Understanding Non-Profit and For-Profit Social Marketing on Social Media: The Case of Anti-Texting While Driving

ABSTRACT

Previous studies suggest that consumers tend to infer more negative motives of for-profit sponsorship on social cause than to non-profits. The current study is aimed at identifying potential effective strategies for for-profit organizations to engage in social marketing efforts. Results showed that participants expressed lower texting while driving intentions when the message was initiated by a non-profit than a for-profit organization. For-profit messages were more likely to elicit desirable persuasive effects if their business offering was congruent with the social cause. Participants' intentions to interact with promotion messages on social media predicted their offline behavioral intentions regarding the promoted behaviors.

KEYWORDS:

• social marketing
• social cause
• source-cause congruence
• source
• Facebook
• texting while driving

Funding

This current manuscript was funded by the College of Communication Arts & Sciences Summer Research Fellowship at Michigan State University.

Notes

¹ Even though for-profits were rated slightly more favorable than non-profits. On a seven-point Likert-type scale, participants rated both for-profits (M_corp= 6.25, SD= .10) and non-profits (M_non-profit= 5.97, SD= .11) rather favorably. Considering that participants were not as familiar to most non-profits as to for-profits, it is acceptable to select them following previous literature (Szykman, bloom, & Blazing, 2004).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chen Lou

Dr. Chen Lou (Ph.D. Michigan State University), Assistant Professor, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, [email protected]

Saleem Alhabash

Dr. Saleem E. Alhabash (Ph.D., University of Missouri), Assistant Professor, Department of Advertising & Public Relations, College of Communication Arts & Sciences, Michigan State University, [email protected]