Understanding Authenticity in Digital Cause-Related Advertising: Does Cause Involvement Moderate Intention to Purchase?

Abstract

The paper provides a survey understanding of two dimensions of perceived authenticity in digital cause-related marketing (CRM) display advertising and models the impact on consumers’ responses. It develops a model with a set of six hypotheses and tests them through a multivariate structural equation technique on quantitative data generated by a survey procedure on a UK-based consumer panel. The 465 online panel participants consisted of 60% males and 40% females between the ages of 18 and 35. The findings provide empirical evidence that the perceived donation amount and ad-context congruence are intertwined perspectives of authenticity in digital CRM display ads, and show that both of these dimensions provide input to conferring authenticity on the ads. However, the perceived donation amount accounts for a stronger effect than ad-context congruence. The paper finds firms’ altruistic motives an influential antecedent to the mediating role of attitudes towards the ad (AaD) as a fundraising tool. This is due to the nature of the impact of authenticity on the link with intention to purchase. Contrarily to expectation, the level of firms’ involvement with a social cause does not moderate intention to purchase from the consumers’ standpoint. The paper provides an interpretation of authentic perception in digital CRM advertising and proposes a composite model of the mechanism of this effect on consumers’ response. In DCRM advertising, increasing the perception of donation magnitude is a key driver to advertising success, and the level of association with a social cause is not a significant factor in segmenting and targeting consumers.