on customer engagement

The effectiveness of alignment advertising

on customer engagement

A study analysing the impact of congruence between the advertised brand and a social issue

By Katharina Lubbe | s3244628

MSc Marketing Management

Master Thesis Defense January 25, 2018 First supervisor: Janny Hoekstra

› Online channels have become ubiquitous (Oh et al., 2017)

• Important tools to communicate social marketing efforts

(Colleoni, 2013)

› Alignment advertising: Both the brand and a social message are promoted at the same time

(Park, Hitchon & Yun, 2004; Schmidt & Hitchon, 1999)

› Challenges:

• Provide trustworthy and authentic content (Gardner & Lehnert, 2016)

• Stimulate customer engagement behavior (Beckers, Van Doorn & Verhoef, 2017)

Purpose of research

their stories.”

marketing technique and perfect way to sponsor a good cause.” “Drink

responsibly?”

“They are heroes. They should get the Nobel peace

price.”

“I’m boycotting, screw you guys promoting

the destruction of Europe”

definitely won’t now”

“Do you know why so many hates? ADS!” “I’m never going to drink Johnnie Walker again.” “Wow, that’s truly inspiring.” “Total propaganda piece. I will never

buy Johnnie Walker again!” “Boycott JW!” “Don’t buy JW ever again!” “Why does an alcohol

company feel obligated to make this? Seriously,

what was the message? Is there a point here?”

“This is an informative documentary, letting

people know what is going on.”

“I don’t care if JW uses these inspirational stories

“How do consumers respond to

alignment advertising in terms

of customer engagement?”

› Level of congruence influences the way consumers respond to social communication efforts

(e.g. Du, Bhattacharya & Sen, 2010; Menon & Kahn, 2003)

› Majority of alignment ads successful when congruent with company’s core activities

(e.g. Abitbol & Lee, 2017; De Jong & Van der Meer, 2017)

Hypothesis 1: Congruence between an alignment advertising and the advertised brand leads to higher positive customer engagement than incongruence.

› Social initiatives (congruent) enhance consumers’

attitudes towards the company (e.g. Barone, Norman & Miyazaki, 2007; Bigné-Alcañiz, Currás-Pérez & Sánchez-García, 2009) and activity (Gupta & Pirsch, 2006; Lafferty, Goldsmith & Hult, 2004; Trimble & Rifon, 2006)

› Direct and indirect effect of social messages on

customer satisfaction through consumers’ attitudes

(Rivera, Bigne & Curras-Perez, 2016)

Hypothesis 2: Attitude towards the (a) brand, (b) product, and (c) social issue mediates the influence of congruence on customer engagement.

› According to ELM, individuals process the same information differently based on their level of involvement (Park, Lee & Han, 2007)

Hypothesis 3: Involvement with the brand, product and social issue enhances the influence of congruence on customer engagement.

Conceptual model

Level of congruence

Customer engagement

• Likes, shares, comments • Facebook fan page

Involvement with • Brand • Product • Issue Attitude towards • Brand • Product • Issue

Skepticism towards advertising Disposition towards social media

H1 +/-

H3 +

› Controlled experiment with 226 participants

• 119 men and 107 women between 17 and 33 years

› Between-subjects design with a single factor of 3 levels

Research method

Congruent condition

› Main effect of level of congruence

• ANCOVA

› Mediating effect of attitude

• Hayes test

› Moderating effect of involvement

• Regression analysis

Results

Level of congruence

Customer engagement

• Likes, shares, comments • Facebook fan page

Involvement with • Brand • Product • Issue Attitude towards • Brand • Product • Issue

Results | Main effect of level of congruence

› Customer engagement significantly differs between

the levels of congruence (F_(1,146) = 5.916, p = .016)

› Alignment advertising as a feasible communication tool to communicate social initiatives

› Congruence as one of the main factors positively influencing the way consumers react to a campaign › Incongruence can damage reputation

• Social media gives consumers power • Example: Volkswagen diesel scandal

Carefully choose and communicate messages

Managerial implications

Be aware about the perceptions, feelings and

importance of what you say on the receptor side Be authentic and

trustworthy

Be sustainable in your actions

Be congruent to your core business

› Issues were perceived differently important

› Lack of generalizability

• Student sample reduces certain extent of validity • Focus only on beverage sector

• Consider different types of social initiatives

› Exposure to hypothetical scenarios

Thank you for your attention!

Unexpected result…

› Negative effect of congruence and positive effect of incongruence on attitude towards issue

• Challenging to interpret this result