Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) advertising is a type of corporate image advertising which promotes the CSR-based identity of a company in order to build and/or improve a socially responsible image. A CSR-based image and a good reputation for CSR at large has been regarded as a reservoir of goodwill which can function as a buffer against negative publicity. With this in mind, this thesis examines the effectiveness of CSR advertising for the purpose of insulating a firm from the negative impacts of crisis news by creating a positive image as a socially responsible company. This study also investigates the influences of favourable attitudes toward the CSR ad and how the level of attribution of crisis responsibility to the company modifies the effectiveness of CSR advertising as a buffer. As part of this process, the news frames which describe the crisis from either an accident perspective or a preventable-incident perspective and the ad-appeals (i.e., information-based and affect-based ad-appeals) were manipulated to test how they influence the effectiveness of CSR advertising when acting as a buffer. Adopting a quantitative methodology, this study collects data through web-based experiments with online panellists utilising fictitious video commercials and crisis news scenarios concerning a fictitious company. The results indicated that people who were exposed to the CSR ad prior to reading the crisis news tended to be less influenced by the news than those who were not exposed to the ad in terms of their perceptions of company image and both their attitudes and behavioural intentions toward the company. CSR advertising was equally effective at reducing the damage to company image and attitudes toward the company in both different news frame conditions and using both different ad-message type conditions. The results imply that if people perceive CSR-based images of a company through CSR advertising successfully, they tend to maintain these perceptions of the company even after they process any negative information about the company, and this is still true even if their evaluations of the responsibility for a crisis were not influenced by CSR advertising. As part of the research process, this study found that positive attitudes towards the CSR ad significantly and directly influenced both the company image and attitudes toward the company. However, when people processed the crisis news after viewing the CSR ad the direct impact of attitudes toward the ad on attitudes toward the company disappeared. This indicates that the 'affect-transfer' from attitudes toward the ad to attitudes toward the company occurred under advertisement-only conditions. When negative publicity was processed, the crisis information may act as a latent inhibitor of the affect-transfer effect and the company image variable became a full mediator.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

目前企業所面臨市場競爭與整體經營環境變化劇烈，包括內部與股東、員工、供應商；外部與政府機構、競爭者、消費者、環保團體、特殊利益團體及媒體等利益關係人間關係的變化越趨劇烈。在此情形之下，良好企業形象與聲望的建立對於企業而言更顯得亦發重要，而企業往往也可以透過各種企業溝通工具來向內向外傳遞各種相關重要訊息，其中，企業廣告包括企業形象廣告與企業議題廣告，一方面具有企業公關的溝通目的，一方面以廣告的形式向企業利益關係人傳遞善意的訊息，並揭露經營上各種資訊，以進一步塑造良好之企業形象。 由於國內外相關文獻過時且相當稀少，本研究主要目的在於對台灣地區企業廣告使用概況進行初步探討。研究內容分三大部分，首先，本研究以潤利公司1998到2002年之廣告統計量資料，來對台灣近年企業廣告使用情形進行描述，同時瞭解企業廣告量是否會受到經濟景氣、總廣告量以及產業類別的影響。第二部分則以產業類別、企業所屬國籍、成立年數與規模大小、企業聲望等企業相關特性，對個別企業之企業廣告投資量及使用比例多寡進行分析，以瞭解哪些企業會使用較多企業廣告。最後，本研究再藉由上述統計分析結果，輔以質化深度訪談，以深入瞭解分析結果並找出其他可能影響企業廣告使用多寡之因素。 研究結果發現，1998年以來台灣地區企業廣告使用隨著經濟景氣衰退而逐漸減少，到2002年才小幅度上升；整體而言，各媒體之企業廣告量依序為電視、報紙與雜誌；歷年企業廣告投資量約占總體廣告量百分之二到四左右，與美國情況類似。在不同產業裡，服務、電腦及藥品業依序為企業廣告投資量最多的前幾大產業，其總和占全總量之一半且比例不斷上升，顯示企業廣告之投資量漸趨集中於特定產業中。此外，民生消費品業的企業廣告投資量則最少。在影響企業廣告使用多寡之相關特性部分，企業所屬之產業類別、成立年數高低，及企業聲望之高低，皆會影響到企業使用企業廣告投資量高低與企業廣告量佔公司總廣告量比例之多寡。此外，透過進一步企業訪談可知，外在環境因素包括經濟景氣及重要特殊議題；產業類別因素以及企業內部因素如高階主管支持、企業成立年數與聲望，及企業發展之階段性目標等，皆會影響到企業廣告使用之多寡。