How do racial minority consumers process a model race cue in CSR advertising? A comparison of Asian and White Americans

Abstract This study proposes that model race and race of consumers play an important role in processing corporate social responsibility (CSR) advertising. The aim of the study is to examine why a racial mismatch between target consumers and featured model race might work better among Asian Americans in the context of CSR ads, guided by motivated reasoning and self-referencing information processing mechanisms. Through an experiment, the study finds that people who perceive that money means social status tend to have more positive responses to CSR ads regardless of their race or ethnicity. In addition, Asian Americans who highly equate money with status are likely to evaluate CSR ads featuring a white model more positively than the ad with an Asian model. The study also reveals that Asian Americans with higher money as status perception tend to self-reference only when they view the CSR ad featuring a white model, but not an Asian model. However, White Americans do not vary in self-referencing based on model’s race when viewing the CSR ads.

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