Rendering misery or selling hope? The mechanism of imagery contrast effect in charitable appeal

While visual cues have been pervasively employed in online charitable appeals to increase donors’ positive responses, the contrast of the recipient’s imagery at different time nodes has received little attention in philantrophic marketing. This research explored the effect of recipients’ imagery contrast on donation willingness and distinguished two contrast effects in visual imagery of online charitable appeals: pre-middle contrast that depicts the past health and current state and post-middle contrast that portrays the future health and current state. We conducted three scenario-based experimental studies based on Credamo participants (total N = 910). Study 1 (N = 198) using a one factor (pre-middle contrast vs. post-middle contrast vs. no contrast) between -subjects design demonstrated that charitable appeals with imagery contrast (vs. no contrast) led to higher donation intentions. Study 2 (N = 145) compared two different contrast effects (pre-middle contrast vs. post-middle contrast), with findings showing that guilt mediated the effect of pre-middle contrast while hope mediated the effect of post-middle contrast on willingness to donate; guilt and hope had opposing mediating roles, resulting in no significant difference in donation willingness between the two contrast effect types. Study 2 also examined the moderating effect of individuals’ optimism tendencies. Study 3 (N = 567) showed the spatial position of imagery photos had on significant influence on donation willingness. These findings shed light on the research on visual imagery in charitable appeals as well as its effective adoption in online charity advertising.