How Passive Form Messages in CSR Advertisement Improve Consumer Reaction to the Campaign

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature has documented that running a pro-social campaign provides indirect benefits to companies such as higher purchase likelihood and better perceived product performance (Sen and Bhattacharya 2001; Chernev and Blair 2015). However, these positive benefits are observed only when consumers believe that the company has sincere motive for engaging in pro-social campaign (Drumwright 1996; Ellen, Webb, and Mohr 2006). One factor that affects perceptions of company’s sincere motive for running CSR is company-cause congruence. Company-cause congruence refers to the extent to which the supporting company’s core business is associated with the supported charity (Simmons and Becker-Olsen 2006). Some work in CSR and in sponsorship domains has shown that a high congruent campaign is more favored by consumers as it fulfills people’s expectations (Pracejus and Olsen 2004; Rifon et al. 2004). By contrast, when there is a low company-cause congruence, consumers are more likely to elaborate on the campaign due to its unexpectedness and often end up with having more negative thoughts about it (Simmons and Becker-Olsen 2006; Koschae-Fischer, Huber, and Hoyer 2016).