IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i22p9609-d447018.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Systematic Review of Experimental Studies Investigating the Effect of Cause-Related Marketing on Consumer Purchase Intention

Author

Listed:
  • Anran Zhang

    (School of Management, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China)

  • Pamela Saleme

    (Social Marketing @ Griffith, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia)

  • Bo Pang

    (Social Marketing @ Griffith, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia)

  • James Durl

    (Social Marketing @ Griffith, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia)

  • Zhengliang Xu

    (School of Management, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China)

Abstract

Cause-related marketing (CRM) is a globally popular marketing technique due to its value to multiple stakeholders such as the companies, the consumers, the non-profit organizations, and the society. The key to successful CRM is the consumer purchasing the cause-related product, and experimental methodology was adopted mostly during this process. Therefore, this paper systematically reviewed the CRM literature that measured consumers’ purchase intentions using the experimental methodology. A systematic literature research was undertaken examining five databases and 68 qualified articles were identified. The results showed that CRM in most qualified studies is manipulated as a tactical marketing program and the products are mainly low-cost and low involvement. Moreover, the CRM is more effective than the ordinary marketing or sales promotion strategy, such as discount and coupons. Furthermore, the specific characteristics of the CRM program (e.g., donation amount, cause type, message framing) have shown positive outcomes but mixed effects are persistent. Recommendations for implementing CRM programs and for future research were discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Anran Zhang & Pamela Saleme & Bo Pang & James Durl & Zhengliang Xu, 2020. "A Systematic Review of Experimental Studies Investigating the Effect of Cause-Related Marketing on Consumer Purchase Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-23, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:22:p:9609-:d:447018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9609/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9609/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dongho Yoo & Jung-Ae Kim & Sun-Jae Doh, 2018. "The Dual Processing of Donation Size in Cause-Related Marketing (CRM): The Moderating Roles of Construal Level and Emoticons," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-21, November.
    2. Jasmina Ilicic & Stacey M. Baxter & Alicia Kulczynski, 2019. "Keeping it real: examining the influence of co-branding authenticity in cause-related marketing," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(1), pages 49-59, January.
    3. Hagtvedt, Henrik & Patrick, Vanessa M., 2016. "Gilt and Guilt: Should Luxury and Charity Partner at the Point of Sale?," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 56-64.
    4. Parker J. Woodroof & George D. Deitz & Katharine M. Howie & Robert D. Evans, 2019. "The effect of cause-related marketing on firm value: a look at Fortune’s most admired all-stars," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 899-918, September.
    5. Mendini, Monica & Peter, Paula C. & Gibbert, Michael, 2018. "The dual-process model of similarity in cause-related marketing: How taxonomic versus thematic partnerships reduce skepticism and increase purchase willingness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 195-204.
    6. Kubacki, Krzysztof & Rundle-Thiele, Sharyn & Pang, Bo & Buyucek, Nuray, 2015. "Minimizing alcohol harm: A systematic social marketing review (2000–2014)," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2214-2222.
    7. Nicole Koschate-Fischer & Isabel V. Huber (née Stefan) & Wayne D. Hoyer, 2016. "When will price increases associated with company donations to charity be perceived as fair?," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(5), pages 608-626, September.
    8. Lafferty, Barbara A. & Edmondson, Diane R., 2014. "A note on the role of cause type in cause-related marketing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(7), pages 1455-1460.
    9. Chun-Tuan Chang & Xing-Yu (Marcos) Chu, 2020. "The give and take of cause-related marketing: purchasing cause-related products licenses consumer indulgence," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 203-221, March.
    10. Yuan-Shuh Lii & Monle Lee, 2012. "Doing Right Leads to Doing Well: When the Type of CSR and Reputation Interact to Affect Consumer Evaluations of the Firm," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(1), pages 69-81, January.
    11. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    12. Yuan‐Shuh Lii & Kuang‐Wen Wu & May‐Ching Ding, 2013. "Doing Good Does Good? Sustainable Marketing of CSR and Consumer Evaluations," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 15-28, January.
    13. Jaedeock Lee & Mauricio Ferreira, 2013. "A role of team and organizational identification in the success of cause-related sport marketing," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 161-172, April.
    14. Hsiu-Hua Chang, 2017. "Consumer Socially Sustainable Consumption: The Perspective toward Corporate Social Responsibility, Perceived Value, and Brand Loyalty," Journal of Economics and Management, College of Business, Feng Chia University, Taiwan, vol. 13(2), pages 167-191, August.
    15. Ouidade Sabri, 2018. "The Detrimental Effect of Cause-Related Marketing Parodies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(2), pages 517-537, August.
    16. Anita Liu & Richard Fellows & Martin Tuuli, 2011. "The role of corporate citizenship values in promoting corporate social performance: towards a conceptual model and a research agenda," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 173-183.
    17. Sara Osama Hassan & Ehab Mohamed AbouAish, 2018. "The impact of strategic vs. tactical cause-related marketing on switching intention," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 15(3), pages 253-314, September.
    18. Elizabeth A. Minton & T. Bettina Cornwell, 2016. "The Cause Cue Effect: Cause-Related Marketing and Consumer Health Perceptions," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 372-402, July.
    19. Folse, Judith Anne Garretson & Niedrich, Ronald W. & Grau, Stacy Landreth, 2010. "Cause-Relating Marketing: The Effects of Purchase Quantity and Firm Donation Amount on Consumer Inferences and Participation Intentions," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(4), pages 295-309.
    20. Lafferty, Barbara A., 2007. "The relevance of fit in a cause-brand alliance when consumers evaluate corporate credibility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(5), pages 447-453, May.
    21. Ouidade Sabri, 2018. "The detrimental effect of cause-related marketing parodies," Post-Print hal-01996369, HAL.
    22. Kull, Alexander J. & Heath, Timothy B., 2016. "You decide, we donate: Strengthening consumer–brand relationships through digitally co-created social responsibility," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 78-92.
    23. Lee, Jaedeock & Ferreira, Mauricio, 2013. "A role of team and organizational identification in the success of cause-related sport marketing," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 161-172.
    24. Katharine M. Howie & Lifeng Yang & Scott J. Vitell & Victoria Bush & Doug Vorhies, 2018. "Consumer Participation in Cause-Related Marketing: An Examination of Effort Demands and Defensive Denial," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 679-692, February.
    25. Neeraj Arora & Ty Henderson, 2007. "Embedded Premium Promotion: Why It Works and How to Make It More Effective," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 514-531, 07-08.
    26. Jeff Wiebe & Debra Z. Basil & Mary Runté, 2017. "Psychological distance and perceived consumer effectiveness in a cause-related marketing context," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 14(2), pages 197-215, June.
    27. Chen, Zengxiang & Huang, Yunhui, 2016. "Cause-related marketing is not always less favorable than corporate philanthropy: The moderating role of self-construal," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 868-880.
    28. Samu, Sridhar & Wymer, Walter, 2009. "The effect of fit and dominance in cause marketing communications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 432-440, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marta Joanna Ziółkowska, 2021. "Digital Transformation and Marketing Activities in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-16, February.
    2. Juliana Norizan & Syukrina Alini Mat Ali & Mohd Fikri Ishak, 2023. "The Factors Affecting Consumer Purchase Intention through Social Commerce – A Concept Paper," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 15(4), pages 381-386.
    3. Prasant Kumar Pandey & Naval Bajpai & Abhijeet V. Tiwari, 2024. "Factors affecting attitude and purchase intention towards cause-related marketing: a systematic literature review using TCCM approach," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 21(2), pages 479-509, June.
    4. Sandra Stötzer & Katharina Kaltenbrunner, 2024. "Back to the roots of cause-related marketing – A systematic literature review of cooperation motives," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 21(3), pages 713-734, September.
    5. Nic S Terblanche & Christo Boshoff & Debbie Human-Van Eck, 2023. "The influence of cause-related marketing campaign structural elements on consumers’ cognitive and affective attitudes and purchase intention," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(1), pages 193-223, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tejaswi Patil & Zillur Rahman, 2023. "Mapping the Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) field: document co-citation and bibliographic coupling approach," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(2), pages 491-520, June.
    2. Xiaojun Fan & Nianqi Deng & Yi Qian & Xuebing Dong, 2022. "Factors Affecting the Effectiveness of Cause-Related Marketing: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(2), pages 339-360, January.
    3. Prasant Kumar Pandey & Naval Bajpai & Abhijeet V. Tiwari, 2024. "Factors affecting attitude and purchase intention towards cause-related marketing: a systematic literature review using TCCM approach," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 21(2), pages 479-509, June.
    4. Anran Zhang & Alex Scodellaro & Bo Pang & Hui-Yi Lo & Zhengliang Xu, 2020. "Attribution and Effectiveness of Cause-Related Marketing: The Interplay between Cause–Brand Fit and Corporate Reputation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-17, October.
    5. Grzegorz Zasuwa, 2017. "The Role of Company-Cause Fit and Company Involvement in Consumer Responses to CSR Initiatives: A Meta-Analytic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-16, June.
    6. Arslanagic-Kalajdzic, Maja & Kadic-Maglajlic, Selma & Dlacic, Jasmina & Zabkar, Vesna, 2022. "“We Go Together”: Understanding social cause-related purchase intentions of young adults," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 130-142.
    7. Saha, Sajeeb & Ranjan, Kumar Rakesh & Pappu, Ravi & Akhlaghpour, Saeed, 2023. "Corporate giving and its impact on consumer evaluations: A meta-analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    8. Wen, Xiaohan (Hannah) & Kim, Shinhye & Bowen, Melanie, 2023. "Doing good by sharing messages: An investigation of “You Share, We Donate” campaigns and how they can attain viral success," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    9. Argiro Kliamenakis & H. Onur Bodur, 2024. "Moral Self-Signaling Benefits of Effortful Cause Marketing Campaigns," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(2), pages 371-398, March.
    10. Fernando Rey Castillo-Villar & Judith Cavazos-Arroyo, 2020. "Social Representations of “Rounding Up” as a Cause-Related Marketing Practice: A Study of Mexican Millennials," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-12, June.
    11. Wei, Shuqin & Ang, Tyson & Liou, Ru-Shiun, 2020. "Does the global vs. local scope matter? Contingencies of cause-related marketing in a developed market," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 201-212.
    12. Sandra Stötzer & Katharina Kaltenbrunner, 2024. "Back to the roots of cause-related marketing – A systematic literature review of cooperation motives," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 21(3), pages 713-734, September.
    13. Nic S Terblanche & Christo Boshoff & Debbie Human-Van Eck, 2023. "The influence of cause-related marketing campaign structural elements on consumers’ cognitive and affective attitudes and purchase intention," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(1), pages 193-223, March.
    14. Hina Yaqub Bhatti & M. Mercedes Galan-Ladero & Clementina Galera-Casquet, 2023. "Cause-related marketing: a systematic review of the literature," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(1), pages 25-64, March.
    15. Anne Hamby & Niusha Jones & Guohong Yu, 2021. "Exploring the effects of for‐profit and nonprofit size congruency: An exchange perspective on cause‐related marketing," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 274-292, March.
    16. Schyvinck, Cleo & Willem, Annick, 2018. "A typology of cause-related marketing approaches in European professional basketball," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 347-362.
    17. Menno D. T. Jong & Mark Meer, 2017. "How Does It Fit? Exploring the Congruence Between Organizations and Their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Activities," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 71-83, June.
    18. Thamaraiselvan Natarajan & Senthil Arasu Balasubramaniam & Daniel Inbaraj Jublee, 2016. "A Journey of Cause Related Marketing from 1988 to 2016," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(11), pages 247-247, October.
    19. Dongho Yoo & Jung-Ae Kim & Sun-Jae Doh, 2018. "The Dual Processing of Donation Size in Cause-Related Marketing (CRM): The Moderating Roles of Construal Level and Emoticons," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-21, November.
    20. Nguyen, Nga & Priporas, Constantinos-Vasilios & McPherson, Mark & Manyiwa, Simon, 2023. "CSR-related consumer scepticism: A review of the literature and future research directions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:22:p:9609-:d:447018. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.