What does it take to convince us?

: Analyzing the impact of corporate social responsibilities and brand personality on purchase intention

Abstract

The following thesis will investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives on consumer’s purchase intention (PI) regarding the different brand personalities. Awareness of CSR initiative topics has been increasing and its measurable effect has been questioned. It is a perquisite, that every company has a certain personality. Therefore, to determine the effectiveness of CSR initiatives for each brand personality was taken into consideration when analyzing the success of the CSR initiatives: philanthropy, sponsorship, and cause-related marketing (CRM). The three initiatives as well as one control initiative were each paired with all five brand personalities and then examined for the highest PI per brand personality. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted. Each participant saw only one stimulus per brand personality,
with a total of twenty different scenarios. Furthermore, consumer engagement (CE) was tested in this context as a mediator between CSR initiatives per brand and PI. The results show that the CSR initiatives have a positive impact on the PI, with three out of five of the brand personalities being significant. The highest impact on PI of the CSR initiatives varies among the brand personalities. CE mediates the effect of brand personality CSR initiatives on PI. Managerial recommendations based on the results include the adoption of CSR initiatives to maximize PI and to confirm its efficacy. Nevertheless, to take the right initiative,
a company must first find its brand personality to gain a competitive advantage.

Date of Award	24 Oct 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Sérgio Paulo Moreira (Supervisor)