Guilt from Inaction: Discussion on the Moderated Mediation Effect of Cause-Related Product Hedonism, Country-of-origin Image, and Anticipatory Guilt on Purchase Intention

Abstract

Ad messages in cause-related marketing (CRM) motivate consumers' anticipatory guilt if they do not do good things (i.e., do not purchase cause-related products). According to cognitive dissonance theory, consumers tend to purchase cause-related products in order to reduce anticipatory guilt for maintaining cognitive consistency. We further hypothesize that in CRM ads, the positive effect of product hedonism on anticipatory guilt is moderated by country-of-origin (COO) image. When consumers perceive greater hedonic COO image from the ad, they are more likely to purchase cause-related products through anticipatory guilt due to product hedonism. 182 subjects were randomly assigned to 2 (product hedonism: low vs. high) × 2 (COO image: low hedonic vs. high hedonic) between-subjects design. The results confirm our moderated mediation model. In addition, we find that the moderating effect of COO image does not lead to consumers' negative responses toward CRM because of too strong anticipatory guilt. Thus, this research can suggest effective CRM strategies for firms.