When do brands get credit for contributing to the greater good? Prior research has shown that consumers reward brands for prosocial initiatives (e.g., corporate philanthropy, social responsibility, cause marketing) in line with the perceived purity of their motives. We report four experiments demonstrating that consumers interpret the order in which brands launch prosocial initiatives as a signal of their underlying motivations for doing good. Whereas prosocial first movers appear to care genuinely about the causes they support, prosocial followers (i.e., those that imitate the prosocial actions of other brands) typically seem to have more selfish intentions, even if their initiatives have an equal or greater social impact. This discrepancy in perceived motives, in turn, serves as an additional source of first mover preference, above and beyond previously studied first mover effects and unique to greater good marketing contexts. It also leads consumers to reward followers for launching more original prosocial initiatives, even if these seem less impactful for society. These findings bridge literatures on prosocial behavior and entry order, and they offer practical insight for brands looking to combine profits and purpose.

中文翻译：

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无私的先行者和自私的追随者：进入顺序表明追求更大利益的动机纯洁

品牌何时因为更大的利益做出贡献而获得荣誉？先前的研究表明，消费者会根据他们所感知的动机纯洁性来奖励品牌的亲社会活动（例如，企业慈善事业、社会责任、公益营销）。我们报告了四个实验，表明消费者将品牌发起亲社会举措的顺序解释为他们行善的潜在动机的信号。尽管亲社会的先行者似乎真正关心他们支持的事业，但亲社会的追随者（即模仿其他品牌的亲社会行为的人）通常似乎有更多自私的意图，即使他们的举措具有同等或更大的社会影响。反过来，这种感知动机的差异又是先动者偏好的另一个来源，超越先前研究的先发效应，并且是更好的营销环境所独有的。它还导致消费者奖励追随者发起更多原创的亲社会活动，即使这些活动对社会影响较小。这些发现将有关亲社会行为和进入顺序的文献联系起来，它们为希望将利润和目的相结合的品牌提供了实用的见解。