Socially conscious advertising: examining its effectiveness in the Indian context

Abstract

This study aims to explore which aspects of a socially conscious advertisement lead to a successful cause-based connect with the customer, or alternately ends up stirring anger or protest, in the Indian context. The factors affecting the audience’s response can depend upon elements inherent to an ad or how an individual perceives a brand or feels about a cause. Any marketing communication can appear innocuous at the first instance but exposure to critical press, social media flak or protests by a certain section of the population may change mass opinions later on. The purpose of the study is to provide managers with a framework to predict the repercussions of Socially Conscious Advertisement. Based on the framework’s predictive analysis, it was found that favourable attitude towards socially conscious advertisements lead to greater willingness to purchase among consumers. Moreover, to drive favourable attitude towards the ad, the believability of the ad should be high and a pre-existing favourable attitude towards the brand helps. Moreover, those ads that evoke a positive emotional response drive higher favourability when it comes to socially conscious advertisements.