The impact of brand coolness on compassionate responses in charity shock advertising

Abstract

Social marketing is fundamental for nonprofits to promote their causes and generate charitable donations and volunteering (Kemp, 2025). Social media has become a central pillar for not-forprofit organizations to expand their supporter base and cultivate stronger consumer-brand relationships through constant communication (Werke and Bogale, 2023). Charities tend to focus their emotional-based campaigns on negative stimuli, especially through shock advertising (Cockrill and Parsonage, 2016); yet the plausibility of such campaigns has been questioned, because they might risk the charities’ reputation and market positioning (Allred and Amos, 2018). Thereafter, employing positive stimuli in advertising has garnered attention among marketers (Kemp, 2025), particularly with the emotion of compassion as a potential catalyst for philanthropy (Septianto and Tjiptono, 2019). However, the phenomenon of compassion fatigue may be contributing to the ineffectiveness of these social media advertisements (Cockrill and Parsonage, 2016). Thus, it is essential to investigate how charity shock advertising influences the emotion of compassion in two distinct social contexts: human cost of war and animal welfare; as well as comprehending how the brand behind the advertising affects these constructs, by examining the impact of brand coolness in charity shock advertising and compassion.