Creator–Default Congruence in Earned Media Communication
(A2026-133558)

AUTHORS

Roman Antoschin, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management; Christian Schlereth, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management

ABSTRACT

Organizations increasingly provide communication defaults to guide creators in the tone and identity of earned media. Yet, creators often purposely deviate from these defaults, which may help or hurt message effectiveness. We propose the Creator–Default Congruence (CDC) Model to explain how such deviations influence outcomes. Drawing on affective communication theory, we conceptualize emotional congruence along valence and arousal. Using image-based emotion analysis and fixed-effects regressions on more than 84,000 peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between emotional deviation and financial success—driven primarily by arousal and strengthened when organizational defaults remain stable.