Socially responsible marketing and the credibility gap

Jan 25, 2009 by dirkthecow

Over the past decade there’s been a trend by some brands to encourage their customers to enjoy their products, but to consume responsibly – ie less.   In other words, fast food brands promote healthy eating, energy companies promote fuel efficiency (e.g. turn off the lights etc) and drinks brands encourage you to enjoy their beverages in moderation.

Actually, according to Canadian academics Kate White and Cheslea Willness, rather than having a warm and fuzzy feeling about you trying to do the right thing, consumers might actually think even less of you.

As reproduced in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology, consumers end up with a more negative perception of brands that have CSR programmes around the responsible consumption of their products, than ones that have no CSR programmes at all.

The reason is one of ‘incongruity’ – consumers are used to hearing you say buy more, so when you say buy less, they don’t take it seriously.    Though the study doesn’t mention it, it also calls into mind research that shows that talking about the negative in any context, even if to deny it, actually gives it greater credibility (e.g a drinks company promoting responsible drinking will actually be associated with anti social behaviour).

“Although research commonly espouses that firms should promote corporate social responsibility initiatives that have organizational fit, the current research suggests that this is not necessarily the case with respect to corporate responsibility initiatives that promote the decreased usage of the firm’s own products”, say the researchers.

The researchers stress that the language of CSR programmes needs to be chosen carefully as a result.  For example, when pain med Advil says “one is often enough”, it doesn’t bring about incongruity, while when cigarette company Philip Morris says “think, don’t smoke” it does as it specifically talks about lower consumption.

Similarly an energy company might have a better result in talking up its own investment in green technology as part of a CSR programme, than in telling consumers to use less electricity / gas (petrol).