2003/01/01 by Satya Menon, Barbara E. Kahn · 2 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification #Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting #Environmental Sustainability in Business
paper · doi:10.1207/s15327663jcp1303_12
openalex publication_date 2003/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We examined the benefits to a corporate sponsor of two types of philanthropic activities — cause promotions and advocacy advertising. Results from 4 laboratory studies indicate that perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are affected by consumers’ elaboration levels. Consumer perceptions of CSR are more favorable for cause promotions, which do not receive much elaboration, than they are for advocacy advertising, which prompts more elaboration. In addition, perceived congruence between the sponsor and the social issue is shown to moderate these effects: Higher congruence between the sponsor and social issue increases favorable ratings of CSR for cause promotions but only if elaboration on the sponsorship activity is facilitated. On the other hand, lower congruence increases favorable ratings of CSR for advocacy advertising as long as elaboration on the sponsorship is not constrained. We also found that higher congruence enhances CSR ratings if participants are primed to focus their attention on the sponsor brand, whereas lower congruence enhances CSR if participants are primed to focus their attention on the social issue.