The cause effect: the impact of corporate social responsibility advertising on cause consumer engagement behavior after brand affiliation ceases

Abstract

Brands often engage in cause involvement out of a sense of social responsibility. While these associations with causes can positively impact brand equity, brand loyalty, and brand-favorable consumer choice, it is less understood whether corporate cause involvement has the ability to create cause associations in consumers that transcend the brand’s involvement and lead to enduring cause-oriented behaviors. This study uses social media analytics and hierarchical linear regression to investigate the Twitter activity of a random sample of 3,090 individuals who engaged directly with the anti-bullying cause in direct response to Secret’s ‘Mean Stinks’ CSR advertising campaign. This research identifies the influence that those individuals’ campaign-specific consumer engagement behavior (i.e. volume of activity and length of participation time) in the brand’s cause campaign, as well as their engagement with the broader anti-bullying cause had on the persistence of their cause-related activity following the end of Secret’s active advertising of the cause. This is done in an effort to identify whether cause affiliations that are inspired and influenced by a brand can endure beyond the brand’s campaign, and ultimately comment on the longitudinal social influence of brand involvement in social causes.