ABSTRACT

Nonprofit brands vary widely in their positioning to consumers, ranging from crisis and desperation to joy and optimism. The literature, however, provides limited direction for the many nonprofit organizations that seek to align their brand with positive emotions. Herein, we examine the relationship between affective displays (sad vs. happy) portrayed in charitable advertisements and consumer self-construal in shaping consumer generosity. We employ one field study (study 1) and one lab experiment (study 2), using different charitable causes (i.e., Kiva.org [study 1] and a fictitious children’s cancer charity [study 2]) and currencies (i.e., lending money [study 1] and volunteering time [study 2]). Taken together, we find that happy (sad) affective displays are most effective for consumers who hold an independent (interdependent) self-construal, and that this alignment heightens empathy and in turn increases perceptions of efficacy, which increases generosity. Implications for future research and nonprofit practice are discussed.

摘要

非营利品牌对消费者的定位差异很大，从危机和绝望到喜悦和乐观。然而，文献为许多寻求将其品牌与积极情绪保持一致的非营利组织提供了有限的方向。在这里，我们研究了慈善广告中描绘的情感表现（悲伤与快乐）与塑造消费者慷慨的消费者自我建构之间的关系。我们采用了一项实地研究（研究 1）和一项实验室实验（研究 2），使用不同的慈善事业（例如，Kiva.org [研究 1] 和一个虚构的儿童癌症慈善机构 [研究 2]）和货币（例如，借钱） [研究 1] 和志愿服务时间 [研究 2]）。综上所述，我们发现快乐（悲伤）的情感展示对持有独立（相互依赖）自我解释的消费者最有效，并且这种一致性增强了同理心，反过来又增加了对功效的感知，从而增加了慷慨。讨论了对未来研究和非营利实践的影响。