Purpose of Advertising
 To communicate a message, idea
 To influence or persuade
 Most frequently used for sales of goods and services in hopes of increased sales and profits

What is Advocacy Advertising?
 Focused on philanthropic activities concerning social issues
 Independent from direct purchasing of sponsor’s products or services

Example

Example

Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR)



 A Firm’s Charitable acts
 Three Reasons for Its Increase
Reagan
Tax Reform
Bush Sr.
(Stendardi, 1992)

Why Is This Important?
 Positive correlation between social performance and sales/financial performance (Simerly, 1994; Dean,
1998, as quoted by Heinze, Sibary & Sikula, 1999)

Corporate Image is improved
(Heinze, et. al. 1999)

What Makes Advocacy Advertising
Different?
 Long-term relationships
 Does not focus on sales and product purchasing, creating greater consumer elaboration
 “Schemer-Schemas” (Friestad and Wright, 1994)
 Necessity of Consumer Elaboration (Campbell and
Kirmani, 2000; Shiv, Edell, & Payne, 1997)
 Possibility of doubt or suspicion motives

Advocacy Advertising and Its
Relationship with CSR
 Promotion of philanthropic activities
 Advocacy Advertisements are commercials about a firms CSR
 Used to develop impressions of sponsor, creating long-term relationships
 The more CSR, the more Advocacy Advertising needed

Why the Doubt?
 Goes against traditional business rules
 Consumer belief in survival of the fittest (Miller and Ratner, 1998)

Attempts to Decrease Suspicion
 Lower Congruence (Menon & Kahn, 2003)
 Consumers more comfortable with advertisement
 Consumers need consistency

Consumer Trust
 Has both cognitive and behavioral aspects
 Expectations leading to desired behaviors
Advocacy
Advertising
CSR
Corporate
Image
=
Consumer
Trust

The Big Question
 Does Advocacy Advertising affect consumer trust?

Methods
 92 Sam Houston State University Senior level business students
 47 advocacy, 45 product/service
 Schwaiger survey (2004)
 2 trust questions evaluated
 4 social responsibility questions evaluated

Results
 ANOVA, Independent sample t-tests
 No significant findings at the .05 level for trust
 1 significant finding at the .05 level for social responsibility

Trust t-test Results
Independent Samples Test t-tes t for Equal ity of Means
Trusti ns
Trustphone trus tauto trus tother
Equal vari ances ass um ed
Equal vari ances not as sum ed
Equal vari ances ass um ed
Equal vari ances not as sum ed
Equal vari ances ass um ed
Equal vari ances not as sum ed
Equal vari ances ass um ed
Equal vari ances not as sum ed t
1.532
1.528
.542
.541
.741
.739
1.390
1.396
df
90
Sig. (2-tail ed)
.129
86.972
90
89.749
.130
.589
.590
90
87.970
90
88.074
.461
.462
.168
.166

Social Responsibility t-test Results
Independent Samples Test t-tes t for Equal ity of Means s ocialphone s ocialauto s ocialins s ocialother
Equal vari ances ass um ed
Equal vari ances not as sum ed
Equal vari ances ass um ed
Equal vari ances not as sum ed
Equal vari ances ass um ed
Equal vari ances not as sum ed
Equal vari ances ass um ed
Equal vari ances not as sum ed t
.808
.808
.579
.578
.989
.989
2.201
2.208
df
90
89.736
89
87.352
90
89.770
89
83.985
Sig. (2-tail ed)
.421
.421
.564
.565
.325
.325
.030
.030

Future Research
 Larger sample size
 Comparison between different types of companies