Doing Good Does Good? Sustainable Marketing of CSR and Consumer Evaluations

This study focuses on the effect of the sustainable marketing of three types of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives sponsorship, cause-related marketing, and philanthropy on consumer evaluations with the moderating effect of psychological distance (social distance and spatial distance). Four hundred and eighty subjects participated in a 3x2x2 between-subjects factorial design experiment. The results of the analyses were significant and in the direction hypothesized. Philanthropy was found to have a stronger effect on consumer evaluations, followed by sponsorship and cause-related marketing. However, the relationship between CSR initiatives and consumer evaluations was significantly stronger when consumers perceived the focal brand with low social distance as well as the cause with low spatial distance. The findings thus provide support for the importance of psychological distance in moderating CSR initiatives. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.