Are you comfortable with rounding up your weekly supermarket bill by a few cents to support a well-known charity?
We know that COVID and the demise of cash payments have had a big impact on charities (and buskers!) but is the strategy at the checkout just that bit too annoying?
A new report finds that asking customers to support a cause when they pay can heighten their anxiety rather than make them feel good about making a donation. And that’s a problem for charity campaigns.
Marketing academics writing for the Conversation said: “We interviewed 60 shoppers, asking them to describe what they felt when they were asked to donate while ringing up their purchases at a variety of retailers based on their recollections of that interaction. About 40 per cent of the words that these customers used expressed negative feelings associated with anxiety such as ‘pressured’, ‘annoyed’ and ‘concerned about being judged’. Another 7 per cent of the words conveyed other negative sentiments, including ‘guilty’ or ‘bad’. The rest were neutral, such as ‘indifferent’.”
What’s your reaction? Would you prefer not to be asked so directly?
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