Luxurious and responsible? Consumer perceptions of corporate social responsibility efforts by luxury versus mass-market brands

Although the luxury industry has been slow to adopt responsible practices, luxury brands have begun to engage in diverse corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions. Because this is an economically valuable industry that sets ‘trends’ that trickle down to the mass market, such efforts could contribute to wider adoption of more responsible consumption behaviors. It is unclear, however, how CSR affects luxury brands from a consumer standpoint, as previous research has found divergent effects. This study suggests that these contradictory results may be partially rooted in the different types of CSR considered so far. To understand whether CSR insights for mass-market brands can be transferred to a luxury context, this study investigates how embedded versus peripheral CSR campaigns by luxury versus mass-market brands affect consumer attitudes. Findings from two experimental studies show that embedded CSR elicits significantly lower attitudes toward a luxury brand (vs. a mass-market brand) and that this effect is driven by perceptions of image fit. Peripheral CSR elicits similar attitudes for both brands, even though consumers perceive a higher CSR–corporate ability trade-off for the mass-market brand. Notably, for luxury brands, the results revealed that CSR engagement neither hurts nor helps the brand.