The Effects of Model Ethnicity in Charity Appeals for Local and Global Charities

ABSTRACT We investigate the effect of model ethnicity (in-group vs. out-group) in a charity appeal and how this interacts with the scope of the charity (local vs. global) on message recipients’ attitude toward and intention to donate money to the charity. We also test the mediating role of the perceived trustworthiness of the models in the appeal and ad skepticism. In a controlled experiment, we exposed Caucasian (French, n = 201) and Indian (n = 194) respondents to a group of Caucasian or Indian models for either a local or a global charity. Models of the same ethnicity as the message recipient (in-group) lead to more positive responses for a local charity, while models of a different ethnicity than the message recipient (out-group) lead to more positive responses for a global charity. As expected, these effects are mediated by the perceived model trustworthiness and ad skepticism.