The aim of charity advertising is to develop a social connection between people in need and the wider audience in order to change attitudes toward these people and encourage donations. This article investigates the influence of haptic technologies integrated into mobile charity advertisements to meet these goals. Haptic technologies, commonly referred to as ‘haptics’, enable consumer interfaces (e.g., smartphones) to simulate sensations experienced in the physical world, in stimulating the user’s sense of touch when viewing the ad in the present case. The results of three experiments comparing the same advertisement disseminated both with and without haptics on a smartphone demonstrate how haptics influence charity advertising goals solely when added to a positive appeal. In this case, the use of haptics (1) fosters attitudes toward the advertisement and increases sympathetic identification (tendency to imagine oneself in the position of the character described) but decreased empathetic identification (tendency to put oneself in the position of the character described by mobilizing the latter’s frame of reference). As such, the use of haptics (2) fosters attitudes toward the non-governmental organization (NGO), but does not influence the audience’s intention to donate. Therefore, advertisers should consider implementing haptics as an initial step of sensitizing the audience, but this technology is counterproductive if they want to radically change the audience's view of the people in need depicted.