Should companies hope instead? The role of verbal cues in consumers' evaluation of cause‐related marketing (CRM)
研究发现，当消费者质疑公司动机时，公益宣传中使用“希望”比“可以”更能让消费者感受到公司的真诚承诺，对公益营销有重要启示。
Companies engaged in cause-related marketing (CRM) must demonstrate sincere commitment to gain consumer support. In this paper, we observe that consumers infer companies' commitment to the cause by the language used in the CRM promotional material. In a series of experiments, we compare the popular expression “we can make a difference” to “we hope to make a difference” in influencing consumers' response to the CRM. When consumers question company's motives—which can happen, for instance, when they do not perceive a congruency between the company and the supported cause (low firm/cause fit)—consumers seem to perceive the company to be less committed to the cause when the company says they “can” make a difference rather than “hope” to make a difference. Our conclusions offer implications for CRM by highlighting the importance of the words used and their semantic nuances to correctly reflect the company's motivations and thus communicate effectively.