How to Build Consumer Trust: Socially Responsible or Controversial Advertising

Katarzyna Bachnik and Robert Nowacki
Additional contact information
Katarzyna Bachnik: Hult International Business School, 1355 Sansome St, San Francisco, CA 94111, USA

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-21

Abstract: Developing trust in a product, brand or company is a significant part of building a successful consumer-company relationship. Two-way communication is one of the main factors weighing on the level of consumer trust. Advertising as a communication tool that elicits lots of attention and emotions is a big part of the trust building process. Its character—whether socially responsible or controversial sets a tone for the communication and influences the receptiveness of the message. Companies undertake various efforts to make their messages more attractive to recipients and seek new ways to attract customers’ attention. Many companies experiment with unconventional and controversial advertising designs and tones, as it seems that there is some level of social acceptance for original, emotional and shocking marketing messages. This paper aims to analyze this level of the social acceptance in more detail. The study focuses on the following marketing dilemma: Should companies continue to use socially responsible advertising or should they adopt more controversial or even unethical strategies? The managers of 626 enterprises were interviewed to find out the answer. The research compares controversial advertising efforts with consumers’ evaluations of the messages to which they are exposed.

Keywords: consumer trust; CSR; advertising; ethical advertising; shockvertising; consumer behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/7/2173/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/7/2173/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:7:p:2173-:d:154432

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().