ABSTRACT
When exposed to cause-related marketing advertisements that use guilt appeals, consumers actively try to interpret the motives behind the company's message and consequently accept (or resist) the persuasion attempt. This study demonstrates that high-emotional-intensity cause-related marketing advertisements create suspicion that the company truly might not be committed to the social cause. If the advertisement is low in emotional intensity, however, guilt appeals lower negative inferences and act as a stimulus to foster consumer identification and positive perceptions of corporate image.
MANAGEMENT SLANT
Guilt-appeal intensity, as manifested with varying levels of emotion aroused by advertisements, influences consumer perceptions of corporate image.
Guilt appeals that are high in emotional intensity are perceived as manipulative and can affect consumer perceptions and sales.
Evoking high-intensity guilt appeals should be avoided in cause-related marketing advertising.
Pretesting is recommended for guilt-appeal advertisement copy conveying positive motives of the brand's support to the social cause.
INTRODUCTION
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
—Voltaire
Supporting a cause for the benefit of society is a widely used practice by companies, commonly known as cause-related marketing or cause marketing (Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). Studies have shown that cause-related marketing reinforces brand image and can be a source of competitive advantage (Adkins, 2011; Vanhamme, Lindgreen, Reast, and Van Popering, 2012; Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). Marketing professionals therefore increasingly aim to leverage companies' cause-related marketing initiatives as communication tools to persuade consumers to buy products and services and to create positive perceptions of the company (Hesz and Neophytou, 2010; Hudson, 2013; Roberts, 2009).
Cause-marketing advertisements often use appeals to the emotion of guilt. In a 2016 fundraising campaign with the Red Cross, Ikea created the replica of a war-damaged home in Syria in some of its stores. The replica highlighted the Syrian citizens' plight and implicitly appealed to consumers' guilt to encourage donations to Red Cross. For the same purpose, Unilever uses highly sympathetic language and real-life testimonies in its cause-related marketing campaign (#ShareAMeal Program) supporting the Feeding America charity in fighting child hunger.
Scholarly research has revealed the popularity of guilt appeals. Among other aspects, existing studies have examined the conceptualization and operationalization of guilt appeals in advertising (Bozinoff and Ghingold, 1983), the role of guilt appeals in crowdfunding campaigns (Chen, Thomas, and Kohli, 2016), and the impact of guilt appeals on consumers' attitudes toward commercial advertisements (Coulter and Pinto, 1995; Cotte, Coulter, and Moore, 2005). Notwithstanding, knowledge on the effect of guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising remains scarce, barring a few prior studies showing that cause-related marketing efforts are more persuasive at soliciting charitable donations when guilt-arousing appeals are present, rather than absent (Basil, Ridgway, and Basil, 2006; Chang, 2011).
Issues regarding the effect of guilt appeals, however, go beyond the mere presence of appeals in advertisements. The degree of emotional appeal, in fact, can vary across brands and cause-related marketing campaigns. Extant consumer research on emotions, grounded in differential emotions theory (Izard, 1977), suggests that consumers' emotions vary in intensity. Emotional appeals, such as guilt appeals, similarly can vary in intensity.
Some initial evidence shows that high-intensity appeals at times increase negative (rather than positive) responses from consumers (Coulter and Pinto, 1995; Pinto and Priest, 1991). Taking prior consumer research into account, the authors examined the relative efficacy of low-intensity versus high-intensity guilt appeals at enhancing profitable customer outcomes, namely corporate image and purchase intentions, in the hitherto overlooked context of cause-related marketing advertising. The authors addressed earlier calls for further research on the role of intensity in guilt-arousing appeals (Antonetti and Baines, 2015; O'Keefe, 2000).
The current authors extend research on the psychological processes underlying consumer responses to guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising. Corporate social initiatives and advertising communicate the company's values and identity (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003). As beliefs about a company's identity become self-referential and self-defining, consumers identify themselves with the company in a process known as consumer–company identification (Pratt, 1998).
Consumer identification occurs when corporate social initiatives convey values of the company that are distinctive and relevant to consumers (Ahearne, Bhattacharya, and Gruen, 2005). For instance, when relevant, messages around the company's corporate social responsibility commitments have been found to enhance identification (Homburg, Stierl, and Bornemann, 2013; Lii and Lee, 2012).
Drawing on social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1986), the authors contend that, similar to corporate social responsibility, guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising function as stimuli fostering consumer identification with the company. With low-intensity appeals making persuasion attempts acceptable (Coulter and Pinto, 1995), guilt appeals of varying intensity likely will influence consumer–company identification differentially.
In addition, corporate social initiatives and advertising can trigger attributional processes, such as attributions about the motives of the company (Ellen, Webb, and Mohr, 2006). Attributional thoughts can lead consumers to appreciate or, alternatively, question the motives of the company. These thoughts thus represent critical intervening factors determining whether the intended effects of the company's persuasion attempts are achieved (Kirmani and Zhu, 2007).
Emotional appeals in advertising, in particular, can suffer from allegations of deception (Cotte et al., 2005) when perceived as persuasive and trying to force a response, resulting in negative attitudes toward the brand (Coulter and Pinto, 1995). On the basis of the tenets of attribution theory (Heider, 1958), the current authors argue that attributional thoughts are important in explaining the efficacy of guilt appeals as persuasion attempts in cause-related marketing advertising.
This study offers novel theoretical contributions. The authors demonstrate that in cause-related marketing advertising, low-intensity guilt appeals consistently led to comparatively more positive perceptions of corporate image than did high-intensity appeals. This work consequently extends advertising research on the efficacy of low-intensity guilt appeals in advertisements promoting cause-related marketing initiatives. The findings underscore the need for further advertising research to consider the intensity of emotional appeals explicitly.
The authors also show that low-intensity appeals encourage consumer identification with the company while also lowering suspicion of negative motives of the company. By doing so, the authors advance knowledge on two psychological processes underlying consumer responses to guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising: consumer–company identification and inferred motive.
Finally, the study documents the effect of guilt-appeal intensity in cause-related marketing advertising on profitable customer outcomes of corporate image and purchase intentions. From a managerial perspective, the findings inform decisions on the design of cause-related marketing advertisements that can leverage guilt appeals.
LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT
Guilt Appeals in Advertising
Guilt is a self-conscious emotion that involves remorse for one's thoughts, feelings, and actions or inactions (Izard, 1977). Guilt often is associated with feelings of being responsible for a wrongdoing and for immoral behavior (Kugler and Jones, 1992). One writer suggested that “a paradigmatic guilt-arousing circumstance is one in which a person has acted in some manner inconsistent with his or her own conception of proper conduct” (O'Keefe, 2000, p. 329). Guilt appeals therefore seek to arouse feelings of responsibility indicative of guilt. In persuasive advertising messages, guilt may be aroused due to receivers experiencing cognitive inconsistency, such as inconsistency between their actions and moral standards (Ghingold, 1981).
Extant research refers to three forms of guilt to which advertisements can appeal: anticipatory, reactive, and existential guilt (Cotte et al., 2005; Huhmann and Brotherton, 1997). Anticipatory guilt appeals highlight potentially negative outcomes resulting from an individual's inaction. Reactive guilt appeals, conversely, depict the negative consequences of an individual's actions. Existential guilt appeals emphasize the social inequality between one's own condition and the condition of others (Cotte et al., 2005; Huhmann and Brotherton, 1997).
Prior studies have indicated that most charity and public-service advertisements employ existential guilt appeals—for example, by showing images of people living in impoverished countries (Huhmann and Brotherton, 1997; Lwin and Phau, 2014). Similar advertisements prompt viewers to compare their life with the life of less fortunate others. Given their prevalence in advertising practice, existential guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertisements are the focus of the current study. The present study contends that guilt-appeal intensity, as manifested by varying levels of emotion aroused by advertisements (Coulter and Pinto, 1995; Izard, 1977), influences consumer perceptions of corporate image, as discussed below.
Guilt-Appeal Intensity And Corporate Image
Extant evidence on the effectiveness of guilt appeals in advertisements is sparse and shows inconsistent findings. A number of studies have suggested that guilt appeals are effective in encouraging problem-focused coping, especially when advertising messages communicate gains associated with problem-solving behavior (Agrawal and Duhachek, 2010; Duhachek, Agarwal, and Han, 2012). Feelings of guilt triggered by the appeal have been shown to activate a sense of responsibility to act, which ultimately leads to prosocial behavior (Basil et al., 2006) and general commitment to take action (Dahl, Honea, and Manchanda, 2003).
Another body of work, however, contends that guilt appeals are not effective always, because they can cause annoyance and irritation (O'Keefe, 2000) and feelings of being manipulated (Hibbert, Smith, Davies, and Ireland, 2007), especially when made explicit to consumers. An explanation for the persuasion inefficacy of guilt appeals is the inability of consumers to resolve guilt-arousing problems (Antonetti and Baines, 2015). From a psychoanalytic perspective, individuals reject guilt-arousing messages that generate shame, as a mechanism of self-protection (Lewis, 1971).
Prior studies primarily examined the presence versus absence of guilt appeals in advertisements (Chang, 2011) or the extent to which guilt appeals are explicit or implicit (Peloza, White, and Shang, 2013). The same studies considered consumer preferences (Peloza et al., 2013), attitudes toward the featured company (Chang, 2011), and guilt-reparatory behavior (Duhachek et al., 2012). There so far is limited understanding on the role of guilt-appeal intensity.
Advancing knowledge in the domain, one study linked low-intensity guilt appeals to positive consumer attitudes toward the brand and advertisements (Coulter and Pinto, 1995). In the context of cause-related marketing advertising, corporate image is highly relevant, because it provides a conduit for companies to promote their responsible corporate initiatives. Extending the above body of knowledge and answering calls for research on emotional-appeal intensity (Antonetti and Baines, 2015; Coulter and Pinto, 1995), the current authors investigated the effect of guilt-appeal intensity in cause-related marketing advertising on profitable outcomes, such as corporate image and purchase intentions.
According to differential emotions theory (Izard, 1977), emotions vary in intensity. In a similar vein, appeals to emotions vary in intensity and can have differential effects on consumers (Coulter and Pinto, 1995). Appeals in persuasive messages, such as advertisements, are meant to enhance consumers' compliance with the message and positive perceptions of the featured brand. Persuasive messages restricting individual needs for freedom and autonomy, however, might lead consumers cognitively to reject the message (Brehm, 1966). Appeals perceived as overtly manipulative can give impetus to anger and noncompliant behavior (Peloza et al., 2013).
Consistent with the above reasoning, the authors postulated that consumers perceive cause-related marketing advertisements, including high-intensity guilt appeals, as impinging on their freedom of action and autonomy. The authors further proposed that such effect is manifested by lowered corporate-image perceptions. High-intensity appeals could motivate consumers to act defensively, to distance themselves from the message, and to behave unfavorably toward the company (Brehm, 1966). By contrast, low-intensity appeals could result in positive corporate-image perceptions. Thus:
H1: Low-intensity guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising lead to stronger corporate-image perceptions than do high-intensity guilt appeals.
The Mediating Effect Of Consumer–Company Identification
Prior research suggests that needs for self-congruity, self-distinctiveness, and self-enhancement encourage consumers to identify themselves with a brand in such a way that consequent evaluations of the brand also are influenced (Ahearne et al., 2005; Du, Bhattacharya, and Sen, 2007; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). Seeking to extend knowledge on the effects of cause-related marketing advertisements on consumers, the present study puts forward the view that, through guilt appeals, cause-related marketing advertising communicates the company's values. In an effort to address self-enhancement needs, consumers who identify with the values of the advertised brands report consumer–company identification. Consumer–company identification, in turn, explains perceptions of corporate image.
The concept of consumer–company identification is grounded in social identity theory, which postulates that affiliation with a group influences the attitudes and behavior of the members belonging to the group (Tajfel and Turner, 1986). A fundamental assumption of the theory is that social categorization is a natural cognitive process whereby people assign others to social categories in an effort to make sense of reality and to define their self-concept. Social categorization helps people to identify themselves with members of the same social category (i.e., in-group) and to differentiate themselves from nonmembers (i.e., out-group; Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail, 1994). Social categorization and identification therefore are linked intrinsically (Ashforth and Mael, 1989).
Consistent with social identity theory, cause-related marketing advertisements can function as stimuli portraying the company's identity and, consequently, as drivers of consumer identification with the company. When consumers perceive the company's socially oriented messages communicated in cause-related marketing advertising as congruent with their own values, they identify with the company (Homburg et al., 2013; Lii and Lee, 2012). Consumers' identification with the company, in turn, explains their corporate-image perceptions (Vanhamme et al., 2012).
The authors contend that consumers identify with the company and the values portrayed in cause-related marketing advertising when low-intensity guilt appeals are employed (Cornwell and Coote, 2005; Lichtenstein, Drumwright, and Braig, 2004). High-intensity appeals overtly portraying the company's persuasive efforts, on the contrary, can foster resistance to the message and lead to diminished consumer–company identification. It is therefore through the effect of consumer–company identification that low-intensity guilt appeals promote positive perceptions of corporate image. Thus:
H1a: The effect of guilt-appeal intensity in cause-related marketing advertising on corporate image is mediated by consumer–company identification, with corporate image being less favorable as appeal intensity increases.
The Mediating Effect of Inferred Motive
The concept of inferred motive draws on attribution theory (Heider, 1958), postulating that individuals have a natural tendency to act as naïve researchers constantly striving to understand reality and the causes underlying human behavior. This pursuit is a persistent psychological process known as causal attribution (Folkes, 1984). Given that causes are often unobservable, causality is an ascription imposed by the individual and thus inferred or speculated (Weiner, 1986).
Inferred motive is a form of causal attribution by which individuals establish the goals or motivations underlying one's actions. Motives can be either positive or negative, depending on whether an individual's actions are perceived as genuine or manipulative (Campbell, 1999; Joireman, Grégoire, Devenzer, and Tripp, 2013). Social psychology research shows that attributions of motive influence the decision to forgive a transgressor (Reeder, Kumar, Hesson-McInnis, and Trafimow, 2002), with forgiveness typically being associated with attributions of positive motives (Struthers, Eaton, Santelli, Uchiyama, et al., 2008).
The extent to which individuals accept (or resist) persuasion attempts emanated by advertisements often depends on inferences about the motives of the source of the advertisement, such as the corporate brand (Ahluwalia and Burnkrant, 2004; Isaac and Grayson, 2017; Kirmani and Zhu, 2007). Inferences of motives are important when guilt is aroused. Guilt is a negative emotion that creates cognitive inconsistencies (Ghingold, 1981). In an effort to protect the self and reduce cognitive inconsistencies, consumers infer the motives underlying the company's decision to arouse negative emotions (Wheatley and Oshikawa, 1970). Inferences of negative motive for perceived credibility of social-marketing advertising appealing to guilt have been shown to enhance consumers' negative attitudes toward the company (Cotte et al., 2005).
Extending prior research, the authors examined inferences of motive in relation to cause-related marketing advertisements that include guilt appeals of varying intensity. The authors contend that, consistent with attribution theory (Weiner, 1986, 2000), consumers are rational thinkers and active interpreters of persuasive messages. In this role, consumers strive to understand the company's motives for arousing guilt. In particular, the intensity of guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising is expected to dictate consumer inferences about the motives of the company and, consequently, corporate-image perceptions. As the intensity of the appeal lowers, consumers' perceptions that the company is ill-intentioned in its persuasion attempt (i.e., advertisement) likely will diminish, whereas favorable corporate-image perceptions will increase. Low-intensity guilt appeals thus promote positive perceptions of corporate image through the effect of inferred motive. Thus:
H1b: The effect of guilt-appeal intensity in cause-related marketing advertising on corporate image is mediated by inferred motive, with corporate image being less favorable as appeal-intensity increases.
Corporate Image And Purchase Intentions
Guilt appeals can influence perceptions as well as behavior. Research on health consumption, for instance, shows that feelings of guilt motivate reparative actions, such as switching to healthy food alternatives (Cornish, 2012). Similarly, sustainability research has demonstrated that individuals anticipating guilt from inactions are inclined to support proenvironmental behavior (Muralidharan and Sheehan, 2017). Consumers engage in behavior that reinforces their perceptions while also minimizing cognitive inconsistencies aroused by guilt appeals.
Consistent with the above evidence, the authors posit that guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertisements influence consumer perceptions of corporate image and, consequently, purchase intentions. A number of studies have examined the link between corporate image and purchase intentions in the contexts of environmental marketing (Ko, Hwang, and Kim, 2013; Miles and Covin, 2000), cross-country branding (Hsieh, Pan, and Setiono, 2004), and new-product evaluations (Gürhan-Canli and Batra, 2004). There is, however, little research addressing the corporate image–purchase intentions relationship in the context of cause-related marketing advertising employing negative emotional appeals.
The authors contend that after the exposure to guilt-arousing cause-related marketing advertisements, positive corporate-image perceptions will result in consumer behavioral responses that are beneficial to the company. Consumers likely will behave in a way that reinforces existing perceptions of the corporate brand and circumvents cognitive inconsistencies associated with guilt emotion. The hypothesized effect stems from prior research suggesting a positive link among cause-related marketing, brand attitude, and purchase intentions (Hajjat, 2003) and between corporate social responsibility and consumers' purchase intentions (Groza, Pronschinske, and Walker, 2011; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). Thus:
H2: Corporate-image perceptions resulting from the exposure to guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising positively influence purchase intentions.
The research hypotheses are summarized in the conceptual model in Figure 1.
METHODOLOGY
Research Design and Sample
The authors used a between-subjects experimental design, consistent with prior research on guilt (Block, 2005; Muralidharan and Sheehan, 2017). The sample consisted of U.K. consumers mainly in younger age groups, given their high levels of familiarity with the brands selected for the study. Out of the 270 U.K. consumers who participated in the survey, the final usable sample had 181 participants across three sectors (n = 60, clothing; n = 60, technology; n = 61, food).
The sample split was even across experimental groups. For clothing, the sample included 55 percent women, of whom 58 percent belonged to the 18–24 years age group and 42 percent belonged to the 25–34 years age group. For technology, the sample included 53 percent women, with 60 percent in the 18–24 years age group, 38 percent in the 25–34 years age group, and 2 percent older than 35 years. For food, the sample included 47 percent women, with 63 percent in the 18–24 years age group and 31 percent in the 25–34 years age group.
Stimuli
Experimental stimuli were developed on the basis of two pretests. Pretest 1 (n = 40) identified the brands and social causes to be included in the stimuli. Consistent with previous research (Roehm and Tybout, 2006), the authors selected market-leading brands in the three sectors examined, namely clothing, technology, and food. As market leaders, these brands enjoy high market shares in the respective sectors.
Participants were shown 10 market-leading brands, along with a list of social causes, and were asked to rate familiarity with the brands and the importance of social causes. Finally, three brands rated as the most familiar (H&M, Samsung, Subway) and two social causes rated as the most important (child hunger relief and child cancer awareness) were selected.
The use of real brands ensured that respondents could relate to the newly created advertisements (Alcaniz, Cáceres, and Pérez, 2010; Singh, 2016) and enhanced the realism of the experiment (Morales, Amir, and Lee, 2017). The selection of brands with high familiarity and market shares (and therefore high penetration and popularity) also enhanced the likelihood that respondents were users of the brand, which is appropriate for the study given that brand users (past and present) are known to respond to advertising awareness differentially to nonusers (Bird and Ehrenberg, 1970; Vaughan, Beal, and Romaniuk, 2016).
The authors created 1-minute-long advertisement clips as experimental stimuli. Guilt-appeal intensity was manipulated at high and low levels, in keeping with a previous approach (Peloza et al., 2013). In the high-intensity condition, the authors manipulated perceptual prominence of the message through the use of vivid imagery, such as images of severely malnourished children; strong language; and melancholic music. In the low-intensity condition, the authors used less vivid imagery, such as images depicting brighter days for children fighting cancer, and less melancholic music and language.
The images employed in the advertisement clips were selected through pretest with the respondents, consistent with previous work (Coulter and Pinto, 1995). For generalizability purposes, the authors replicated the experiment across the three sectors. Pretest 2 (n = 40) confirmed that the experimental manipulations functioned as desired (detailed results are discussed in the “Analysis and Results” section).
Data Collection and Measures
Data were collected through a self-completion questionnaire created in Qualtrics and administered electronically through handheld tablet devices. Participants were approached through street intercepts in popular shopping areas in the southeast region of England and randomly were allocated to one experimental condition, consistent with a between-subjects design (Kamins and Assael, 1987). Questions were randomized to partially offset bias associated with the order of presentation of questions (Bradburn and Mason, 1964; DeMoranville and Bienstock, 2003). Established scales were used and contextualized for the study (See Table 1). Correlations between the constructs are reported (See Appendix A).
ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
The authors analyzed the data in three stages. First, after manipulation and realism checks, they assessed the measurement model using the partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling in SmartPLS 3.0 software (SmartPLS GmBH, Bönningstedt, Germany). Next, the authors inspected mean differences for the conceptual variables across high-intensity versus low-intensity appeal conditions using multivariate analysis of variance, followed by the estimation of the impact of corporate image on purchase intentions using regression analysis. Finally, the authors tested the mediating effects of consumer–company identification and inferred motive using mediation analysis in PROCESS (Preacher and Hayes, 2008).
Realism and Manipulation Checks
Results from realism checks confirmed that participants perceived the advertisements as realistic (mean realism ratings were significantly greater than the scale midpoint of 4). For the manipulation checks, participants indicated feelings of guilt. Results from univariate analyses of variance confirmed that participants' feelings of guilt were significantly different across high-intensity and low-intensity guilt conditions, in all three sectors: clothing, t(58) = 9.91, p < .01; technology, t(58) = 8.03, p < .01; food, t(59) = 16.01, p < .01.
Guilt ratings were significantly higher in the high-intensity guilt-appeal group (clothing: M = 3.99, SD = 0.94; technology: M = 3.74, SD = 0.88; food: M = 5.20, SD = 0.81) when compared with the low-intensity guilt-appeal group (clothing: M = 2.04, SD = 0.52; technology: M = 2.19, SD = 0.58; food: M = 2.26, SD = 0.62). Informal qualitative feedback from participants also established that the experimental manipulations functioned as desired.
Measurement Model Assessment
For the measurement model assessment, Cronbach's alpha (α) and composite reliability (Pc) estimates for all constructs were above the recommended threshold of .7 (α = .73–.97, Pc =.85–.97). The internal-consistency reliability of the scales thus was confirmed (Henseler, Ringle, and Sinkovics, 2009). The loadings of the single items on the corresponding construct were above the acceptable cutoff point of .7, which thus confirms item reliability.
All constructs showed average-variance-extracted (AVE) estimates exceeding the threshold of .5, which thus confirms convergent validity (Chin, 1998). The squared correlations of a construct's average variance extracted were greater than their bivariate correlations with other constructs, which thus confirms discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Results from discriminant validity checks are presented (See Appendix B). All constructs achieved adequate reliability and validity; thus, the data were deemed amenable to further analysis.
Main and Indirect Effects
Consistent with expectations, the authors found a multivariate effect of guilt-appeal intensity on all outcome variables, with low-intensity appeals increasing corporate-image perceptions (Wilks's Λ = .000). The use of low-intensity guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertisements generally increased consumer–company identification and inferences about positive motives of the company, with a few sector-specific differences as discussed below.
Descriptive statistics across all three sectors are summarized (See Table 2). The effect of low-intensity guilt appeals at enhancing positive inferences about the motives of the company featured in cause-related marketing advertisements was consistent across all three sectors: clothing, F(1, 55) = 6.56, p < .05; technology, F(1, 55) = 19.45, p < .01; food, F(1, 56) = 130.34, p < .001. By contrast, when the authors considered consumer–company identification, low-intensity guilt appeals enhanced consumer–company identification in the food sector, F(1, 56) = 10.99, p < .05, and marginally in the technology sector, F(1, 55) = 2.77, p = .10. In the clothing sector, however, no consumer–company identification increment was shown, F(1, 55) = 0.006, p > .05.
Overall, consistent with the authors' theorizing, both consumer–company identification and inferred motive were significantly above the scale midpoint in the low-intensity appeal condition and significantly below the midpoint in the high-intensity appeal condition. This finding indicates that guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertisements were beneficial when low in intensity. Hence, Hypothesis 1 is supported. The authors conducted the analyses again considering brand attitude, age, and gender as controls and did not find any evidence that the variables affected the results.
Results from the regression analysis confirmed that corporate-image perceptions resulting from the exposure to guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertisements positively influenced purchase intentions. The finding held across all three sectors (clothing: ß = .91, p = .000; technology: ß = .83, p = .000; food: ß = .97, p = .000). Hypothesis 2 therefore also is supported.
Finally, the authors examined the mediating effect of consumer–company identification and inferred motive using an approach from previous work (Preacher and Hayes, 2008, Model 4). Results of the mediation effects across the three sectors are presented (See Table 3; the mediation model results are provided graphically in Appendix C). The indirect effect of guilt appeal intensity on corporate image through inferred motive was significant in the clothing (0.43, confidence interval [CI]: 0.21, 0.59) and technology sectors (0.24, CI: 0.04, 0.42) but not in the food sector (0.09, CI: 0.002, 0.31). The indirect effect through consumer–company identification was found in the technology sector only (0.35, CI: 0.20, 0.49). Hypotheses 1a and 1b hence partially were supported.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Results from this study show that guilt-appeal intensity in cause-related marketing advertising matters. Compared with high-intensity guilt appeals, low-intensity appeals were more effective at influencing consumers' perceptions of corporate image as well as their purchase intentions. The findings indicate that guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising play a pivotal role in shaping consumers' perceptions of the corporate brand and purchase intentions, if set at low intensity levels.
The above evidence adds to prior research in advertising suggesting that guilt appeals are most effective when less overt (Coulter and Pinto, 1995; Lindsey, 2005; O'Keefe, 2000). The findings provide novel insights by demonstrating the efficacy of low-intensity guilt appeals in the context of cause-related marketing advertising across three sectors.
The findings also advance knowledge on the psychological processes underlying consumer responses to guilt-arousing cause-related marketing advertisements. The first psychological process concerns causal attributions, in particular inferences of motive. Cause-marketing advertisements that include intense guilt appeals encourage attributions that the company is ill-intentioned, as manifested with lowered inferences of positive motives. That is, people less likely will infer that the company is genuine in its persuasion attempt and truly willing to support the social cause.
The above effect was evident in the technology and clothing sectors in this study but not in the food sector. The absence of the mediating effect in the food sector emphasizes the distinctiveness of the three brands used in the study and indicates consumers' ability to differentiate among these. Given that the selected social cause related to child hunger, participants might have perceived the food brand as highly compatible with the cause; thus, it might have influenced consumer evaluations (Pracejus and Olsen, 2004; Rifon, Choi, Trimble, and Li, 2004; Samu and Wymer, 2009). In this context, perceived cause–brand compatibility likely outweighed the effect of guilt-appeal intensity.
The second and equally important psychological process relates to consumer–company identification. The study revealed that high-intensity guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising lowered positive perceptions of corporate image by diminishing consumer–company identification. When exposed to high-intensity guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising, consumers seemed to be unwilling to identify with the company; through such psychological process, they formed perceptions of corporate image. According to social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) and prior research on consumer–company identification (Homburg et al., 2013; Lii and Lee, 2012), consumer–company identification occurs when consumers perceive the company's identity to satisfy their needs for self-distinctiveness and self-enhancement.
The current authors showed that high-intensity guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising did not satisfy consumers' self-definitional needs, thereby preventing consumer identification. In other words, high-intensity guilt appeals failed to act as a stimulus to foster consumer identification. The finding specifically applies to the technology sector, where consumer–company identification with the company showed a mediating effect, not the clothing and food sectors. Given the relatively high level of involvement with electronic products (Gu, Park, and Konana, 2012; Laurent and Kapferer, 1985), consumers may identify themselves with technology brands—a plausible explanation for this finding.
Theoretical Contributions And Implications for Practice
The study makes notable contributions to the literature on advertising and cause-related marketing. Evidence on the efficacy of guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising so far has overlooked accounts from differential emotions theory (Izard, 1977), which postulates that emotions vary in intensity. Adopting the above view, this study is the first to investigate guilt-appeal intensity in cause-related marketing advertising and its effects on corporate image and purchase intention.
Guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising are not always efficacious, as evidenced by this study. Such appeals even can raise suspicion of negative motives of the company when they are high in intensity. The above finding is noteworthy and extends research portraying a largely positive picture of cause-related marketing advertising as a persuasion attempt that positively affects brand image, consumers' attitudes, and their behavior (e.g., Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001; Vanhamme et al., 2012; Varadarajan and Menon, 1988; Westberg and Pope, 2014). The first contribution of the present study, therefore, is to shed light on the potential risks associated with the use of high-intensity guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising.
The second contribution is in advancing persuasion literature. This study extends knowledge on the effectiveness of emotional appeals as persuasion attempts (Cotte et al., 2005; Coulter and Pinto, 1995). Although the findings apply to guilt appeals specifically, appeals to negative emotions in general could be inefficacious in creating desirable consumer responses if the appeal intensity level is overlooked. In addition, by documenting the effects of guilt-appeal intensity on corporate image and consequent purchase intentions, the study establishes the link between guilt-appeal intensity and profitable customer outcomes.
The study's third contribution lies in advancing knowledge of the psychological processes underlying consumer responses to cause-related marketing advertising, in particular advertising that uses guilt appeals. Although the use of advertising promoting cause-related marketing initiatives through guilt appeals is widespread, research addressing consumers' reactions to cause-related marketing advertising remains underdeveloped. The authors have established the relevance of consumer–company identification and have shown that advertising messages embedding high-intensity guilt appeals fail to stimulate consumer identification with the company.
Another notable insight on the psychological processes underlying consumer responses to guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertisements concerns the role of causal attributions. Past research suggests that consumers often attempt to understand the causes of events, the motives, and the intentions behind behavior (Heider, 1958; Weiner, 1986). As discussed earlier, attributions help consumers to accept (or resist) persuasion attempts embedded in, for instance, advertising (Ahluwalia and Burnkant, 2004; Isaac and Grayson, 2017).
The current authors have shown that when consumers were exposed to cause-related marketing advertisements, they actively tried to interpret the motives behind the company's message and consequently accepted (or resisted) the persuasion attempt. The authors have demonstrated that high-intensity appeals in cause-related marketing advertisements created suspicion that the company truly might not be committed to the social cause. More broadly, this study puts forth social identity (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) and attribution theories (Heider, 1958) as relevant theoretical lenses for explaining how consumers respond to cause-related marketing advertisements arousing guilt.
From a managerial perspective, the study's results demonstrate that guilt-appeal intensity in cause-related marketing advertising can produce variations in consumers' perceptions and behavioral intentions. The authors thus offer two recommendations for advertising agencies. First, practitioners should accord careful consideration to guilt-appeal intensity when crafting cause-related marketing advertisements. In particular, high-intensity guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising should be avoided, because these lower positive corporate-image perceptions and, in turn, purchase intentions.
Second, advertisers are advised to pretest advertising copy extensively, paying particular attention to the intensity of guilt appeals embedded in the advertisement. In the process of creating cause-related marketing advertisements, advertisers can leverage low-intensity guilt appeals to enhance consumer–company identification and positive corporate-image perceptions.
Additionally, the study demonstrates that guilt appeals of high intensity activated inferences that the company was not genuine in its efforts to support the advertised social cause. Participants inferred that these appeals were driven instead by motivations to persuade consumers and increase profits. This finding underscores the importance for marketing managers of being aware of the fact that consumers naturally are inclined to infer the motives behind the company's support for a social cause. Such inferences can influence corporate-image perceptions and purchase intentions adversely. It therefore is critical for companies to convey genuine motives for supporting a social cause.
Creative agencies responsible for designing cause-related marketing advertisements should assess carefully whether the brand's motives implicitly or explicitly are conveyed to consumers and whether such motives are seen as genuine. Brands also should exercise caution while courting controversial issues. A Pepsi advertising campaign featuring the model Kendall Jenner (BBC News, 2017) backfired, for example, and the brand was accused of exploiting a social issue. The authors recommend that companies be proactive at inoculating negative motives—for instance, through the use of apposite images, language, and music in the advertisements that lower the intensity of the guilt appeal.
Limitations and Further Research
The study has limitations that provide fruitful avenues for further research. The authors examined the mediating effects of cusumer–company identification and inferred motive. Although the literature suggests that the above constructs are important and merit attention, other variables may affect how consumers evaluate guilt-appeal intensity in cause-related marketing advertising. Guilt, for example, is recognized widely as a self-regulatory emotion (Izard, 1977), and self-motives may play an important role in encouraging reparative actions that lower feelings of guilt. Self-motivation also has been shown to influence consumer–company identification and, ultimately, behavior (Wolter and Cronin, 2016). Future studies could advance research by examining the role of self-motives in explaining how consumers respond to guilt-arousing cause-related marketing advertising. Individuals also might hold multiple and distinct personal and social identities (Fombelle, Jarvis, Ward, and Ostrom, 2012). Future research could investigate how different types of guilt appeal in cause-related marketing advertising prompt consumers to activate multiple identities.
A second limitation is that the authors considered appeals to existential guilt, given their relevance in cause-related marketing advertising (Antonetti and Baines, 2015; Huhmann and Brotherton, 1997). Future research could investigate whether and how the intensity of appeals to other forms of guilt—anticipatory or reactive—influence consumers' perceptions of the corporate brand. Another area of future research relates to how guilt appeals influence different parts of the brain; in this work, researchers can employ the fascinating advancements in neuroscience research.
The authors measured corporate-image perceptions, given that cause-related marketing advertising is initiated by the corporate brand. Future research could extend the study's findings by testing the relative impact of more and less intense guilt appeals on consumers' attitudes toward product brands rather than the corporate brand. Understanding attitudes toward the cause-related marketing advertisement campaign and message framing are other fruitful areas for advancing research.
Usage bias is addressed in this study, to an extent, through pretesting for brand familiarity and market shares as well as through the random allocation of participants to experimental conditions. Nonetheless, future studies can account for usage bias more explicitly, consistent with sample selection in advertising studies. Prior studies, for example, showed the differential impact of users (past and present) and nonusers on brand image (Romaniuk, Bogomolova, and Dall'Olmo Riley, 2012) and advertising-awareness measures (Vaughan et al., 2016). Recent consumer research distinguishes between degrees of brand usage, whether direct (e.g., driving a Mercedes Benz car) or peripheral (e.g., reading about the Mercedes Benz car; Park and John, 2018). Future research could examine whether the effects of high- and low-intensity guilt appeals vary between brand users and nonusers as well as between well-known and lesser-known advertisements.
Another limitation of this study relates to the measurement of purchase intentions. Although intentions are used widely as a proxy for actual behavior, the findings in the present study are restricted to the identification of associations among guilt-appeal intensity, consumer–company identification, and intentions, which might (or might not) lead eventually to actual behavior (brand purchase). A fruitful avenue for further research could be to explore the effect of guilt-appeal intensity on actual purchase behavior.
Finally, the authors examined guilt appeals in cause-related marketing advertising across three sectors—namely, food, technology, and clothing—using a largely younger age-group sample. For generalizability purposes, future research could replicate the present study using different product categories, services, and social causes; brands with varying levels of familiarity; and participants across different age groups.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jaywant Singh is professor of marketing at Kingston Business School, Kingston University, London. His research spans consumer behavior, advertising, corporate and digital branding, brand alliances, service failure and recovery management, cause-related marketing, and corporate social responsibility. He has authored books on consumer behavior and brand management and has published extensively in such international journals as Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Advertising Research.
Benedetta Crisafulli is lecturer (assistant professor) in marketing at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her research interests are in consumer behavior, particularly consumer psychology in relation to offline and online service failures; advertising; and branding. She has published in peer-reviewed international journals, including Journal of Service Research, and Computers in Human Behavior, and practitioner-oriented publications, such as Admap.
La Toya Quamina is lecturer in marketing at Westminster Business School, University of Westminster, London. Her research interests are in the areas of consumer behavior and brand management, with a focus on brand-alliance strategy and the psychology of consumers toward brands experiencing reputational crises. She coauthored a chapter on strategic brand alliances in The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Brand Management (Routledge, 2016).
Appendix A Construct Correlations
Appendix B Discriminant Validity
APPENDIX C Mediation Model (across Three Sectors)
- Received April 11, 2017.
- Received (in revised form) March 17, 2018.
- Accepted May 1, 2018.
- Copyright© 2018 ARF. All rights reserved.
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