Marketing for charity: Portraying hope or despair?

Advertising for philanthropic organizations has a different role compared with advertising for a business entity. It should not only give information about the product or services, but also attract the audiences to perform an act of charitable giving. There are two common appeals in advertising, informational appeals and emotional appeals, which can be portrayed in a positive and negative way. This research aimed to examine which appeals are more effective for attracting donors to a charity education program. Using a laboratory experiment, we found that positive appeals work best for attracting more donors and gathering a higher donation amount. From the perspective of the philanthropic organization, we have proposed some recommendations to develop an effective marketing strategy for a charity education program based on our findings.