Corporate social advocacy and brand authenticity: Evaluating the influences of promise types and value congruence

ABSTRACT

This study examines how consumers form judgments of authenticity regarding corporate social advocacy initiatives. A common way to show support for a cause is through a brand promise in which a business shares its intent to support, donate, or act in accordance with an advocacy issue. Grounded in consumer-brand relationship theory, we conducted an experiment with 620 U.S. adults to analyze how consumers perceive corporate social advocacy efforts aimed at reducing environmental injustice. We used a 4 × 2 between-subjects design to test how promise type (symbolic, experiential, philanthropic, or explicit), leadership congruence (congruent or incongruent), and social justice perceptions affected authenticity and purchase intentions. Results confirmed the importance of having leaders whose values align with company-endorsed causes, with conditional support for social justice perceptions and the use of explicit and philanthropic promises (e.g., taking action and donating a percent of sales). We discuss the implications of our findings for leading authentic corporate social advocacy initiatives and building dynamic brand consumer relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Activism
• corporate social advocacy
• reputation
• strategic communication
• sustainability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by a Page Legacy Scholar Grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at The Pennsylvania State University. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Penn State.

Notes on contributors

Nicole O’Donnell

Nicole O’Donnell, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Her primary research focuses on effective message design for health and environmental campaigns, with an interest in understanding how audiences engage with educational, inspiring, and entertaining campaign messages.

Yanni Ma

Yanni Ma, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of organizational and environmental communication in the College of Liberal Arts at Oregon State University. Her research centers on science, environment, health and risk communication. Specifically, she is interested in understanding the underlying mechanism of people processing persuasive messages, and what contributes to the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of those messages.

Yoon-Joo Lee

Yoon-Joo Lee, Ph.D. is an associate professor and the assistant chair of strategic communication in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Her primary research specialties are the roles of consumers’ underlying self-value and motives in perceiving CSR advertising and advocacy advertising. She also is interested in ethnic minority consumers and how advertising plays a role in promoting health issues.

Minhee Choi

Minhee Choi, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the department of public relations & strategic communication management at Texas Tech University. Her research interests center on strategic communication with particular focus on advocacy and activism by examining the effects of communication strategies related to various controversial social issues.