Impact of socially conscious advertisements on purchase intention

Abstract

Based on our secondary research, we have found that global consumers are willing to pay more for products and services provided by the companies committed to social and environmental responsibility. Almost 63% of the Asia- Pacific respondents agreed that their purchasing decisions are influenced by the sustainability and the CSR efforts taken by the company. In this competitive world, companies are utilizing this emotional aspect of the consumers for increasing take-offs. The companies are coming up with advertisements that are socially conscious and trying to differentiate their product from their competitor when the functional benefits are not the key differentiators. Thus, our research concentrates on validating the impact of such socially conscious ads on the purchase intention of the consumer. In our study, even when we controlled the external factors like familiarity with the product, attitude towards ad and the product, we found that Socially conscious ads have a positive impact on the consumer purchase intention. This positive impact is mainly because of the change in the attitude of the consumers due to their self-congruity with the ad and their care for the cause shown in the advertisement or ad campaign.