A Company’s Goodwill Influences Your Perceptions of Its Product Quality

A Company’s Goodwill Influences Your Perceptions of Its Product Quality

Research participants rated red wine as tasting better (5.07 versus 4.36 on a 9-point scale, on average) if they learned that the winemaker donates 10% of its revenue to the American Heart Association, say Alexander Chernev of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School and doctoral student Sean Blair. This and other experiments demonstrate that products created by socially responsible companies are experienced as having superior performance, particularly if the companies’ prosocial actions are aligned with consumers’ moral values.