opinion Lab at the University of Alabama.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steven Holiday

Steven Holiday (Ph.D., Texas Tech University) is an assistant professor of advertising and public relations at the University of Alabama. He researches the persuasion episode interactions between marketing professionals and child and adolescent consumers, emphasizing how the development of advertising literacy among these audiences dynamically affects persuasive outcomes.

Jameson L. Hayes

Jameson L. Hayes (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is Director of the Public Opinion Lab and an associate professor of advertising and public relations at the University of Alabama. His research interests include emerging media marketing, consumer-brand relationships, and advertising field development.

Brian C. Britt

Brian C. Britt (Ph.D., Purdue University) is the Associate Director of Data Analytics for the Public Opinion Lab and an assistant professor of advertising and public relations at the University of Alabama. His research focuses on the evolution of online organizations and the development of computational social scientific research methods.

Yuanwei Lyu

Yuanwei Lyu (Ph.D. student, University of Alabama) focuses her research on information technology and its impact on society and human behaviors, specifically examining what information is acquired, where it comes from, its use, and how it is affecting us as individuals, and as a field.