Corporate social and environmental responsibility advertising: Advertising effectiveness as a function of viewing context

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility (CSER) advertising, and programme-advertisement congruency, on advertising effectiveness.In a between-subjects design, participants (N = 128) viewed either three CSER or three neutral advertisements for the same brands embedded in either a 'sustainable' or 'neutral' programme.Measures of memory for advertising (free recall, cued recall, and brand recognition), and buying intention were obtained. The percentage recall and buying intention scores were significantly higher for CSER than neutral advertisements, but there was no effect on brand recognition. There were no significant effects of programme type nor significant interactions between programme and advertisement types found. The effectiveness of CSER advertising as measured by free recall was found to vary as a function of the brand being advertised, which was attributed to differences in the type of message being carried by the advertisement. CSER ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS 2Given companies large investments in advertising (Guttmann, 2019) and the large amount of advertising the public are exposed to, predicted as between 4,000 and 10,000 advertisements a day (Marshall, 2015), it is crucial for advertisers to understand how to make their advertisements interesting, relevant and memorable so they serve their commercial purpose (Bushman, 2007). The literature, indicates that the content of advertisements, and the emotions they elicit, effects advertisement memorability, which is regarded as a good measure of advertisement effectiveness, as consumers who remember advertisements have a higher likelihood of purchasing products (Gunter, 2000). In this study we assess free recall, cued recall and brand recognition as independent, but related, measures of advertisement memorability.This study looks at the efficacy of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) advertisement content. CSR is a company's commitment to increasing its beneficial impact on society, whether that be environmental, social or philanthropic, whilst minimizing its harms (Mohr et al., 2001). The literature suggests CSR activities are no longer considered an optional strategy for business but instead an "inescapable priority" (Porter & Kramer, 2006, p.78). This study replicates and extends the literature in three ways: First, we use three different measures of memory to assess the effectiveness of the advertisements, which has not been done in the CSR advertising literature. Second, we examined the effect of context, namely whether the programme surround would influence advertising effectiveness. Again, we could find no CSR study which examine the congruence effect. Third, and perhaps most importantly, we used actual advertisements rather that those using fictitious brands which have been used in the past and which present problems for the ecological validity of the study. Further, we attempted to ensure both sets of advertisements were similar in terms of their emotional vs rational appeal.CSR policies focusing on...

Apelaciones sociales y publicidad actual: análisis de su eficacia y reflexiones desde el sector

“…En el caso de que estemos ante publicidad corporativa, el atributo tendría que proceder de un programa de acción social o de RSC en el que la institución se haya comprometido de manera firme. Precisamente es la comunicación vinculada con la RSC la que en las dos últimas décadas ha generado un mayor interés por parte de los investigadores en relación con su eficacia para incidir positivamente en la imagen o en la reputación de la empresa (Andreu et al, 2015;Pyle et al, 2022).…”