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LaVoi, S., & Haley, E. (2021). How pro-social purpose agencies define themselves and their value: An emerging business model in the advertising-agency world. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 42(4), 372-390. https://doi.org/10.1080/10641734.2021.1949650

The goal of this study was to better understand the purpose-driven and social-impact communications emerging from today’s advertising and public relations agencies. This research achieved this by conducting interviews with twelve advertising professionals holding senior level leadership from different agencies. These professionals were able to define their agency, its value, and how its process reflects its definition. The interviews revealed that these professionals believe that they are a part of an emerging ‘fourth sector’ within the advertising and communications landscapes. The findings of this study explain how external changes in the advertising environment inspire new paradigms in the agency world relating to things like communication goals, agency structure, and staffing. If purpose is a specialization, then according to this study and past research, eventually it will become integrated into every full-service advertising agency. 

Practical Implications:

• Don’t know where to start your purpose journey?
  • Start having purpose themed conversations.
• How can we use our tools and talents and apply them to social problems?
  • When we start using the power of marketing and social media for good
• Social impact is an awareness and understanding scenario.
  • Become aware and start trying to understand.
• The impact doesn’t happen after the ad is over.
  • We want our ads to make enough impact to inspire action and therefore change.
• Get educated on purpose!
  • Do research, read about current, up-and-coming businesses, evaluate your own business model, etc.
• Select clients that hold you accountable.
  • Who you work with says a lot about you.
  • You can’t always change your clients’ hearts.
• C-suite management must be on board with this paradigm shift.
  • Otherwise, it may look ingenious. 
• Good washing may make you look good, but it makes no real impacts.
  • You’ll build more positive brand image and trust with your audience if you run good campaigns and have the action/impact metrics to back it up.
• Become serious about the JOURNEY!
  • Real purposeful advertising is about the long-term benefits. 
• Focus on your purpose strategy more than your tactics.
  • Strategy helps you answer all the questions, adversity, and challenges to your purpose that you may face along the way.
• Integrate impact metrics with your brand metrics.
  • Honesty, measurability, and authenticity 
• Valuable impact metrics take time to form.
  • You’re in this for the long term outcomes. 
  • Have patience.
• Collaboration and conversation will build stronger strategies.
  • Community collaboration is important for authenticity.
• Having a diverse staff helps bring in many different perspectives.
  • Have the conversations that traditionally were deemed unprofessional or off limits.

Lee, Y., & Cho, M. (2022). Socially stigmatized company’s CSR efforts during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The effects of CSR fit and perceived motives Public Relations Review, 48(2). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811122000352 

COVID-19 pandemic heavily affected how companies conducted CSR campaigns, as well as how the public received those messages. These researchers wanted to better understand how CSR
“fit” (the extent to which a company’s advocacy was congruent with their business) impacted brand reputation and public responses, especially those of stigmatized companies. The researchers used a randomized experiment design to test their hypotheses. The participants, after consenting, were asked to read a press release about a fake company and then respond to a questionnaire. The questions probed the participants’ perceptions of the company’s motivations for their activism, their overall attitude about the company, and what they believed the company’s intentions were. This study concluded that the way the public assesses public-serving versus firm-serving motives operates in a separate processing route.

Practical Implications:

• Acknowledge the importance of CSR fit when designing your company’s CSR programs.
  • Supporting issues that aren’t relevant to your company’s products, services, or values may make your advocacy efforts less effective.
• Despite the status of your company, your company should still engage in CSR.
  • When the public sees a company that is financially suffering yet still trying to make a difference in the social landscape, the public views those companies as more altruistic. 
• Be transparent with your publics. 
  • Don’t be afraid to share about the status of your company. Your honesty may help your CSR initiatives receive less criticism from the public.
  • People may even become more generous to your company if they know you’re struggling.
  • Honesty and transparency will be especially effective if your company is part of a stigmatized industry.

The purpose of this study was to explore and understand how publics respond when organizations violate their expectations regarding sustainable development. By utilizing the expectancy violation theory (EVT), this study employs a between-subjects randomized experimental study to compare organizational motives and publics’ attribution to generate the level of expectancy violation. To receive positive expectancy violation (EV), a company must exceed the publics’ expectations. On the other hand, to receive negative EV, a company would commit an unexpected misdeed. Because non-profit organizations are heavily involved in sustainable development issues, this study focused on public perceptions of non-profits. After dispersing the experimental instrument and questions to 402 participants and analyzing the data , this study found that positive and negative EV lead to more significant effects on evaluations about organizations. For example, when publics receive conflicting corporate social responsibility (CSR) information from organizations, they feel more skeptical about the messages. This study recommends that organizations proactively identify public expectations toward them and meet and/or surpass their anticipation

Practical Implications:

• Align your communication with audience expectations.
  • Doing this allows you to lessen the risk of failing to meet public expectations and causing negative outcomes. 
• Be honest with your audience and they will trust you.
  • Even if you do not live up to their expectations, at least they know you’re telling the truth.
• Be consistent with your messaging and your actions.
  • If you say one thing, make sure your company is acting upon that promise.
• Be transparent and authentic with your audiences.
  • Use believable messaging in your sustainable advertisements to build trust with your audience.
• Proactively identify your public’s expectations of your organization
  • Meet/exceed these expectations.
• Commit to the long-term process of improving your organization’s sustainability practices.
  • Long term commitment will make your messages more sincere and altruistic.

Pittman, M., Milfeld, T., & Youn, K. (2024). Why a Single Pro-Environmental Appeal Works to Promote Behavioral Change: On Social Media, One Tip versus Many Is More Effective for Nongreen Consumers. Journal of Advertising Research, 64(2), 213-228.

While much advertising research focuses on how to target green consumers, there is a significant knowledge gap in how to target non-green consumers effectively. The authors set out to better understand how to reach these non-green, low environmental concern (LEC) audiences. The results of this study concluded that LEC consumers preferred single-tip messages and reported higher brand authenticity based on this type of message. Therefore, fewer tips and the perception of less information are better for LEC consumers. 

Practical Implications:

• Non-green consumers prefer messages with one singular tip because they are more direct and less daunting.
• Green consumers are unaffected by the number of tips in green messages.
• Use fewer green tips (i.e. more focused recommendations) in your messages to increase authenticity of your brand for non-green consumers.
• Non-green consumers perceived messages with too many tips as less authentic and more profit-driven.

Milfeld, T., & Pittman, M. (2024). Altercast framing with assertive sustainability messages: How dominant brands can motivate non-green consumers. International Journal of Advertising, 43(1), 173-201.

The authors set out to understand whether the coined fresh start mindset could be applied to framing tactics for stigmatized groups. To study this, they conducted four studies. Study 1 measured the effects of advertising support for a stigmatized group with a sample of 123 individuals. The participants were asked to imagine they were looking through a magazine with different ads based on which group they belong to. Study 2 set out to answer their primary research question wondering if cultural identity mindset framing (CIMF) can counteract negative sentiment about ads supporting stigmatized groups. To test this, they used the fresh start mindset as a message frame for two conditions.  They used the same ads as Study 1 and had 205 participants. Study 3 provided additional testing to the prior two studies by implicating a real brand rather than the previous fictional brands. The authors asked the participants to imagine they were on social media looking at various ads (i.e. a control post and a CIMF condition post). This study utilized 127 participants from MTurk. Study 4, the final study, examined whether CIMF generates more positive attitudes toward stigmatized groups and whether CSR advertising is better than doing nothing at all. This study had 233 participants. The control group answered a survey while the CIMF group was tasked to imagine looking through a magazine and viewing a certain print advertisement. The findings indicate that cultural identity mindset framing can shift attitudes toward a stigmatized group. Also, CIMF with explicit reference to the stigmatized group was observed to generate more favorable brand attitudes and higher purchase intent among consumers.      

Practical Implications:

• Use clear and direct references to the stigmatized group in your campaigns.
  • Referencing your support is better than doing nothing at all. 
• Incorporate cultural identity mindset frames in your advertising messages to activate shared cultural identities.
  • This may help consumers connect emotionally with your messages and therefore interpret them more positively.
• Use fresh start concepts in your advertising messages to emphasize themes of redemption and new beginnings when referencing stigmatized groups.
  • This framing (common in America’s hustle-culture) can resonate with audiences and may enhance positive brand associations and contribute to the destigmatization of the group.

Pittman, M., & Read, G. (2024). Internal versus External Corporate Social Responsibility: Company Age and Size Moderate CSR Efficacy. Journal of Sustainable Marketing, 1(26).

This study focuses on what brands can do to better communicate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) messages. This research employed three studies to better understand this phenomenon. First, the authors tested how brand cues (whether the brand is newer or older) affect messaging (internal versus external). They found that novel (newer) brands benefit most from external CSR messaging. Their second study examined how brand cues (age and size of organization) affected messaging (internal versus external and how each are controlled). From this, they found that legacy brands would benefit from internal CSR messaging because it can make their brand appear to be more authentic to the public. The third study employed all the previous independent variables while also observing how purchase intent, brand authenticity, and congruence would be manipulated. This study found that novel brands could benefit from external CSR messaging because they have less developed identities and values, and this will help define their congruence and then authenticity. In sum, the authors reveal that internal CSR can play a significant role, especially for larger legacy brands, when attempting to advertise social change. Because legacy brands are larger, it could be harder for them to change and therefore publics experience more difficulty in believing their external CSR if they’re not also practicing internal CSR. 

Practical Implications:

• Understand your company’s age and size, and how those factors effect the CSR strategies you should partake in.
  • Legacy (older, larger) brands should focus on their internal CSR attitudes and practices.
  • Novel (newer, smaller) brands should focus on their external CSR attitudes and practices.
• Brands should consider their age and size when determining what CSR messaging strategies to use.
  • For a legacy brand to change, it will take time and commitment, thus internal change must occur.
  • When small brands donate to external charities, it is seen as authentic because their revenues are already smaller than larger brands’ revenues.
• Emphasize authenticity and sincerity.
  • When you make a mistake, address the wrongdoing, and make sure it will never happen again.
• Leverage your company’s longevity if you’re a novel brand.
  • Big brands that practice internal CSR may save money in the long term because they will make less flashy and large donations to external charities.
• Monitor and adapt based on feedback.
  • Your company should regularly assess the impact metrics of your CSR communications. 

Pittman, M., Read, G. L., & Chen, J. (2021). Changing attitudes on social media: Effects of fear and information in green advertising on non-green consumers. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 42(2), 175-196.

The authors of this study wanted to investigate how to target non-green consumers and get them to think more about the environment. To do this, they conducted three different studies. Study 1 examined the effect of functional advertising appeals (information: low vs high) and context (website vs social media). The results from Study 1 show that green ads with low information are more effective than high information for non-green consumers, but only on a website. Study 2 examined the effect of emotional advertising appeals (fear: low vs high) and context (website vs social media). The results from Study 2 found that emotional appeals were most effective for consumers on social media. Study 3 examined the effects of both functional appeals (information: low vs high) and emotional appeals (fear: low vs high). The results from Study 3 found that ads with low information were most effective for non-green consumers on social media. 

Practical Implications:

• Conciseness is key when trying to reach new audiences.
  • Low information, hyper-focused appeals are more effective than presenting multiple messages at once.
  • These short messages allow non-green (or non-whatever topic you’re addressing) consumers to form their own opinions about the ads they’re seeing.
  • These audiences do not want to be logically convinced. 
• Visually appealing ads better reach those hard-to-get audiences.
  • Especially in a highly stimulating and visual landscape like social media, visually presenting your message in an appealing way will better attract audiences, make your messages memorable, and therefore influence behavior change.
• Choose the right platform for your message.
  • To ensure you’re reaching your target audience, it’s important to target them on the platforms they respond best to.
• When trying to reach untapped audiences, use social media versus websites.
  • Social media is ‘social’ in nature, featuring a wider range of consumers who have wider ranges of ideas they find attractive. 
• Study what channels your target audience responds best to/uses the most.
  • By understanding their preferences, you can better suit your messages for those channels. 

Lee, J., & Haley, E. (2022). Green consumer segmentation: consumer motivations for purchasing pro-environmental products. International Journal of Advertising, 41(8), 1477-1501.

The authors of this study set out to apply personal, social, and environmental factors in identifying different segments of US green consumers. To do this, they distributed an online survey to 408 participants that identified as green consumers. They identified 6 consumer segments: Segment 1 (With Nature), Segment 2 (Follower), Segment 3 (My Green Life), Segment 4 (Conspicuous Green Life), Segment 5 (All-rounder), and Segment 6 (Challenger). Segments 1, 3, and 4 were considered new segments of green consumers that hadn’t been previously identified in other research. These new segments show that green consumers are motivated not only by environmental factors, but also personal and social factors. This study also identified different demographics held by different segments. For example, Segment 1 and 2 could be considered consumers that are men in their early thirties, while Segment 3 could be considered consumers that are middle-aged women. Finally, the authors also found that these segments have varying levels of pro-environmental product advertising. This means that rather than landing on an absolute, green advertising skepticism lies more on a continuum. 

Practical Implications:

• In pro-environmental advertising targeting Segment 5, Segment 6, and Segment 3, highlight any personal, social, and environmental benefits of the advertised product to speak to consumer motivations.
  • Green consumers already trust pro-environmental ads and are likely to appeal to ads that emphasize their motivations.
• To identify green consumers, advertisers should use demographic information and media use habits.
  • The proposed segments differed in various demographic information, making this information a key identifier of different audiences.
• Companies should use brand advertising to be competitive and build brand loyalty.
  • Brand advertising builds emotional connections with consumers and may lead them to repetitively purchase their products.
• When targeting Segment 2 and Segment 4 (a secondary audience), companies should provide information that informs and educates consumers about the product benefits.
  • Providing information to these consumers may make them more confident in green product knowledge and reduce their skepticism of the ads. 
• Companies should use a variety of platforms to advertise pro-environmental products.
  • Using advertorials, media releases, and e-WOMs can help increase the credibility of the information in their ads and reduce skepticism.

Xu, S. (2020). Issues, identity salience, and individual sense of connection to organizations: An identity-based approach. Journal of Public Relations Research, 32(3-4), 120-139.

This study explores how a person’s overall identity salience and an organization’s affirmation on various issues affects individuals’ perceptions of the organization, or how individuals relate to organizations based on their personal identities. Salience refers to the quality of being particularly noticeable or prominent. To explore this issue, this study utilizes social identity theory and self-categorization theory to employ a between-subjects experiment considering various issues, level of organizational affirmation, and type of organization. The results of this research found that a person’s overall identity salience and an organization’s affirmation on an issue significantly affect how the individual perceives that organization. Also, this research found that individuals build connections with organizations that serve their self-definitional and self-enhancement needs. This study helped explain why individuals feel connected to certain organizations, which is to validate their salient needs. 

Practical Implications:

• Align communication messages with audience salience.
  • Ensure your communication messages, and actions following, align with the core identities and values of your audiences.
  • Address issues that your organization and all its publics identify with.
• Target the right audiences
  • Target the audiences that share your organization’s values, and they will personally identify with your organization.
• Use the identity of your publics to check yourself and make sure your organization isn’t straying away from its goals or values.
  • Ask yourself, “would my target audience use my organization’s name as a way to describe or identify themselves?”
• Build strong, identity-based connections.
  • As an organization, if you communicate your identity and address relevant issues, your audience will feel more connected with you.
• Utilize identity-driven data.
  • Leverage data on identity salience and audience perceptions to inform organizations’ communication strategies.
• Engage with multiple identities.
  • Inclusive messages can help you connect with a broader audiences

Cho, M., Xiong, Y., & Boatwright, B. (2021). Through the lens of ethnicity and nationalism: A semantic network and thematic analyses of United Airlines’ dragging crisis. Public Relations Review, 47(1), 102006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2020.102006

This study emphasizes how impactful the publics’ various ethic identities and backgrounds are during crisis situations. The main purpose of this study was to explore how two ethically different publics (English language users and Chinese language users) responded to the United Airlines crisis of 2017. This research used semantic network analysis and thematic analysis to identify common themes among messages from both ethnic groups on Twitter regarding the crisis. The researchers collected tweets spanning the entire timeline of the crisis, April 9 through April 27. 482 Chinese tweets were pulled, and 5,000 English tweets were pulled, totaling 5,482 tweets in the sample. The results of the analysis showed that the Chinese publics used language and words that reflect their ethnic identity, explicitly presenting their ethnic identity of the Asian group. This means that their messages attributed the crisis to ethnicity, and those of the English language messages did not. This shows the importance of organizations considering ethnic identities as key criteria when segmenting their stakeholders, and that they may want to provide these groups with tailored messages that are sensitive to the group’s interests. 

Practical Implications:

• Be sensitive to ethnic diversity within your audience.
  • Ethnic diversity in public relations, especially in crisis situations, can impact the way your audience responds to your advertising messages.
  • Members of effected ethnic groups of a crisis are more willing to share their opinions online.
• Monitor public sentiment of your messages.
  • Publics will always have something to say about how an organization handles a crisis situation.
• Identify and understand your brand’s current public perception.
  • Publics with a good brand image of an organization are less likely to anticipate an organization to handle a crisis badly.
  • Publics with a poor brand image of an organization (similar to that of United) are more likely to anticipate that organization to handle the crisis badly and respond when they do.
• Promote inclusive messaging.
  • People of the same ethnic group feel a sense of unity and identity when talking to other members of their ethnic group.
• Take ethnicity into account when segmenting your stakeholders (especially if your company is international).
  • This can provide you with valuable information and help you avoid making harmful mistakes related to cultural sensitivity. 
• Prepare for crisis situation management. 
  • Stay culturally sensitive in your response strategies.
  • Listen to the voices of your ethnically diverse publics prior to creating your crisis communication strategies
  • Provide different ethnic groups with tailored messages sensitive to the group’s interest

Iannacone, J. I. (2021). Negotiating crises interpretations: The global rhetorical arena of the 2018 migrant caravan “crisis”. Public Relations Review, 47(2), 102034.

The purpose of this paper was to analyze and negotiate the way global issues are considered crises. To do so, it focuses on the October 2018 migrant caravan event where approximately 7,000 individuals journeyed from Mexico to the United States. This research utilizes rhetorical area theory (RAT) to explore the different communication processes that occurred before, during, and after this crisis, as well as how crises can be rhetorically constructed. This means that different voices define crises differently. This research emphasizes the importance of choosing powerful voices carefully and recognized that this challenge places public relations professionals in a complex position. The media can help to amplify different voices in crisis situations, allowing many perspectives of different publics to be included.

Practical Implications:

• Understand the rhetorical landscape.
  • Recognize that crises occur in various contexts and are interpreted through various lenses, and tailor your messages to be inclusive of these broader audiences.
• Be sensitive in your messaging during crisis communication.
  • Consumers dislike when companies exploit situations for commercial gain. 
  • Rather, talk about crises empathetically and carefully.
• Choose the right opinion leader for your organization.
  • Powerful voices make large impacts on their communities. Therefore, they have a large say in whether or not an event is a crisis. 
  • Ensure these powerful voices in your organization share the values and opinions of your organization.
• Use multiple perspectives to address crisis situations.
  • Issues do not occur in isolation. They are complex and require critical thinking. 
  • Utilize multiple voices from various stakeholders to understand the best communication strategies to use in the event of a crisis.

Li, M. (2023). Blending identity-specific depiction and activism advocacy in Black-centric health advertising on social media: intersectional health communication targeting Black cisgender heterosexual and Black LGBTQ populations. International Journal of Advertising, 42(6), 1000-1036.

The purpose of this research was to help improve health communication, especially in regard to marginalized groups. This study noticed that these disproportionate disparity messages particularly affect those individuals whose identities intersect between multiple marginalized social categories (e.g. race, gender, sexuality, class). Oftentimes health messages are catered to majority groups of individuals, for example, a White cisgender heterosexual individual. This occurrence overlooks marginalized populations that are impacted by the health concerns and therefore need to receive the messages. The study utilized a between-subjects factorial online experiment design. The study sample consisted of 630 Black U.S. adults, who were then randomly assigned one of six advertisement conditions varying in identity-specific sex-positive depiction, audience identity, and activism integration. A primary finding of this study is that when PrEP campaigns feature identity-specific sex-positive depictions that are not congruent with Black LGBTQ people’s identity, advertisers may want to integrate activism intersectionally to improve the effectiveness of the campaign. Minority groups don’t want to feel even more marginalized by advertising. Therefore, it is important to consider the identities within the audience a campaign is targeting.

Practical Implications:

• Create messages for the audiences that need to hear them.
  • For example, many audiences that need to receive certain messages get overlooked in healthcare communications.
• Use intersectionality as a tool in healthcare communication.
  • This will help you target more diverse audiences, including publics facing inequality or disadvantages.
• Tailor advertising messages to specific audience segments.
  • “Distinctive minority members are more likely to respond positively to the ads matching their identities, whereas people from the non-distinctive majority group are less likely to be responsive to ads congruent with their identities…”
  • However, keep in mind that these audiences don’t want to be over marginalized either.
• Embed intersectionality into your organization practices.
  • Applying intersectionality to your research, performance metrics, promotion metrics, and even hiring practices will better align your organization’s employees with this mindset. 

Xu, S., & Cho, M. (2023). Issue contention and consumers’ reactions to corporate social responsibility: Challenging the dyadic assumptions. Public Relations Review, 49(1), 102274. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2022.102274 

The authors note the value, and risks, of organizations participating in CSR and CSA initiatives. Partaking in such initiatives can help your organization build relationships with diverse groups of publics by supporting issues and causes that matter to those publics. To understand how issue contention (competition between groups’ values, opinions, and perspectives) affects consumers’ reactions to organizational CSR, the authors conducted two studies to better understand this phenomenon, with one fictitious company and the other a real company. This study revealed that consumers’ consumption can manifest as actual purchase intention and value-based purchase intention (decisions made in response to companies’ engagement on prosocial issues). Issue contention can play a major role in affecting value-based purchase decision, but its influence in the actual purchase intention is limited. 

Practical implications:

• Recognize that contentious issues can lead consumers to disengage based on values.
  • Stay aware of public sentiment and how it affects relationships.
• Ensure that your CSR initiatives are genuine and aligned with your company’s core values.
  • This helps build trust and engagement among publics that share your organization’s values and opinions.
• Emphasize the quality and utility of your products alongside CSR efforts, as consumers may prioritize these factors during contentious times.
  • Contention lowers the likeliness of consumers to engage with your company regardless of your company’s viewpoints.

Li, M. (2022). Influence for social good: Exploring the roles of influencer identity and comment section in Instagram-based LGBTQ-centric corporate social responsibility advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 41(3), 462-499.

In today’s society, more brands are wanting to be socially good, and more consumers are therefore wanting brands to do social good. The purpose of this research was to explore the effects of brands collaborating with influencers on their social advocacy efforts. This research noticed how LGBTQ consumers are more critical and skeptical of brand LGBTQ advocacy. When brands choose to work with an influencer that isn’t congruent with their campaign, this increases the overall skepticism. Specifically, this study looked at how influencer identity (non-LGBTQ vs LGBTQ) interacted with consumer social media comments on Instagram therefore influencing consumers’ responses to LGBTQ-centric Pride CSR advertisements. The final sample of experiment participants was 645 US adults (320 who were non-LGBTQ and 325 who were LGBTQ). The participants were asked to view an Instagram feed with six posts, and comments were visible below each post. Through this, the study measured perceived influencer credibility, perceived brand hypocrisy, perceived brand motive, attitudes toward the advertisements, attitudes toward the brand, purchase intention, and likelihood to recommend. The results of this study concluded that choosing an endorser (influencer) congruent with the brand and message optimizes its outcomes to an extent of perceived influencer credibility and brand hypocrisy. Therefore, using ally/non-LGBTQ influencers for a Pride CSR campaign may negatively impact the brand’s perceived hypocrisy and brand motive among LGBTQ consumers.

Practical Implications:

• Leverage influencer marketing.
  • Influencer marketing can help you better reach your target audiences through their word of mouth communication.
• Choose the right influencer for your campaign.
  • Use an influencer with an identity that’s going to reach your intended audience.
  • Doing this will strengthen your brand authenticity.
  • Example: If you’re running LGBTQ-centric advertisements, publics will perceive your brand as more credible if you use an influencer from the LGBTQ social group rather than the ally group
• Be sensitive in brand messages.
  • Insensitivity in brand language may make consumers perceive your brand as hypocritical and insincere.
• Monitor the comment sections of your brand’s social media posts.
  • Doing this will help you understand the public’s perception of your messages.
  • This also allows you to respond to their concerns in a timely manner.
  • Using blocking features in the comment section has proven to have negative impacts on perceived brand transparency.
• Predict public responses (ex. comments) to your advertising messages before you run the ads.
  • Prepare for diverse reactions to your messages.
  • Have a strategy in place to address criticism while reinforcing your commitment to social good.
• Build long-term partnerships and relationships.
  • These long-term partnerships can foster deeper connections and demonstrate a sustained commitment to issues such as LGBTQ+.

Xu, S., & Kochigina, A. (2021). Engaging through stories: Effects of narratives on individuals’ skepticism toward corporate social responsibility efforts. Public Relations Review, 47(5), 102110.

Even though many Americans today expect organizations to take stances and act on social issues, sometimes organizations’ CSR can make the public more skeptical of their sincerity. Because of this, the authors conducted this study to better understand how narrative (storytelling) CSR videos versus non-narrative CSR videos affected perceived informativeness of an organization’s CSR messages. They also wanted to investigate how narrative form CSR messages affect skepticism toward management, as well as the extent that skepticism accounts for overall CSR skepticism. The authors conducted an online survey experiment using fictional messages from fictional or unspecified organizations. Seven videos (2 mins. in length) with themes of diversity and inclusion were used in the testing. A sample of 420 individuals ultimately participated in this study, and 345 responses were retained. Survey results indicated that the narrative videos significantly reduced CSR skepticism and increased message engagement, narrative videos increased the perception of the company’s intrinsic motives, and narrative videos reduced skepticism of both management and CSR outcomes. 

Practical Implications: 

• Present CSR messages through the storytelling narrative format.
  • This can reduce overall skepticism toward your organization’s CSR activities. 
• Create CSR narratives that are engaging, that allow viewers to attach and connect with the characters, and that involve experiences that deeply resonate with viewers.
  • These characteristics of a CSR message will maximize the receivers’ engagement with the message. 
• Utilize your CEO and/or prominent leadership in your CSR messaging.
  • When receivers believe your organization’s management is able to create social changes, overall CSR skepticism could be reduced.  

Cho, M., Xu, S., & Boatwright, B. (2023). Personal-communicative evaluation approach to CEO advocacy and employee relations. Public Relations Review, 49(2), 102295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2023.102295 

The authors of this study recognize that CEO advocacy creates both intended and unintended organizational changes. CEO advocacy can be defined as the top, C-suite level executives embracing and participating in social issues. The purpose of this research was to better understand how this CEO advocacy effects employee relations. To collect data regarding employees’ opinions on this issue, an online survey was issued. The 429 participant sample  included employees who recognize that their CEO is actively involved in social issues. The survey measured the participants’ level of employee-CEO value congruence, sense of belonging, discrepancy between ideal and reality of CEO representation, salience, issue involvement, and external prestige. The survey findings indicated that it is important for CEOs to communicate with their employees. This direct communication may evoke more employee-CEO value congruence, and therefore may positively impact employees’ work. Communicating under the right circumstances with appropriate degrees will achieve optimal effects of CEO-employee communication.

Practical Implications:

• Use your C-suite personals to your advantage in advocacy.
  • People want to hear from organization leaders when the government fails to communicate.
  • CEO advocacy may also positively impact employee-morale and organizational culture.
• Create internal messaging that shares CEO values and insights.
  • Employee-CEO value congruence has a positive effect on employees’ sense of belonging.
• Hire employees that share your organizations values.
  • Employees may perform better if they agree with the organization’s stances on issues, and therefore feel a sense of belonging.
• Use humanlike and/or personalized communicative strategies in your advertising.
  • By creating campaigns that not only promote products or services but connect with individuals on a personal level, you may positively impact individuals’ perceptions of your brand image and impact.
• Foster open communication between various levels of management.
  • Ensure congruence among CEOs and employees by encouraging active discussions.

Lemon, L., & Palenchar, M. J. (2018). Public relations and zones of engagement: Employees’ lived experiences and the fundamental nature of employee engagement. Public Relations Review, 44(1), 142-155.

The authors of this study aimed to demonstrate how the use of public relations in an organization’s internal communication campaigns can better serve organizations as a foundational component of the field. Public relations can do this by better understanding how employees (key stakeholders) perceive and experience engagement. The authors used a phenomenological approach to conduct their study. Phenomenology helps us build better knowledge by examining real life. The authors used a purposive sampling technique to gather a sample of individuals employed by and receive wages from for-profit and government organizations in the U.S. In total, 32 participants, from 12 different organizations, were involved in this study. The authors collected data via interviews and asked various grand tour questions and standout experience questions. Six engagement themes emerged from the interview data: “(1) employee engagement experiences occur from non-work related experiences at work, (2) employee engagement is freedom in the workplace, (3) employee engagement is going above and beyond roles and responsibilities, (4) employee engagement occurs when work is a vocational calling, (5) employee engagement is about creating value, and (6) connections build employee engagement experiences.”

Practical Implications:

• Create opportunities for employees to share personal, non-work related experiences.
  • This allows them to develop relationships that acknowledge them as individuals, not just employees.
• Encourage a workplace culture that includes the freedom to pursue passion projects and take risks.
  • Trusting your employees allows them to make decisions and learn from their mistakes, which enhances overall engagement.
• Encourage employees to exceed basic job expectations.
  • Proactive behaviors and contributions can foster a mindset where extra effort is recognized and valued by the entire organization.
• Help employees find meaning in their work by connecting their roles to the organization’s mission.
  • Do this by implementing programs that support their personal passions and see their jobs from new perspectives that aren’t just ‘to make a living.’
• Champion your employees on their successes at work.
  • Recognition for accomplished work may construct value for employees in the workplace. 
  • Also recognize how their work is making an impact not only to your organization, but also to the community at large.
• Emphasize the importance and provide opportunities for employees to build meaningful connections within the workplace.
  • Facilitate open communication and collaboration to foster employee engagement.

Park, S., Graham, M., & Foster, E. A. (2022). Improving local government resilience: Highlighting the role of internal resources in crisis management. Sustainability, 14(6), 3214.

This study aimed to understand how much the availability of internal resources affect an organization’s ability to be resilient during crisis management. Also, the researchers wanted to understand how the size of the organization affected the availability of this research. To do so, they focused on local government systems. The researchers hired a research firm that specialized in local government and public policy work. The firm already possessed a pool of 4,500 local government entities that they could utilize in their research. The firm attempted to select a diverse range of local government participants, and then they sent them an online survey via email. 660 local government officials opened and began the survey, however after cleaning the data, the sample was 307 respondents. The survey prompted respondents to first reflect on a recent crisis their organization faced. Then, the survey asked a series of questions regarding the availability of internal resources, the size of their communities, and their personal evaluations of a crisis they recently faced. The research found that respondents ranked time, money, and staff resources as very important, but also ranked them as being scarcely available. The authors suggest that local government officials need to be properly trained to handle crisis situations with the amount of resources they are given. The authors note that self-serving bias could alter the findings of this survey.

Practical Implications:

• Develop a crisis communication plan.
  • Having a proactive response to a crisis situation will overall increase your organization’s resilience in crisis management. 
• Develop strong internal staff training programs.
  • Your organization’s crisis managers need to be able to handle crises of any level with the level of time, money, and staff resources (high or low) they are provided.
  • Train them to respond to crises in creative ways in order to best utilize the resources they are provided. 
• Conduct regular training drills for your organization’s crisis managers.
  • The media landscape is ever changing, and we can never be certain on what may happen in our external environments. What we can do is continuously challenge ourselves and our internal environment (staff, management, stakeholders, etc.) to respond to situations in the best ways possible. 
• Maintain transparency with the public during a crisis situation.
  • Keeping the public informed during a crisis situation will increase your organization’s resilience. 
• Document your organization’s previous crisis responses and management tactics.
  • Your crisis managers can use this information to learn from their successes and mistakes, and therefore make a new and even better plan to handle the next crisis they may face.

Avery, E. J., Kim, M., & Park, S. (2021). Self-efficacy and other considerations in performance of risk-reducing behaviors during a major disease outbreak. Journal of Health Communication, 26(2), 112-120.

This study aimed to understand how much the availability of internal resources affect an organization’s ability to be resilient during crisis management. Also, the researchers wanted to understand how the size of the organization affected the availability of this research. To do so, they focused on local government systems. The researchers hired a research firm that specialized in local government and public policy work. The firm already possessed a pool of 4,500 local government entities that they could utilize in their research. The firm attempted to select a diverse range of local government participants, and then they sent them an online survey via email. 660 local government officials opened and began the survey, however after cleaning the data, the sample was 307 respondents. The survey prompted respondents to first reflect on a recent crisis their organization faced. Then, the survey asked a series of questions regarding the availability of internal resources, the size of their communities, and their personal evaluations of a crisis they recently faced. The research found that respondents ranked time, money, and staff resources as very important, but also ranked them as being scarcely available. The authors suggest that local government officials need to be properly trained to handle crisis situations with the amount of resources they are given. The authors note that self-serving bias could alter the findings of this survey.

Practical Implications:

• When planning crisis communication, you should analyze the level of self-efficacy and crisis self-efficacy present in your publics.
  • Knowing this information will help you craft messages to empower people that helps them feel confident in their ability to make a difference. 
• Utilize positive reinforcement.
  • Highlight stories of individuals who successfully engaged in risk-reducing behaviors and the positive outcomes they experience to motivate others to take similar actions.
• Leverage multiple communication channels.
  • Combining traditional media, digital platforms, and community outreach can help maximize the reach and impact of your risk-reducing strategies. 
• Prepare your audiences for inevitable crises.
  • Health communication messages should empower at-risk publics prior to a crisis to boost their self-efficacy.
• Always show up for your audiences.
  • Government health agencies must provide efficient communications before and after crises.
• Provide credible and reassuring information.
  • Be clear and concise in crisis messaging, especially in heath crisis communication.
  • Partner with trusted health organizations and expert to deliver these messages.
• Tailor messages to specific audiences.
  • Consider demographic information like age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographic location, etc.

Xu, S., & Xiong, Y. (2020). Setting socially mediated engagement parameters: A topic modeling and text analytic approach to examining polarized discourses on Gillette’s campaign. Public Relations Review, 46(5), 101959.

This article is based on the case study of Gillette’s campaign that led to intense discourses on Twitter regarding the brand’s virtue signaling about masculinity. There are several tips for best practices from this study about monitoring and evaluating organizations’ high-profile campaigns on social media. 

• Organizations should recognize that certain influencers can intentionally or unintentionally act as hyper-prototypes. These “hyper-porotypes” represent broader ideologies and draw significant attention from both supporters and detractors. Identifying and leveraging these influencers who command large followings, show pre-existing attitudes around key issues are crucial.
  • Organizations may want to pay attention to articles from medium-sized partisan news organizations, as these are often circulated by opposers to support their counter-narratives, and constantly monitor hashtags that have organically emerged to understand the fragmentation and polarization of discourse. 
  • Organizations should be aware that discussions about a specific brand’s campaign may be referenced through the lens of other sociopolitical events and issues. Practitioners who stay well-versed in current sociopolitical issues and are sensitive to the interconnectedness of various topics within the campaign discourse have a better chance to grasp the complex social media clutter.
  • Organizations may want to opt for narratives that foster positive engagement when it comes to advocacy efforts. Positive emotional storytelling may help to combat potential negative backlash. 
  • Controversies may be inevitable. Organizations should anticipate and expect a somewhat agonistic and discord-oriented style of interaction on social media. Social media is a heavily reactive place, where first wave of reactions to brands’ advocacy campaigns may trigger subsequent waves of reactions that become less relevant to the campaign narrative itself. This creates a reactions-to-reactions phenomenon. Given the reactive nature of online discussions, practitioners may want to approach social media engagement without a mindset of control. 

Iannacone, J. I. (2021). Understanding INGO relationship management: A case study approach to multinational organization–public relationships. Public relations review, 47(4), 102076.

International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) operate in culturally complex environments and are major actors in civil society. These organizations are structured non-traditionally and have diverse publics. Because of this, the author of this research set out to better understand best practices of INGOs organization-public relationship (OPR) management. To do this, a qualitative case study approach was employed focusing on the INGO CISV International. CISV International is a global organization dedicated to educating and inspiring world peace. The researcher gathered organizational records from the CISV International website, as well as conducted qualitative interviews. The findings indicted that many of the organization’s communication strategies relied on recruiting volunteers. Also, those who volunteered came to eventually identify with the organization to the extent that they actively participate within the organization. CISV International also used specific strategies to reach their different publics. This fostered relationships and trust between the organization and its publics. The key takeaway from this case study was that public relations should pay attention to how different types of relationships with different publics influence one another.

Practical Implications:

• Focus on relationship building.
  • Create advertising messages that motivate positive connections with both international and external stakeholders. 
• Consider the multiple perspectives when creating strategies.
  • By considering the perspectives of both publics and organizations, you can better suit your strategies to reach various audiences. 
• Use specific strategies to reach diverse audiences.
  • It’s easier to build new relationships when you combine official and informal communication strategies.
• Utilize word-of-mouth communication.
  • People view word-of-mouth recommendations as more trustworthy than other forms of communication.
• Address various publics (demographically) in your messages.
  • Publics don’t want to feel ignored by organizations.
• Build personal relationships with stakeholders.
  • Strong, personal relationships foster trust between an organization and its publics foster trust. 
• Ensure new publics have a positive experience.
  • By hooking new publics with initial positive experiences, they’re more likely to become repeat publics.
• Assure your publics that your organization is there to support them.
  • This helps cultivate quality relationships between organizations and their publics. 
  • Assure them that their concerns are being addressed and that their opinions matter.
• Develop a long-term relationship strategy.
  • Rather than focusing solely on short-term campaign goals, consider developing long-term strategies for managing and nurturing relationships. 

You, L., Zhao, X., & Xu, S. (2024). How political ideology affects the communication of organizational relations: A social network approach. Public Relations Review, 50(2), 102451.

This study focuses on the social networks present among various organizations. The researchers wanted to find out how representational networks among the top organizational political contributors affected the mention of other political contributors within their press releases. The researchers used a computational method (name entity recognition in Python’s spaCy package) to determine the names organizations mentioned in their press releases. They collected a total of 174,118 press releases to use for their study. The study found that organizations are more likely to mention liberal-leaning organizations in their press releases. Also, mentioning well-known liberal-leaning organizations can make your press releases more credible and legitimate. They also found that CEO have more of an influence on which organizations their organization builds relationships with versus shaping the perception of their own organization. 

Practical Implications: 

• Understand the political ideologies of your publics and stakeholders.
  • The different political ideologies your stakeholders possess affect the way they perceive an interact with your organization.
  • Tailor your communication strategies to better suit their preferences.
• Ensure your organization’s political ideology reflects your organization’s brand values.
  • By doing so, you’ll enhance the ability of your organization and others to better identify potential advocacy or activism partners.
• Leverage your organization’s interorganizational social network strategically.
  • Identifying and mentioning key opinion leaders in your area of the industry in your public relations materials can help increase your brand’s credibility.
  • For example, mentioning an alliance with a liberal-leaning organization within your organization’s PR materials may make your organization look as good as the liberal-leaning one.
• Select leaders with political values that align with the organization’s mission.
  • Your CEO is a crucial member of your organization’s network. Therefore, their political ideology will impact the types of organizations your organization will partner with. 
• Utilize press releases as a tool to build interorganizational relationships.
  • By mentioning other organizations in your press releases, you can form alliances with organizations you share values with. 
  • Also, mentioning other organizations in your press releases has been proven to increase the legitimacy and credibility of your press release. 
• Develop policies to ensure transparency in your organization’s connections with politically active organizations.
  • Engaging with these organizations can influence public opinion.
  • Being transparent with your publics will increase your brand’s level of authenticity.
• Understand the risks of sharing your organization’s political beliefs.
  • Not all publics will agree with your organization’s social stances. 
  • Communicate your organization’s beliefs about controversial topics in an unignoring way and one that’s not persuasive.

Xu, S., & Woo, D. (2023). Key players in corporate social responsibility (CSR) institutionalization: An analysis of multinational companies’ interorganizational positioning via CSR reports. Management Communication Quarterly, 37(1), 3-31.

The study utilized a multi-step data collection process to analyze CSR reports from multinational corporations (MNCs). Initially, the researchers identified 297 companies consistently listed in the Fortune Global 500 over a decade (2008, 2013, and 2018). Trained research assistants then searched for and downloaded CSR reports from the companies’ official websites for 2018, eliminating those that were inaccessible or not in English, resulting in a final set of 113 companies. Each report was reviewed to ensure it reflected actual CSR activities, rather than just goals. The data was then processed using natural language processing to identify and clean mentions of organizations within the reports, resulting in a network of 3,042 ties among 652 unique entities. These were categorized into seven groups, including standards-setting organizations and NGOs, based on their roles in CSR. The research utilized exponential random graph models (ERGMs) to analyze the network, assessing how organizational mentions are influenced by isomorphic pressures and the significance of different organizational types in CSR communications. 

Practical Implications:

• Nurture and utilize interorganizational relationships.
  • Public relations professionals should cultivate and highlight relationships with various organizations (e.g., NGOs, standards-setting bodies) in CSR communications. This positioning can increase the perceived legitimacy of a company’s CSR efforts.
• Understand and address the isomorphic pressures that affect your industry.
  • Tailor your CSR initiatives and communications to reflect compliance with established norms.
• If it makes sense for your organization, engage with environmental organizations.
  • Emphasizing collaborations and initiatives that address environmental issues may increase your organization’s legitimacy.
• Recognize that different industries face varying degrees of regulatory pressure and public scrutiny.
  • Tailor your CSR messaging and strategies to reflect the unique characteristics and expectations of your sector.
• Share stories of real change and community engagement.
  • Instead of reactive compliance-based messaging, strive for proactive communication that showcases the genuine impact of your CSR activities.