Companies engaged in cause-related marketing (CRM) must demonstrate sincere commitment to gain consumer support. In this paper, we observe that consumers infer companies' commitment to the cause by the language used in the CRM promotional material. In a series of experiments, we compare the popular expression “we can make a difference” to “we hope to make a difference” in influencing consumers' response to the CRM. When consumers question company's motives—which can happen, for instance, when they do not perceive a congruency between the company and the supported cause (low firm/cause fit)—consumers seem to perceive the company to be less committed to the cause when the company says they “can” make a difference rather than “hope” to make a difference. Our conclusions offer implications for CRM by highlighting the importance of the words used and their semantic nuances to correctly reflect the company's motivations and thus communicate effectively.

中文翻译：

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公司应该希望吗？言语暗示在消费者对因果营销 (CRM) 评价中的作用

从事公益营销 (CRM) 的公司必须表现出真诚的承诺，以获得消费者的支持。在本文中，我们观察到消费者通过 CRM 宣传材料中使用的语言来推断公司对事业的承诺。在一系列实验中，我们将流行的表达方式“我们可以有所作为”与“我们希望有所作为”进行比较。在影响消费者对 CRM 的反应方面有所作为。当消费者质疑公司的动机时——例如，当他们认为公司与支持的事业之间不一致时（公司/事业契合度低），消费者似乎认为公司对事业的承诺较少，当公司表示他们“可以”有所作为，而不是“希望”有所作为。我们的结论通过强调所用词的重要性及其语义细微差别来正确反映公司的动机并因此有效地沟通，从而为 CRM 提供了启示。