Is native advertising effective for corporate social responsibility messaging? How advertising recognition affects consumer responses to proactive versus reactive CSR

This study investigates how advertising recognition influences consumer responses to a native advertisement about proactive or reactive corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Wu and Overton

MANAGEMENT SLANT

  • When consumers realize the paid nature of native corporate social responsibility (CSR) advertising, their responses to the advertisements do not differ by CSR motivation—genuinely doing good versus repairing a damaged reputation.
  • Practitioners need to consider the negative impacts of perceived manipulativeness caused by advertising recognition when presenting companies’ social responsibility efforts via native advertisements.
  • When evaluating native CSR advertisements, consumers care about companies’ CSR motivation only when they do not recognize the messages as advertisements.
  • More research on various factors influencing the effectiveness of native CSR advertising is needed...

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