Does Warm Glow Promote Physical Activity? Examining the Relative Effectiveness of Self-Benefiting versus Other-Benefiting Incentives in Motivating Fitness App Use by Corporate Sponsorship Programs

Despite an essential step in the self-regulation process, the feature of offering rewards – in particular, offering tangible rewards – is underdeveloped in most fitness mobile apps. The present study addressed this issue by harnessing the contributions of corporations in the form of providing incentives to fitness app users as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives. This study investigated the dual mechanisms through which incentive type and functional congruence shape consumers’ intention to use a fitness app and their attitudes toward the sponsor, respectively. Through a 2 (self-benefiting vs. other-benefiting incentives) by 2 (low vs. high congruence) experiment, this study found that when using other-benefiting incentives, incentives provided by high-congruence sponsors elicited more favorable attitude toward the incentive than those provided by low-congruence sponsors and, in turn, increased users’ propensity to use the app. But this indirect effect was not in play when using self-benefiting incentives. From the sponsor’s perspective, in the low-congruence condition, other-benefiting incentives were more effective in leading users to attribute altruistic motives to the sponsorship, resulting in more favorable attitudes toward the sponsor; however, the mediating mechanism failed to operate under the high-congruence condition. Taken together, this research shed light on the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions of strategies of partnering sponsorship with fitness apps, making this type of partnership a win-win initiative for both the app users and the corporations involved.