Undermining Incompatibility between Luxury Brand Concept and CSR Information. Discovering New Strategies of Framing CSR Information by Appealing to Consumer Personal Values.

Although many companies enjoy positive consumer reactions when engaging in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), luxury brands suffer a decline in evaluations as a result of their CSR activities. The paradox happens because in the case of luxury brands consumers experience a sense of disfluency caused by a motivational conflict between luxury brand concept (power) and CSR concept (universalism). Nonetheless, this research reveals that framing luxury brands’ CSR activities in terms of consumers’ personal values (specifically, openness to change or conservation) can lead to higher brand evaluation, purchase intent and willingness to pay. In addition, the study shows that fluency acts as a mediator of the effect. However, findings of the conducted experiment differed between two tested personal value groups. After viewing CSR information congruent with their personal values, respondents who valued openness to change reported only significantly higher brand evaluation, while those who valued conservation reported only significantly higher purchase intent and willingness to pay. Possible explanations for the discrepancy and related suggestions for future work are discussed at the end of the paper. Overall, the study’s findings implicate that luxury brands can enjoy higher evaluations if they frame their CSR activities in terms of their customers’ personal values.

Global Commerce Scholar