 Empathy can increase customer equity related to pro-social brandsEun-Ju Lee Journal of Business Research, 2016, vol. 69, issue 9, 3748-3754 Abstract: Reducing the target customers' sensitivity to price is one way in which a firm can increase customer equity. To this end, actions related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) can invoke a sense of empathy among customers who respond to pro-social products with an increased willingness to pay (WTP). The purpose of this paper is therefore to determine the emotional mechanism of empathy and its neural correlates underlying consumers' positive reactions to pro-social marketing, which can increase WTP and customer equity. Study 1 is a behavioral study that intends to discover the underlying psychological mechanism of emotional empathy through which a message communicating CSR actions can increase customers' WTP for pro-social products. A neuromarketing study was conducted using electroencephalogram (EEG) to uncover the neural mechanism for customer empathy in response to CSR messages as enhanced theta-band activities of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a frontal brain area that previous neuroscience research has linked to the affective empathic response. Keywords: Empathy; Emotional mechanism; Willingness to pay; Customer equity; Neuromarketing; Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC); EEG; Theta (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:69:y:2016:i:9:p:3748-3754 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.018 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.