Societal communication and brand equity

Previous research on corporate social responsibility generally acknowledges that consumers develop more favourable perceptions of responsible firms. Yet few empirical works have focused on the effects of the firm's societal communication and of its characteristics on brand equity. In this paper we draw on Keller's (2003) brand equity framework to derive hypotheses and test them using an experiment on 200 university students. The findings suggest that societal communication supports brand equity building, which also depends on the perceived congruency between the firm and the cause it supports, societal consciousness and the interaction between perceived claim credibility and consumer scepticism.