A study on the effects of background film music valence on para-social interaction and consumer attitudes toward social enterprises

This study aims to determine appropriate communication strategies for prosocial marketing, with special attention placed on social enterprises. Social enterprises epitomize companies that must satisfy their prosocial and financial goals simultaneously. Social enterprises often face limitations in terms of marketing communication, such as budgetary constraints. Moreover, specialized social enterprises that have diverse mandates, such as hiring workers with disabilities, must overcome stigmatization of the employees as well as the products that they make. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the power of film in overcoming these biases with a special focus on the effects of background music. Films in general, and background music in particular, have the capacity to create positive emotional responses with consumers. While the study centers on social enterprises, as prosocial marketing becomes increasingly important to mainstream companies, the implications of our findings can be more broadly relevant to the latter, especially those that communicate via a film. Through two experiments, this study tests whether the valence (inspiring vs. sad) of the background music in a corporate social responsibility film influences viewers’ perceived para-social interaction, their attitudes toward the diversity protagonist, and their attitudes toward the social enterprise brand. We find that inspiring music leads to increased para-social interaction levels of its subcomponents of empathy, closeness, and elevation. In contrast, no such effect arises when sad music is used. Instead, the only para-social interaction subcomponent that is promoted is consumer feelings of pity.