Role of Skepticism and Message Elaboration in Determining Consumers’ Response to Cause-Related Marketing Claims on Facebook Brand Pages

Abstract This study explores whether the negative effects of consumer skepticism toward cause-related marketing communications can be lessened through emotional messaging and heuristic cues such as the number of likes and followers on a Facebook brand page. Results of an eye-tracking experiment (N = 197) indicated that although skepticism prohibited consumers’ message elaboration, (i.e., the extent to which a person carefully considers a message), highly skeptical consumers still considered the message credible through close attention to the heuristic cues. This study is among the first to validate consumers’ defense mechanisms by demonstrating how consumer skepticism prohibits their attention and cognitive elaboration.