The Dual Processing of Donation Size in Cause-Related Marketing (CRM): The Moderating Roles of Construal Level and Emoticons

Donation size is known to be one of the factors that determines the success of cause-related marketing (CRM), which is the most practical form of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although various studies have investigated the influence of donation size on CRM, they have not shown clear results. In addition, no research has examined the mechanism of how consumers process donation-size information. In this study, we examined the effect of donation size on consumer responses, focusing on the differences in perceived benefits and perceived monetary sacrifice according to the construal level. Furthermore, we investigated the role of emoticons as a way to increase the intention to participate in CRM by lowering the consumers’ perceptions of monetary sacrifice. Study 1 showed that for consumers with a higher construal level who perceive donation size as benefits, donation size had positive effects on consumer responses, whereas for those with a lower construal level who perceive donation size as monetary sacrifice, it had negative effects on their responses. Study 2 showed that emoticons attenuated the interaction effect of donation size and construal level. Finally, the implications of this study are discussed.