Advertising Philanthropy: Consumers’ perception of Corporate Social Responsibility Marketing

Absztrakt (kivonat)

The paper takes a theoretical approach on the analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from the historical point of view, as well as presents the concept differently from Public Relations and Marketing perspectives, showing practical examples to each. The study analyses the critiques towards CSR and provides explanations to factors that raised negative opinions over time. The practical research explores the consumers’ attraction levels to different Corporate Social Responsibility causes combined with Marketing tactics, in order to shed light on a specific structure or set of elements that appeals to the public in a CSR campaign and the brand that stands behind it. The questionnaire-based study used three sets of unique advertisements combining CSR and Marketing elements. The questions focused on measuring attitudes, according to the multidimensional approach, consisting of the affective, cognitive, and behavioral components. The results demonstrate that Environmental sustainability and Charitable giving as CSR causes are the most effective in building attitudes towards an advertisement and the brand. The most successful Marketing techniques were proven to be Appeal to emotions and Stating facts. The analysis of the interaction between CSR causes and Marketing techniques has shown that using the Environmental cause paired with Emotions tactic is the most productive scenario in attitude building. The paper also clarifies what sets work best for Public Relations or Marketing strategies separately to reach the best results. The data gathered can be used in the future to narrow down the results or approach separate marketing personas according to the characteristics of age, location, or educational background in other studies.