This document summarizes a study that investigated how two message variables - social topic information and CSR commitment information - influence the effectiveness of CSR advertising. The study found that providing more specific CSR commitment information in ads (rather than just general policy information) significantly reduced consumer skepticism of the ads. However, including social topic information did not significantly interact with commitment information to further reduce skepticism as was hypothesized. The results suggest that consumer skepticism of CSR ads can be inhibited by including more detailed messaging about a company's CSR initiatives and impacts.

1. Manipulating message variables for best
practice in advertising CSR
Alan Pomering
Lester W. Johnson
Gary Noble
CSR Communication, Amsterdam, 2011

2. Introduction
 An investigation of two message variables
believed necessary for effective advertising
about CSR initiatives:
 Social topic information
 CSR Commitment information

3. Literature Review
 Increasing stakeholder expectation for CSR
 Consumers report such information will influence
their purchase behaviour (Cone/Echo, 2011)
– “Consumers globally believe companies have an explicit responsibility to change the
world.” – 10,000 consumers in 10 countries
 Consumer responsibility can influence the fate of
individual firms, but also the direction of industries
and economies (Hansen and Schrader,1997)

4. Communicating CSR because…
 Offers a new frontier of competitive advantage (Becker-
Olsen, Cudmore, and Hill, 2006; Pirsch, Gupta, and Landreth Grau, 2007)
 Enhance brand differentiation (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001)
 Brand equity (Hoeffler and Keller, 2002)
 Competitive advantage (Porter and Kramer, 2002)
 Customer loyalty (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003; Maignan, Ferrell
and Hult, 1999)
 Superior financial performance (Orlitzky, Schmidt, and
Rynes, 2003)

5. CSR-based Marcoms Examples

6. But
 “If consumer response to CSR was reliable
and strong, most companies would have
embraced the concept by now”
(Mohr and Webb, 2005, p. 124)

7. Research Problem
 Firms want to inform key audiences (e.g.
consumers) about their CSR initiatives
 Using corporate image advertising
 Obstacles to effectiveness
– E.g. Scepticism/cynicism
 How to improve effectiveness?

8. Scepticism a Problem
 Scepticism hinders persuasion
 Firms typically fail to specify the impact of their CSR
achievements, preferring vague or abstract claims
instead (Pracejus, Olsen, and Brown, 2003/4)
 Self-promoter’s paradox (Ashforth and Gibbs, 1990)
 Cognitive response theory (Wright, 1973) and social
judgment theory (Eagly &Chaiken, 1993)
 CSR claims are typically credence information
situations (Darby and Karni, 1973), so trust is important

9. Inhibiting Scepticism
 Through the message?
 An experimental test

10. Hypotheses
 Social topic information
– H1: Social Topic Information should interact with (and
contextualise) CSR Commitment information to reduce
scepticism
 CSR Commitment information
– H2: Should have a main effect on scepticism toward CSR
advertising claims - greater specificity should reduce
scepticism

11. Our Approach
 Unknown brand
 Global arms trade
(social issue)
 Message elements:
– Social topic
– CSR Commitment

12. Manipulating Message Variables
 3 levels of Social
Topic
 3 levels of CSR
Commitment

13. Method
 Scenario: a UK bank considering entering the Australian market
 Between-subjects design
 3x3 full factorial design
 N=417 (18 years +) from an online consumer panel
 Pre- and post-exposure questions
 Effects of Ad Skepticism, Product Category Attitude (x2: Banks
and Arms trade), and CSR Attitude removed using analysis of
covariance (ANCOVA)
 Manipulation checks *
 Qs counter-balanced

14. Method: Dependent Variable
 Scepticism toward CSR ad claims (4-item scale)
– One item from Forehand and Grier’s (2003) firm evaluation
scale, “Premier seems like the kind of bank I can trust.”
– Two items from Du, Bhattacharya, and Sen’s (2007) CSR
beliefs scale: “I think Premier is a socially responsible
business.” and “Premier has had real impacts through its
initiatives against the arms trade.”
– A fourth item was added which not only investigates overall
belief but also situates Premier Bank within its competitive
set: “Premier seems like the sort of bank I can believe.”
– All items were measured on a seven-point scale (Strongly
disagree/Strongly agree), and showed a PCA univariate solution, with
Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93, with item loadings ranged from 0.89 to
0.94

15. Results
 No interaction effect observed (F=0.67; df=2;
p=0.51)
H1 could not be supported
 Main effect of CSR Commitment information was
statistically significant (F=3.38, df=2; p=0.04)
H2 supported

16. Discussion
 Social topic information’s role is likely issue-
dependent (familiarity and attitude important)
 Consumer scepticism can be inhibited with more
specific message content (rather than information on
policies)
 An intuitive result
 Question of message framing through image

17. Limitations
 A single case (product, issue)
 Unknown brand
 Extreme social issue
 Australian marketplace

18. Future Research
 Check known brands
 Good v. bad company reputation
 Range of CSR issues
 Role of image frame
 Current work

19. Questions
Thank you for your attention!