How much can Saudi corporations benefit from cause-related marketing? Insights from exploring the charitable incentives of Saudi consumers

Purpose - This study aims to explain the impact of donations to a charity, company-cause fitting, corporate reputation, corporate philanthropic involvement and message content on Saudi consumers who purchase products that are promoted using cause-related marketing (CrM) campaigns. Design/methodology/approach - Structural equation modelling partial least square is used to analyse the responses of 293 Saudi respondents. Findings - Using Smart-PLS, the results show that donation size is positively related to the Saudi consumer’s purchase intention. However, differences in the donation amount did not affect the purchase intention. Regardless of the cause that motivates firms to donate money to philanthropic organisations, Saudi customers do not generally pay attention to the company-cause fit association. Retail corporate reputation, corporate philanthropic involvement and message content positively influence the purchase of products sold using CrM campaigns. This study explores the psychological and social attitudes Saudi customers demonstrate towards CrM campaigns. Regardless of corporation motives, Saudi customers care about charitable deeds. Moreover, positive message framing is effective when the content is emotive, comprehensive and persuasive. Originality/value - This study explores the psychological and social attitudes Saudi customers pay towards CrM campaigns. The message content relied significantly upon the cause fit and the magnitude of the donated money. Marketing research would benefit from investigating the role of applying efficient persuasive tactics to convey and frame public messages.