How and When does strategic CSR work? : Experimenting the Impact of Brand Equity and Persuasive Story on Consumer Response to Imitated CSR Initiatives

Abstract

TOMS is a shoe company that gives away a pair for each pair you buy. In light of their
 success, the imitator BOBS entered offering similar shoe design and the same buy one give
 one initiative. Corporate Social responsibility (CSR), by its definition, is a noble cause that
 benefits society, thus, one would expect consumers' response to BOBS would be equally
 favorable as they didi to TOMS. However, this was not the case (Jørgensen & Pedersen,
 2013). Intrigued by the story of TOMS vs BOBS we arrived to the following decision
 problem: How can companies that imitate CSR initiatives alleviate unfavorable response
 from consumers? In order to operationalize this research question, two specific questions
 were investigated: (1) Can brand equity alleviate consumers' unfavorable response to imitated
 CSR initiatives, and (2) Can a persuasive story alleviate consumers' unfavorable response to
 imitated CSR initiative? These questions were addressed with a 2x2 factorial design
 experiment where the dimensions were known brand/unknown brand and persuasive story/
 no persuasive story. The persuasive story yielded significant main effects on product attitude
 and purchase intentions. However, simple effects analysis revealed that it was persuasive
 story alongside the known brand that provided the significant results. The implication for
 managers is that persuasive story with a strong brand can jointly bring forth more favorably
 consumer response to imitated CSR-products. Interestingly, the present study found
 significant correlation between perceived sincerity of the company and perceived fit
 (between CSR initiative and the company), recognizing that this correlation may not
 necessarily mean causation, future studies may consider investigation of the causal analysis
 between the two variables.

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