Current Issue Summary
Sept 2023 (Vol. 64, Issue 3)

When and Why Are Consumers Willing to Help For-Profit Companies in Distress? The Corporate Vulnerability Appeal: Conditions that Drive Its Effectiveness
The vulnerability appeal became prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic: A for-profit company on the verge of going out of business promotes a cry for help, rather than pitch its products or services. Evidence for when this type of appeal is successful comes from Brazilian researchers Lucia Barros (FGV EAESP–Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo), Farah Diba Abrantes-Braga (Insper–Institute of Education and Research), Cristiane Benedetti Chammas (Centro Universitário FEI) and Murilo Costa Filho (Universidade de São Paulo). Through a series of five studies, their work evaluates the effectiveness of this appeal highlighting a company’s problems (e.g., potentially shutting down). The authors attribute their findings to the resulting elicitation of personal norms and emphasize that for this vulnerability appeal to be effective, two conditions must prevail:

• The company must demonstrate its vulnerability exists because of an uncontrollable external force; in other words the company itself must not have caused the problems.
• Consumers must identify with the firm.

Among other takeaways:

• “When a for-profit organization makes salient their vulnerability under hazardous circumstances and overtly asks for help, consumers respond with a willingness to purchase from the company to help it survive because of the elicitation of personal norms.
• “This appeal is also effective in different contexts and settings, such as the newspaper and bookshop industries in a post-pandemic context.”

Read the full article here.