A path to altruism: Investigating the effects of brand origin and message explicitness in CR‐M campaigns

• Published date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12269
• Date: 01 July 2020

Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;29:617–628. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer  

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  617© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

1 | INTRODUCTION

The global fash ion industry long has be en criticized as the main cul-

prit in social an d environmenta l problems bec ause of its lab or-in-

tensive and enviro nmentally unf riendly busin ess practi ces (Laudal,

2010). Recently, in an effor t to address th e industr y's social re-

sponsibilities, fashion brands have begun to engage increasingly in

cause-related marketing (CR-M) campaigns. CR-M refers to market-

ing promotions t hat associate fun draising for a ca use to a brand's

sales (Varad arajan & Menon, 1988). For example, Mic hael Kors has

launched an adve rtising campaign for i ts Watch Hunger Stop T-shirt

collection , in which a portion of every pur chase is used to donate a

meal to children i n need (Kors, n.d.). T he multinationa l fashion brands ,

H&M and ZAR A, have raised funds for UNI CEF and wildlife forests

by donating par t of the brands' ho liday sales (Howe r, 2013). These

CR-M campaigns' ult imate goal is to encourage as many consume rs

as possible to par ticipate in the c ampaigns to max imize both their

social influen ce and the brands' sales ( Varadarajan & Menon, 1988).

Therefore, de signing CR-M campaigns that can e ntice consumers to

participate i s the key to their success.

However, growing consumer s kepticism about c ompanies' so-

cially responsible gestures is making it difficult to achieve their

participation in CR-M campaigns (Skarmeas & Leonidou, 2013).

In a plethora of c ause marketing in t he global market, consumers

increasingly are aware that such marketing can be giant, multina-

tional compani es' tactic to en hance their image s, and they inter-

pret the motive be hind the companies' cam paigns as not altruistic ,

but in fact, e gotistic (Choi, Chang, L i, & Jang, 2016). Recent studies

have shown that per suading consume rs to partic ipate in a CR-M

campaign can be particularly difficult for companies that originally

did not project s trong socially responsib le images, such as fashion

brands (Woo, Ju ng, & Jin, 2020), becau se of the weak link betwe en

Received: 25 Jun e 2019 

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  Revised: 22 Janua ry 2020 

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  Accepted: 26 Januar y 2020

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12269

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A path to altruism: Investigating the effects of brand origin and

message explicitness in CR-M campaigns

Hongjoo Woo1 | Michelle Lynn Childs2 | Seeun Kim3

1Departme nt of Clothing & Textiles , Yonsei

Universit y, Seoul, South Korea

2Departm ent of Retail, Hospit ality and

Tourism Management, University of

Tennessee, Knox ville, TN, USA

3Departm ent of Consumer and De sign

Sciences, Au burn Universit y, Auburn, AL,

USA

Correspondence

Hongjoo Woo, D epartment of Clot hing

& Textiles, Yonsei Uni versity, Samsung

Hall 423, Seoda emun-gu, Shincho n-dong,

Yonsei-ro 50, Seoul, South Korea.

Email: h_woo@yonsei.ac.kr

Funding information

National Research Foundation of Korea,

Grant/Award Num ber: BK21 Plus of De pt.

of Clothing & Textil es, Yonsei

Abstract

An increasing numb er of fashion brands a re employing cause-r elated marketing

(CR-M) campaigns to promote the ir social responsibility. However, with growing con-

sumer skepticism about C R-M, it is becoming more difficult th an before to encourage

consumers' positive re sponses to these c ampaigns. Based on co nstrual level the ory

and rhetorical th eory, this study exa mined the way brand o rigin (local vs. glo bal),

and its interac tion with message type (explicit vs . implicit), influence consumers' per-

ceived brand altru ism and brand favora bility. Two experimental studi es were con-

ducted with a total of 574 U.S. consum ers. The result s of Study 1 indicated t hat

consumers exhibite d higher perceived br and altruism and br and favorabilit y toward

a local brand's CR-M cam paign than a global br and's, showing that ps ychological

distance can infl uence a CR-M campaign's effe ctiveness. In ad dition, the result s of

Study 2 revealed that an ex plicit CR-M message was more effec tive for global brands,

while an implicit mess age was more effec tive for local br ands, and perceived b rand

altruism mediated bot h effects . This suggests t he importa nce of framing messa ges

according to brand ori gin to maximize CR-M campaigns' ability to achieve the ir goals

effectively, in which p erceived brand alt ruism plays a key role. The st udy's implica-

tions and limitations are discussed.