Corporate Social Responsibility, Customer Happiness and Evangelism in the Banking Sector

Abstract

This study examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) advertising influences customer happiness and customer evangelism in the banking sector. Using a two-group between-subjects experiment with 254 Pakistani banking customers, participants were exposed either to a CSR-oriented bank advertisement or to no CSR stimulus. Results show that CSR exposure significantly increased both customer happiness and evangelism. Customer happiness also had a positive effect on evangelism, while multigroup analysis revealed that this relationship was significantly stronger under CSR exposure. The findings extend CSR research by highlighting customer happiness as an affective outcome and showing that CSR communication can strengthen the conversion of positive customer emotions into active brand advocacy. The study offers practical guidance for integrating CSR communication with customer-experience strategies.