Introducing a special issue on advertising & corporate social responsibility

Introduction

Global consumers now expect companies to go beyond simple profit-seeking and pursue a corporate purpose that positively impacts society (Cone Communications 2017). Over three-quarters of Americans in a recent survey report purchase decisions being driven by brands’ commitment to social good (Stobierski 2021). Advertising plays a crucial role in communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR); nearly three-quarters of respondents in the Cone Communications CSR study (2017) report not believing companies are making an effort until positive efforts are communicated to them.

Advertising as an industry and process is also deeply implicated current social issues and controversies. Advertising is the primary source of revenue for companies such as Google and Facebook and is at the core of controversies around consumer data (e.g. Cambridge Analytica), privacy, and illegal or unethical ad targeting practices. However, advertisers also prompt action that affects policy and content, such as YouTube hiring moderators for video content to ensure that ads are seen in a ‘brand safe’ context. Indeed, the International Council on Ad Self-regulation (2019) has established advertising standards for practicing and reporting CSR.

With the growing importance of practicing advertising in a more socially responsible way and communicating CSR through advertising, recent calls for academic research on CSR and advertising (e.g. Taylor 2014, 2018) are not surprising. However, most extant research is grounded not in advertising, but in management, business ethics, and public relations. This special issue looks to advance our understanding of CSR from an advertising perspective. Corporate social action for social good and profitability are not seen as mutually exclusive; thus, CSR is broadly defined in this special issue as the extent to which a company’s actions and outcomes align with society’s values and expectations (Lerner and Fryxell 1988).

In order to begin to explore how CSR fits into advertising practice and communication, we have organized the research produced in this special issue in terms of the stage(s) of the advertising strategic planning process to which each article speaks. Percy and Rosenbaum-Elliott (2016) breaks the strategic planning process into five steps: (1) target audience selection, (2) understanding target audience decision-making, (3) positioning, (4) communication strategy development, and (5) setting media strategy. Hayes, Holiday, and Park (2022) begin the issue with a systematic review of advertising CSR literature to-date examining research through the lens of Percy and Rosenbaum-Elliott’s advertising strategic planning process before proposing future research agenda items for each stage of the strategic planning process. The subsequent seven articles each speak to at least one of the five stages with each stage being represented.

Advertising CSR & the strategic planning process

If advertising is to practice CSR, as opposed to just communicating initiatives, then advertising CSR research must understand not just how to effectively communicate CSR but also how CSR factors into advertising’s strategic planning process (see ICAS 2019). Hayes, Holiday, and Park (2022) puts forth a research agenda for advertising and CSR suggesting areas of inquiry for target audience selection, understanding consumer decision making, positioning, communication strategy developments, and media strategy, as well as evaluation of advertising CSR activities. This review and research agenda offers a structure for the field’s research endeavor moving forward. The subsequent articles take steps toward moving the agenda forward.

Target audience & CSR initiative selection

Identifying the target audience is first step in the advertising SPP. Typically, this involves understanding the target consumer’s brand orientation, individual characteristics, and attitudes and behaviors as they related to advertising strategy. From an advertising CSR perspective, it is important to also account for orientation towards the CSR initiative and how individual characteristics might affect attitudes and behaviors in relation to the advertised initiative. Published in a previous issue, Shen and Shi (2021) explored the ethical consideration of disclosing minimum required payment to college students in direct mail ads from credit card companies. Results indicated that the more ethical minimum required payment amount was viewed as such when students were motivated to understand the issue and provided the necessary knowledge to so. Thus, advertisers must access their target audiences’ ability and motivation to fully comprehend the value of CSR initiatives.

Factors influencing consumer decision-making in advertising CSR

Understanding how target audiences make decisions regarding the brand and product category is crucial to the development of effective message strategy. Taking a consumer-centric perspective, Li, Kim, and Alharbi (2021) examine how issue involvement, brand involvement, and brand attachment influenced response to Nike’s corporate social advocacy efforts with the ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick. Support for CSA efforts were found the be dependent upon consumers’ level of brand and issue involvement. Findings highlight the importance for advertising practitioners and researchers to account for the intertwining influence of brand- and cause-related factors in terms of consumer decision-making about advertising CSR.

Waymer, Gilliland, and Barbour (2021) investigates how the nature of the brand-cause partnership affects consumer’s response to CSR advertising. Comparing donation-based initiative to CSR partnerships between a brand and a cause, Waymer et al. illustrate that, while partnerships and CSR partnerships are viewed positively, partnerships are evaluated more positively due to a perceived sustained commitment from the brand. When planning and communicating advertising CSR initiatives, focus on long-term commitment should be emphasized.

Advertising CSR positioning: one size does not fit all

Positioning does not happen in a vacuum; it is reliant on context. Research on positioning of the CSR initiative should likewise bring additional context into the research to better account for the interactions of consumer associations with the company brand and the CSR initiative as it is communicated. In this issue, Sung, Lee, and Lim (2021) put this into practice when they look at how initiatives featuring national versus local causes are perceived by consumers. Rather than a blanket preference for local versus national initiatives, they found that consumers take into account the size of the company that is doing the advertising. For companies that are large, people respond more positively to national causes being supported. For companies that are small, positive effects are seen for local causes. This ‘fit’ effect shows that research on communicating the type of CSR activity can be dependent on other variables associated companies. Therefore, if unknown brands are being used in CSR advertising research, providing additional context can lead to better understanding of how and what to communicate about the company as well as the social initiative.

Developing strategies for communicating CSR

The specific promotional activities undertaken to communicate CSR also can alter how consumers ultimately respond to those communications. By varying whether social media CSR ads feature product visuals or cause-related visuals, as well as whether the ads invite the viewer to feel included in the cause initiative (‘we’ vs ‘you’), Han and Lee (2021) were able to see the differential effects such that product-focused ads result in a preference for participatory messages, whereas visuals that already focus on the cause do not lead to a preference for explicit inclusion in the CSR cause.

Choi (2020) considers what to do when needing to communicate CSR initiatives that might not be a great fit with the brand. Looking at both message and audience factors, it was found that for brands that are communicating CSR initiatives that are high or low fits in terms of the matching of their functions show no benefit when using message strategies that emphasize the relational or conceptual fit between the initiative and the brand. However, for moderate functional matches, a relational strategy can help consumers understand why the two might belong together. Additionally, it was found that fit between company and cause only led to better outcomes for low-involvement consumers.

Exploring native advertising for advertising CSR media strategies

While brand, message, and audience factors are all critical to better understanding CSR advertising. The media the messages appear in are also a critical factor, though often not the focus of studies which may note the medium used as an afterthought rather than as a key shaper of the outcome. In Wu and Overton (2021), native CSR ads, used for communicating after a crisis are shown to be differently received based on whether the ad is identified as an ad, primarily through perceived manipulativeness. Additionally, they show that the type of crisis being communicated matters in whether identification of the ad ultimately affects consumer perception of the ad. The way that people perceive CSR messages may depend on the type of communication afforded by that medium and how people perceive communicating in various ways.

Closing remarks

Consumers have become increasingly adamant that companies they patronize conduct business in a socially responsible manner and communicate that responsibility as well. As the advertising industry evolves in how it practices and communicates CSR, the academy too most focus its efforts to understand how processes and messaging must change to incorporate CSR into advertising. While much CSR research to this point has resided in other disciplines, this special issue seeks to kickstart and offer some guidance to a growing area of interest in advertising scholarship. Research presented in this special issue illustrates way in which CSR considerations could impact each stage of the advertising strategic planning process and suggests potential fruitful avenues for future research on advertising CSR.

Notes on Contributors

Jameson Hayes (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising + Public Relations and Director of the Public Opinion Lab at the University of Alabama.

Brittany R.L. Duff (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is an Associate Professor of Advertising in the College of Media at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.