Examining Public Response to Corporate Social Initiative Types

CSR

CSR represents a broad category of business operations that includes the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic concerns a society has of an organization at a given time (Kim & Reber, 2008), as well as the organization’s everyday business practices. Incorporating a systems theory approach, CSR can also be seen as “the relationship between business and the larger society” (Snider, Hill, & Martin, 2003, p. 175) and may focus on one or more of the following five dimensions: environmental, social, economic, stakeholder, and voluntariness (actions not prescribed by law; Dahlsrud, 2006). CSR campaigns, meanwhile, communicate businesses’ CSR activities to targeted publics and are initiated to portray a company as responsive to the needs of the society on which it depends (Ellen, Webb, & Mohr, 2006) and to generate positive perceptions among stakeholders (Vanhamme & Grobben, 2009). Coca-Cola’s sustainability initiatives in regard to women, water, and well-being, for example, are communicated with publics via traditional media as well as a variety of online and social media efforts, including its website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, and Instagram.

CSR efforts have been shown to be increasingly important in boosting public acceptance for companies (de Bakker & den Hond, 2008), as consumers and stakeholders prefer companies that give back to communities and that are committed to sustainability (Smith & Alexander, 2013). Bhattacharya and Sen (2004) found that—providing price and quality were equal—close to 85% of Americans say they would choose a company that advocated for a good cause. In fact, in an expansive research study of 43,000 Americans involving focus groups, interviews, and large-scale online surveys, the independent nonprofit firm JUST Capital found that a significant majority of respondents indicated they would change their behavior in regard to buying products, investing, and seeking employment based on a how “just” the company is; further, an overwhelming 91% of respondents felt it was important to evaluate just corporate behavior (JUST Capital, 2015).

However, under certain conditions, CSR has also been shown to negatively affect purchase intentions (Bhattacharya, 1999), perhaps especially so when the CSR cause or issue conflicts with the company’s goals or with the consumer’s stance on the social issue. Factors impacting consumer response to CSR include corporate credibility, company-CSR coherence, or congruence, as well as the perceived motivations for the efforts (Perez & del Bosque, 2013). CSR that is perceived as proactive and altruistic in nature, for example, is more likely to generate favorable attitudes among consumers than CSR that is reactive in nature or in response to an irresponsible event (Groza, Pronschinske, & Walker, 2011). Research suggests that the attributions consumers apply to CSR initiatives can have significant influence on consumer attitudes and behaviors, including purchase intentions and recommendation intentions (e.g., Ellen et al., 2006; Groza et al., 2011; Walker, Heere, Parent, & Drane, 2010).

CSIs and CSM

Within the umbrella of CSR, Kotler and Lee (2005a, 2005b) detailed a spectrum of CSIs, including CSM, cause promotion, cause-related marketing, corporate philanthropy, community volunteering, and socially responsible business practices. As shown in Table 1, CSM aims to create individual behavior change and “uses business resources to develop and/or implement a behavior change campaign intended to improve public health, safety, the environment, or community well-being” (Kotler et al., 2012, p. 111) using marketing techniques and strategies directed for social good. Cause promotion supports causes through promotion of the cause or paid sponsorships related to that cause. Cause-related marketing provides a portion of sales or corporate revenue to causes, while corporate philanthropy provides direct donations from the corporation to the cause or to another organization working toward the cause. Community volunteering encourages employees of the organization to volunteer in communities to support causes. Lastly, socially responsible business practices involve the organization engaging in discretionary business activities associated with perceived social good, such as sustainable business practices (Kotler et al., 2012; Lee, Aschermann, Ehrmann, & Mintz, 2005).

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Table 1.

Corporate Social Initiatives—Definitions.

CSM	Cause Promotion	Cause-Related Marketing	Corporate Philanthropy	Community Volunteering	Socially Responsible Business Practices
Promoting individual behavior change to improve public health or a social cause	Promoting causes or providing paid sponsorships for causes	Using sales business revenue to promote a specific cause	Providing direct donations to a charity or cause	Encouraging employees to volunteer in support of social causes	Engaging in business practices that are associated with a societal good or social cause

Note. CSM = corporate social marketing. Adapted from Kotler and Lee (2005a, p. 96).

Despite the range of CSI types available to businesses, Kotler and Lee (2005a) stressed that CSM may be the most effective type of CSI for organizations, as individuals making a personal behavior change will receive a positive personal benefit, which they will likely associate with the organization that helped promote their change. Broadly speaking, social marketing involves the application of commercial marketing tools to “influence the voluntary behavior of target audiences to improve their personal welfare and that of the society of which they are a part” (Andreasen, 1994, p. 110). As a distinct type of marketing, social marketing aims to influence behaviors among a priority audience segment to creative positive benefit for the society (Lee & Kotler, 2015). This behavior change is promoted through the use of marketing theory, including concepts such as customer orientation, situation analysis, environmental scanning, positioning, and the marketing mix also known as the “4 P’s”: product, price, place, and promotion (Lee & Kotler, 2015). Although social marketing is meant to focus on achieving a greater social good, it may be appropriated by any organization that claims to be operating for social good. This is especially a danger with CSM, as companies may claim to be operating for the social good without revealing vested interests that lie more in the realm of “company good” than “social good” (Smith, 2012). While the study of social marketing has gained momentum since its introduction over 40 years ago, the introduction of CSM is a new concept with limited current scholarship (Dahl, 2010), thus, this study explores use of CSM strategies and under what conditions these strategies may be successful.

Kotler and Lee (2005) cautioned that the cause chosen for CSM should fit the “core markets, goods, and services” (p. 93) of the organization to avoid a negative reaction from publics and consumers (Lee et al., 2005). The authors also emphasize that CSM is not a one-size-fits-all: “CSM campaigns are best when they’re based on a healthy dovetailing of interests between what society needs and a company’s goals and objectives. To legitimately and usefully exploit this merging of interests, it is crucial that a company’s CSM efforts avoid any appearance of inauthenticity or hidden agendas” (p. 102).

The Need for CSR Social Media Research

While CSR involves a broad category of business operations, these efforts must be communicated to publics in order for them to know about these activities. With the expansion of online communication channels (e.g., social media, social networks, and blogs), stakeholders and publics now have more awareness and have more access than ever before to companies and their social behavior (Groza et al., 2011; Moreno & Capriotti, 2009). And while CSR initiatives are often communicated via interconnected, multichannel initiatives, including press releases, websites, annual reports, videos, and other print and online formats, an area of CSR research ripe for investigation involves corporate social media efforts which are largely underexplored (Kent & Taylor, 2015). Further, as opposed to static websites or noninteractive forms of media, social media allow for dialogue and broad distribution of information with minimal publishing oversight (Vestergaard, 2015), potentially enhancing the development of relational capital with stakeholders (Etter, 2013).

Importantly, stakeholders and publics are no longer passive receivers of organizations’ CSR communication, but have the opportunity to engage, create content, and evaluate content in a way that is public for other users to see (Dellarocas, 2003). Recent research, in fact, suggests that corporate social media efforts are a major factor in determining organizations’ CSR success, as publics look to platforms including Twitter and Facebook to evaluate the organization’s reputation and functioning (Bonner & Friedman, 2012). Yet despite increasing evidence that communications professionals are considering consumers who voice opinions on social media as relevant gatekeepers (Zerfass, Moreno, Tench, Vercic, & Verhoeven, 2013), research on public response to organizations’ communication via social media nevertheless remains largely lacking (Einwiller & Steilen, 2014). This study, therefore, examines public response to CSI strategy and focus, as indicated by public comments on social media, thus providing an initial, exploratory glimpse into public evaluation of CSR success.

Procedures

This study incorporated multiple methods including a preliminary qualitative content analysis and quantitative content analysis. First, researchers conducted an exploratory qualitative content analysis of a sampling of Coca-Cola’s social media pages, including its Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts, as well as Coca-Cola’s corporate website section devoted to sustainability (defined by their initiatives on women, water, and well-being). This exploratory content analysis included a detailed reading of the content to identify themes for an a priori coding scheme for a quantitative content analysis (Wimmer & Dominick, 2013). Specifically, this analysis included coding text according to categories and then modifying and refining categories on the basis of subsequent readings of the texts until no new categories emerged.

Content Analysis Categories

Posts were coded for the category of CSI, number of public comments, retweets, favorites, and the valence of the public comments, as well as the overall topic of the post (i.e., overarching sustainability initiative). The number of public comments, retweets, and favorites were recorded from the information displayed on each post. The remaining categories for content analysis are described further below.

CSIs

Using Kotler and Lee’s (2005a, 2005b) typology of CSI types, each post was categorized according to its dominant CSI category: CSM, cause promotion, cause-related marketing, corporate philanthropy, community volunteering, socially responsible business practices, and an “other” category. CSM posts encouraged individual behaviors that would promote a social good, such as physical activity or healthy eating. Cause promotion posts mentioned the company’s sponsorship and/or support of other organizations or promotional efforts that benefited the society. Cause-related marketing posts mentioned the company’s donation of revenue to a specific cause based on sales. Corporate philanthropy posts mentioned contributions to a charity or cause. Community volunteering posts mentioned employee’s contributions through volunteering in the community. Socially responsible practices posts mentioned specific business practices of the company that supported social causes. The “other” category was described as any tweets or posts that did not fit into the above CSI categories, but that addressed the topics of women, water, or well-being during the time period of the campaign (see Table 2).

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Table 2.

Corporate Social Initiatives—Coca-Cola Example Tweets.

	CSM	Cause Promotion	Cause- Related Marketing	Corporate Philanthropy	Community Volunteering	Socially Responsible Business Practices
Coca-Cola example tweet	Coca-Cola has inspired 3+ million Americans to get active through #GetTheBallRolling	Love it. Toast it. Share it. (WWF and Global_Water)	Sharing a Coke means sharing good health. Ten percent of Dasani sales to Global_Water	With @SavetheChildren, we’re saving lives, @USAID, @USGLC, and many more	Coca-Cola companies help build a playground to encourage physical activity in rural GA	Why companies are making investments in women—a pillar of their business strategies

Note. CSM = corporate social marketing; WWF = World Wildlife Federation; USAID = United States Agency for International Development; USGLC = United States Global Leadership Coalition; GA = Georgia.

Intercoder Reliability

Three coders who were not involved in developing the coding scheme (Wimmer & Dominick, 2013) independently coded tweets and public comments. Emergent themes from the data were also captured. Codes were entered into Microsoft Excel, and reliability was analyzed using SPSS. To ensure reliability, each coder was trained on the coding scheme and independently coded a subsample of the same articles representing 15% of the population in an initial coding and later 30% in a second round of pilot coding (Lacy & Riffe, 1996; Wimmer & Dominick, 2013).

The measure of agreement was determined by the use of Krippendorff’s α through macro code in IBM SPSS 22 (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007). The coefficients of agreement based on Krippendorff’s α represented the following: .084 for CSI category, .97 for number of public comments, 1.00 for retweets, 1.00 for favorites, .87 for valence of public comments, and .89 for sustainability topic. αs were considered to be satisfactory, according to Krippendorff’s recommendation for an α ≥ .800, and, where tentative conclusions are still acceptable, an α ≥ .667 (2004a, 2004b).

Data Analysis

Frequencies and percentages were calculated for each category of analysis, as well as the mean number of public comments, “retweets,” and “favorites” per post. In addition, one-sample t-tests were conducted on the valence of public comments in regard to Coca-Cola posts. The dependent variable for each test was the favorability of public comments on a 1–5 point scale, where 1 = negative and 5 = positive. Tests were conducted on the valence scores to evaluate whether the mean for each post was significantly different from 3, a neutral valence for the public comments.

Research Question 1: For Coca-Cola’s Sustainability Initiatives, Which Types of CSIs Were Represented in Twitter Posts and How Were These Received?

During the time period of coding, 44 posts with public comments were devoted to CSM supporting behavior change (21.9%), 36 posts were categorized as cause promotion (17.9%), and 31 posts emphasized socially responsible business practices (15.4%). Other posts represented corporate philanthropy (n = 5, 2.5%) or cause marketing (n = 1, <1%). Another 51 (25%), meanwhile, were focused on CSIs unrelated to one of these areas and/or did not involve CSI. Given the small number of posts devoted to cause marketing and corporate philanthropy, these categories of CSI were thus removed from additional analyses (see Table 3).

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Table 3.

Public Response to Coca-Cola’s Varying Types of Corporate Social Initiatives.

CSI Types	Coca-Cola Posts, n (%)	Public Comments in Response to Post, n (M/Post)	Retweets in Response to Post, n (M Retweets/Post)	Favorites in Response to Post, n (M Favorites/Post)	Valence of Public Response
					Positives	Negatives	Neutral	Valence Scale, M (1 = Negative and 5 = Positive)
CSM	44 (21.9%)	71 (1.61/post, SD = 3.36)	475 (11.31/post)	234 (5.57/post)	20	24	27	2.82 (SD = 1.61)
Cause promotion	36 (17.9%)	170 (4.72/post, SD = 6.12)	2,600 (72.22/post)	2,340 (65/post)	35	78	57	2.53* (SD = 1.57)
Socially responsible business practices	31 (15.4%)	50 (1.61/post, SD = 2.23)	607 (19.58/post)	467 (15.06/post)	15	20	15	2.93 (SD = 1.75)
Corporate philanthropy	5 (2.5%)	5 (1.00/post)	58 (11.60/post)	68 (13.60/post)
Cause marketing	1 (<1.0%)	1 (0.50/post)	4 (4.00/post)	6 (6.00/post)
Other	51 (25%)	441

Note. CSM = corporate social marketing; SD = standard deviation.

*Significantly different from neutral (negative), t(179) = −3.99, p = .00.

Research Question 2: How Did CSI Category Vary by Topic of the Post?

During the time period of our coding, 71 posts with public comments were devoted to the overarching topic of well-being (34.8%), 50 were focused on issues related to women (24.5%), 30 were devoted to issues related to water (14.7%), and 2 (<1%) emphasized all three pillars of Coca-Cola’s CSR. Another 51 (25%), meanwhile, were focused on issues unrelated to one of these topics.

Further descriptive analyses were run to investigate the breakdown of CSI categories by topic. As suspected, and as shown in Table 4, the vast majority of CSM posts (86.4%, n = 38) were devoted to the topic of well-being. Cause promotion was a bit more evenly distributed with 44.4% focusing on water (n = 16), 22% on well-being (n = 8), and 16.7% on women (n = 6). The other major CSI category found in this study, socially responsible business practices, was focused mainly on women (61.3%, n = 19), followed by well-being (25.8%, n = 8) and water (6.5%, n = 2).

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Table 4.

Public Response to Coca-Cola’s Sustainability Initiatives by Topic.^a

	Coca-Cola Posts, n (%)	Retweets in Response to Post, n	Favorites in Response to Post, n	Valence of Public Comments
				Positives	Negatives	Neutrals
CSM (n = 44 total posts and n = 71 public comments)
Women	1 (2.2%)	11	3	1	0	0
Water	1 (2.2%)	11	9	0	0	1
Well-being	38 (86.4%)	369	159	16	24	26
Cause promotion (n = 36 total posts and n = 170 public comments)
Women	6 (16.7%)	603	545	16	3	15
Water	16 (44.4%)	1,191	1,216	6	53	19
Well-being	8 (22.2%)	321	356	9	15	17
Socially responsible business practices (n = 31 total posts and n = 50 public comments)
Women	19 (61.3%)	399	256	8	11	9
Water	2 (6.5%)	21	3	0	1	2
Well-being	8 (25.8%)	167	184	7	7	2

Note. CSM = corporate social marketing.

^aPosts focused on “all three” and “other” topics are not included in this table.

As Coca-Cola states on its website, the well-being initiative is focused on enhancing personal well-being (a “me” focused initiative), while the women initiative is focused on building community (a “we” focused initiative), and the water initiative is focused on protecting the environment (a “world” focused initiative; The Coca-Cola Company, n.d.). As such, more well-being Twitter posts were focused on CSM, given that CSM addresses individual behavior change. Most women Twitter posts were focused on socially responsible business practices or cause promotion. Although it may seem most water Twitter posts would focus on socially responsible business practices, posts were actually focused more on cause promotion.

CSI Categories

Three main CSI categories emerged for analysis in Coca-Cola’s Twitter posts for its varying sustainability initiatives: CSM, cause promotion, and socially responsible business practices. Tweets related to cause promotion generated the most online discussion, the most retweets, and the most favorites; nevertheless, the CSI category of cause promotion also generated significantly more negative public responses than positive responses. Tweets emphasizing CSM and socially responsible business practices also each had slightly more negative posts than positive; however, the difference for these CSI categories was not significant. Interestingly, although CSM posts were the largest type of posting, CSM tweets had the fewest favorites per tweet, the fewest retweets per post, and were tied for the lowest number of public comments per post. Meanwhile, overall on the valence scale, CSM posts were in the middle among the three main categories coded—CSM, cause promotion, and socially responsible business practices—with cause promotion receiving the most negative public response and socially responsible business practices the most positive.

The varying audiences and calls to action for the different types of CSI posts may explain some of the variance in public response. For example, CSM posts focus on individual behavior change and suggest that audiences make a change (Kotler & Lee, 2005a). Cause promotion posts, meanwhile, are focused on supporting larger causes through sharing messages, promoting causes, or paid sponsorships. In contrast to these, socially responsible business practices are focused on the creation of business practices to engage with the change advocated (i.e., the business itself, rather than individuals in the target audience, takes responsibility for making a change related to the issue). Because of these different areas of focus, the type of CSI could significantly affect topics that are more controversial or contentious. If a company promotes individual- or community-level change and/or awareness on a topic (e.g., CSM and cause promotion) but does not take action itself (e.g., community volunteering, socially responsible business practices, and corporate philanthropy), then the company may be perceived with greater skepticism. Additionally, if a company is not forthcoming about its motives for CSR, such as the rationale driving Coca-Cola to advocate for curbing the consumption of its products, the CSR actions may be considered less legitimate and appropriate (Menon & Kahn, 2001).

More specifically, in the case of Coca-Cola, if the company encourages individuals to be healthy and active through CSM messaging, but does not change business practices to be more socially responsible in that regard, or does not communicate this change in business practices, this could produce further frustration with the company or its product(s). Through CSM posts, Coca-Cola may be seen as blaming consumers if they are not able to take individual action to better their health or protect the environment (Herrick, 2009). For example, a Coca-Cola tweet focused on individual-level conservation of water (i.e., Pledge to conserve water for World H20 Day & help restore 1,000 gallons to the CO River) received particularly negative public comments, such as “@CocaColaCo Are you real?! If you halted the production of bottled water alone you would resolve this issue #savewater #fail,” thus shifting the responsibility back to Coca-Cola. As another example, a Coca-Cola tweet on “calorie exchange” stated, “A 12oz can of Coke = 140 calories. Burn those calories through EXTRA physical activity and have fun doing so. Balance your life” was followed by negative public responses, such as “@CocaCola Exercising doesn’t combat the harm your products do to the body via HFCS, synth chemicals, artificial sweeteners & empty calories.” In other words, it seems strategies that appear to shift responsibility to the consumers or place blame on others may have negative outcomes for organizations, as can strategies that deny responsibility (Schwarz, 2012). On the other hand, promoting Coca-Cola’s own socially responsible business practices in these areas would emphasize organizational- over individual-level responsibility, thus removing the blame from the consumer and showcasing a more organization-focused approach.

CSI Categories by Topic of the Post

As described, the large majority of CSM posts focused on the well-being initiative (86.4%). Cause promotion posts focused a bit more on the water initiative (44.4%), followed by well-being (22.2%) and women (16.7%). Socially responsible business practices posts focused more on women (61.3%), followed by well-being and then water (25.8% and 6.5%, respectively). Despite the vast majority of CSM posts focusing on a controversial issue (e.g., Coca-Cola promoting well-being and also contributing to issues related to well-being), CSM posts, overall, were received in the middle on the valence scale from among the other categories of posts. Received the most negatively (and significantly so) were cause promotion posts, which could be, at least partially, due to the focus on both water and well-being in these posts—two controversial issues for the organization. Received the most favorably on the valence scale, meanwhile, were socially responsible business practices posts, which, in this case, appears to be attributed to the fact that these posts focused primarily on women’s initiatives, an area that is not as controversial for Coca-Cola and also not related directly to organizational goals. However, as shown in Table 4, even posts in this CSI category focused on well-being, a potentially contentious issue for Coca-Cola, were evenly divided in regard to the valence of the public response.

Interestingly, the more overt CSI statements received the most negative responses. It seems posts that encouraged publics to think about the negatives associated with Coca-Cola—as a corporation or an entity—generated these most negative comments. For example, tweets emphasizing “calories in-calories out = energy balance” and healthy eating “tips” (e.g., “how much you consume is just as important as what you eat”) generated particularly negative public comments regarding the lack of health benefits of Coca-Cola products, regardless of calorie count, such as “As you know, it’s not that simple, & the QUALITY of the calories matters!” and “Show the sugar content in teaspoons then I’ll be impressed. It’s the SugarOverload making people fat.” Additionally, for example, tweets emphasizing water conservation (e.g., “The world’s water crisis isn’t related to availability of H2O, but to unbalanced power relations, poverty & related inequalities #wwweek”) generated comments such as “Somewhat bizarre to see Coke tweeting about water and power. Isn’t it boycotted for causing groundwater pollution?” This provides an interesting impetus for CSI communication, as it illustrates the skepticism and cynicism publics display when motives for CSI activities are doubted. On one hand, for CSI activities to have legitimacy, companies must match stakeholders’ expectations associated with the company and its products, including communicating the organization’s character and responsiveness to perceived societal obligations (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001). However, consumer skepticism, which has been shown to undermine perceptions of CSR (Groza et al., 2011), is likely heightened when a CSR campaign and a corporation’s goals appear to be in contrast. Ultimately, consumers’ trust may depend on knowledge they infer from available data about the company’s intentions and actions. Although, in most cases, publics lack true knowledge of an organization’s motives for any CSI, their perceived attributions about the sincerity of the efforts may very well influence the success of the CSR programs.

While Kotler and Lee (2005b) cautioned that CSI and CSM should fit the organization’s markets, goods, and services, this study provides some preliminary findings to suggest that initiatives that appear to be acting against the company’s goals or mission of making a profit off of those goods and services may draw greater criticism when the company fails to emphasize the corporate-level commitment to the social cause (via socially responsible business practices). Scholars caution the appearance of hidden agendas or inauthentic communication, and stress that companies should choose a different issue, if there could appear to be a conflict of interest. While Coca-Cola’s women initiative may not be clearly related to Coca-Cola’s organizational goals, the initiative does not appear to be in conflict with the organization’s goals. Additionally, the women’s initiative does not focus on negative content in response to crises or contentious issues, as Coca-Cola’s CSR initiatives on well-being and water may appear to publics following these issues. While the findings from this study do not necessarily call for abandoning conflicting issues (e.g., water and well-being) altogether, it does suggest that the CSI strategy used for communicating these initiatives must be considered. In instances where a company negatively contributes to a social concern, CSM may ultimately not be the “best of breed” (Kotler & Lee, 2005a) for generating favorable public perceptions; rather, communication that emphasizes socially responsible business practices in these areas may be better received. These exploratory findings suggest further examination of the importance of company-issue congruence—the relationship between the company and the advocated cause or issue—in regard to CSI causes is warranted.

Practical and Ethical Implications

Findings from this study appear to suggest that businesses will face extra scrutiny and skepticism when undertaking CSI efforts that may be too closely related to issues in which the company contributes negatively or has a vested financial stake. As stated above, these findings appear to contradict scholarly recommendations for CSR initiatives to be tailored to corporate goals. However, if a company contributes negatively to an issue of societal concern, is it not bound ethically—and socially—to address that issue and work toward change? As other studies on obesity and the packaged foods industry have noted, public opinion reflects the idea that companies perceived to be contributing to the issue have an obligation to help combat the problem (Darmon, Fitzpatrick, & Bronstein, 2008). While this may mean some initial backlash and skepticism, as reflected in this study, in the long term, the backlash may become lessened if the organization is seen to have a demonstrated commitment to the cause. If, on the other hand, the organization continues to contribute negatively toward the issue without effectively addressing its negative contribution in this area, skepticism, increased scrutiny, and reputational and relational damage is likely to occur. As Kim (2014) notes, backlash is increased when companies with reputational challenge declare society-serving motives without acknowledging their own self-serving motives.

For example, in an effort to address deforestation and other environmental concerns associated with palm oil production, in 2014 Proctor and Gamble adopted sustainable palm oil commitments which included a policy for all suppliers to be 100% forest friendly by 2020, a shift which the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace said was “moving the needle towards palm oil that is forest-friendly” (2015). Conversely, PepsiCo also announced a forest stewardship and palm oil commitment in 2014; however, the policy did not guarantee its supply chain would be free from deforestation, leading Greenpeace to publicly denounce PepsiCo’s “weak ambition” on this issue. Even after PepsiCo updated its palm oil commitments in 2015, Greenpeace commented that the commitment “falls massively short of what is needed to protect forests, with a lackluster timeline of 2020 for change on the ground, and failing to use the prevailing standard for defining high carbon stock forests.”

The findings from this study suggest that, although the fit of the CSR initiative with corporate goals and products should be a consideration, the initiative must take into account the nature of the product or industry category (e.g., tobacco companies, alcohol companies, oil companies, etc.) and/or social or environmental concerns associated with the product or its production processes. If the organization is not willing to make a substantive change on how the organization or its products contribute negatively to the issue of concern, be it a soft drink company’s contribution to obesity or a food supplier’s role in forest depletion, the CSR may not be as well received as CSR devoted to another important social concern. For example, a tobacco company that promotes reducing smoking through a social marketing campaign—but continues to sell cigarettes—will likely face much greater scrutiny than the company’s CSI to promote social justice, raise funds for a humanitarian cause, or encourage philanthropic giving to an unrelated charity. In the case of this study, if Coca-Cola promotes a calorie exchange for well-being (i.e., calories in must equal calories out), but continues to sell high-calorie beverages with limited to no nutritional benefits, messages are likely to receive backlash. Similarly, in the case of Coca-Cola’s water initiatives, if Coca-Cola promotes water conservation but uses large amounts of clean water in bottling plants in countries with limited access to clean water, messages are likely to receive backlash. Moreover, when organizations do change, it may take time for the organization’s reputation to shift.

Ultimately, organizations should be transparent about their motives for CSR, avoid minimizing their own responsibility, and avoid shifting blame to consumers and others, especially companies such as Coca-Cola which may already be receiving criticism for some of its business practices (Smith, 2012). When CSM messages promote individual behavior change, these messages may be viewed as blame shifting or avoiding responsibility. Special care should therefore be taken in CSM approaches utilized by businesses that contribute to the issue being addressed, including the recognition that CSM approaches may not always be the best fit for these types of organizations and these types of causes.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

This study was limited by the number of Twitter posts that were able to be included in the analysis. Although Coca-Cola’s corporate Twitter account (@CocaColaCo) had the most CSR-related posts, many of these posts did not receive public comments or only received few comments. In contrast to Coca-Cola’s public facing Twitter account (@CocaCola), the corporate communication tweets were not promoted as heavily and were not distributed quite as widely. Although this study did find significance, even with a somewhat small sample, future analysis of organizations with greater public comments may provide additional insights into the significance of varying CSI types and the resulting valence of public comments.

Another limitation when coding social media posts was the unknown identity of Twitter users posting comments. User identity was not considered as part of this study; however, in a few instances—especially on @CocaColaCo, it was clear in the comments that users were employees, stakeholders, or communications professionals for Coca-Cola. While the majority of these comments were positive, controlling for comments such as these might show even greater significance between comment valences.

Future research is recommended with other organizations’ CSR programs that also utilize a variety of CSI categories. As Coca-Cola’s CSR activities mainly fell within the CSI categories of cause promotion, CSM, and socially responsible business practices, examination of other CSI areas could provide further insight.

Finally, another important area of research involves the role of congruence between the company and the advocated cause or issue. Although, in most recent scholarship, researchers and practitioners advocate that CSI causes should be matched to the business’s products, brand, or target markets (e.g., Cone, Feldman, & DaSilva, 2003; Kim, 2011), and that higher congruence between the company and cause increases perceptions that the company is an expert in the cause (Hoeffler & Keller, 2002), these initial findings would suggest that company-issue congruence may be more nuanced. In the case of Coca-Cola, while both the water and well-being initiatives are high in company-issue congruence, Coca-Cola’s voice on these issues may be viewed as controversial given the company’s contribution to the societal concern. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola’s women initiative seemingly lacks company-issue congruence, but may not be viewed with the same degree of skepticism as the company’s other initiatives. Future studies are recommended to explore how company-issue congruence affects public response to CSI communication and also how this affects reputational and relational outcomes.