IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/corsem/v16y2009i1p15-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A strategy to communicate corporate social responsibility: cause related marketing and its dark side

Author

Listed:
  • Ilaria Baghi
  • Enrico Rubaltelli
  • Marcello Tedeschi

Abstract

Cause related marketing (CRM) is a strategy that aims to communicate a company's striving for corporate social responsibility and to improve brand image. A strategy to increase consumers' emotional involvement toward a product–cause association is to describe the cause in vivid terms. In two experiments we investigated how vivid messages might increase the effectiveness of CRM strategy. We sought to demonstrate that a vivid description of the cause could influence consumers' preferences and trust in the effective use of money collected by selling the product. Experiment 1 results showed that individuals prefer products associated with a vivid message of the social cause rather than products associated with a pallid message. Experiment 2 results suggested that vivid messages induce more positive affective reactions and a higher trust in the effective use of money than pallid ones. In the final section, the implications of CRM for corporate social responsibility are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Ilaria Baghi & Enrico Rubaltelli & Marcello Tedeschi, 2009. "A strategy to communicate corporate social responsibility: cause related marketing and its dark side," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(1), pages 15-26, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:corsem:v:16:y:2009:i:1:p:15-26
    DOI: 10.1002/csr.174
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.174
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/csr.174?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kisielius, Jolita & Sternthal, Brian, 1986. "Examining the Vividness Controversy: An Availability-Valence Interpretation," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 12(4), pages 418-431, March.
    2. McGill, Ann L & Anand, Punam, 1989. "The Effect of Vivid Attributes on the Evaluation of Alternatives: The Role of Differential Attention and Cognitive Elaboration," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(2), pages 188-196, September.
    3. Tony McMurtrie, 2005. "Factors influencing the publication of social performance information: an Australian case study," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(3), pages 129-143, September.
    4. Keller, Punam Anand & Block, Lauren G, 1997. "Vividness Effects: A Resource-Matching Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(3), pages 295-304, December.
    5. Lafferty, Barbara A. & Goldsmith, Ronald E., 2005. "Cause-brand alliances: does the cause help the brand or does the brand help the cause?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 423-429, April.
    6. Wright, Peter & Rip, Peter D, 1980. "Product Class Advertising Effects on First-Time Buyers' Decision Strategies," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 7(2), pages 176-188, Se.
    7. Pracejus, John W. & Olsen, G. Douglas, 2004. "The role of brand/cause fit in the effectiveness of cause-related marketing campaigns," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(6), pages 635-640, June.
    8. Richard Welford, 2002. "Globalization, corporate social responsibility and human rights," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 1-7, March.
    9. Bas Arts, 2002. "‘Green alliances’ of business and NGOs. New styles of self‐regulation or ‘dead‐end roads’?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 26-36, March.
    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. 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.
    2. Umit Alniacik & Esra Alniacik & Nurullah Genc, 2011. "How corporate social responsibility information influences stakeholders' intentions," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(4), pages 234-245, July.
    3. Raymond J. Jones & Timothy M. Reilly & Marcus Z. Cox & Brooklyn M. Cole, 2017. "Gender Makes a Difference: Investigating Consumer Purchasing Behavior and Attitudes Toward Corporate Social Responsibility Policies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2), pages 133-144, March.
    4. Kumar Verma Bhupendra & Shirish Sangle, 2018. "Product Stewardship Strategy: A Study of Indian Firms," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(2), pages 124-134, March.
    5. Yuan-Shuh Lii & May-Ching Ding & Chih-Huang Lin, 2018. "Fair or Unfair: The Moderating Effect of Sustainable CSR Practices on Anticipatory Justice Following Service Failure Recovery," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-21, December.
    6. Peter Dobers & Delyse Springett, 2010. "Corporate social responsibility: discourse, narratives and communication," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 63-69, March.
    7. Andrea Pérez & Ignacio Rodríguez del Bosque, 2015. "How Customer Support for Corporate Social Responsibility Influences the Image of Companies: Evidence from the Banking Industry," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(3), pages 155-168, May.
    8. Liyanage Chamila Roshani Perera & Jayawickrama Withanage Dushan Chaminda, 2013. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Product Evaluation: The Moderating Role of Brand Familiarity," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(4), pages 245-256, July.
    9. Naïade Anido Freire & Leïla Loussaïef, 2018. "When Advertising Highlights the Binomial Identity Values of Luxury and CSR Principles: The Examples of Louis Vuitton and Hermès," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(4), pages 565-582, July.
    10. Sungchul Choi & Alex Ng, 2011. "Environmental and Economic Dimensions of Sustainability and Price Effects on Consumer Responses," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 269-282, December.
    11. Shao‐Chi Chang & Heng‐Yu Chang, 2015. "Corporate Motivations of Product Recall Strategy: Exploring the Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Stakeholder Engagement," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(6), pages 393-407, November.
    12. Jin-Hua Yang & Fa-Yu Lei & Jin-He Zhang & Ying Song & Chang Wang, 2023. "Altruistic Motivation, Moral Elevation and Tourism Support Behavior: An Empirical Study Based on Cause-Related Marketing in Tourist Destinations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-14, February.
    13. 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.
    14. Biedma Ferrer, José María & López Fernández, Macarena & Romero Fernández, Pedro M., 2017. "The collective labour agreement as a key tool for driving corporate social responsibility: banking sector analysis," Cuadernos de Gestión, Universidad del País Vasco - Instituto de Economía Aplicada a la Empresa (IEAE).
    15. Rachel Esther Lim & Wei‐Na Lee, 2023. "Communicating corporate social responsibility: How fit, specificity, and cognitive fluency drive consumer skepticism and response," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 955-967, March.
    16. 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.
    17. Paolo Antonetti & Ilaria Baghi, 2021. "When Blame-Giving Crisis Communications are Persuasive: A Dual-Influence Model and Its Boundary Conditions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(1), pages 59-78, August.
    18. Simphiwe Lincon Hlophe & Debbie Ellis, 2024. "Changing consumer attitudes to make the Corporate Social Responsibility investment in sustainable fish production, a worthwhile investment to corporates," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 344-356, January.
    19. Jeesun Kim & Sun Young Lee & Hyun Jee Oh, 2023. "The Effects of Message Specificity on Outcomes of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication: Testing Perceived Social Distance as a Mediator," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-17, December.
    20. SWIATKIEWICZ Olgierd, 2021. "The Wine Sector Management In Portugal: An Overview On Its Three-Dimensional Sustainability," Management of Sustainable Development, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 13(1), pages 39-48, June.
    21. 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).
    22. Ouidade Sabri, 2018. "The Detrimental Effect of Cause-Related Marketing Parodies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(2), pages 517-537, August.

    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. Scott Connors & Stephen Anderson-MacDonald & Matthew Thomson, 2017. "Overcoming the ‘Window Dressing’ Effect: Mitigating the Negative Effects of Inherent Skepticism Towards Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 599-621, October.
    2. Gordon Liu & Wai Wai Ko, 2014. "An integrated model of cause-related marketing strategy development," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 4(3), pages 78-95, December.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Ahmad, Fayez & Guzmán, Francisco & Al-Emran, Md, 2024. "Brand activism and the consequence of woke washing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    6. Sinha, Piyush Kumar & Mishra, Hari Govind & Singh, Sarabjot, 2014. "Impact of Consumer Social Responsibility and Brand Social Responsibility Image on Brand Loyalty," IIMA Working Papers WP2014-03-16, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    7. Kureshi, Sonal & Thomas, Sujo, 2016. "Intention to Participate in Cause Related Marketing: Influence of Cause," IIMA Working Papers WP2016-03-12, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    8. 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.
    9. Urvi Agrawal & Arushie Mangla & Mahim Sagar, 2016. "Company-Cause-Customer: Interaction Architecture," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 17(3), pages 307-319, September.
    10. Gordon Liu, 2013. "Impacts of Instrumental Versus Relational Centered Logic on Cause-Related Marketing Decision Making," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 113(2), pages 243-263, March.
    11. 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.
    12. Jeffrey Hales & Xi (Jason) Kuang & Shankar Venkataraman, 2011. "Who Believes the Hype? An Experimental Examination of How Language Affects Investor Judgments," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 223-255, March.
    13. Zhanfei Lei & Dezhi Yin & Sabyasachi Mitra & Han Zhang, 2022. "Swayed by the reviews: Disentangling the effects of average ratings and individual reviews in online word‐of‐mouth," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(6), pages 2393-2411, June.
    14. Robinson, Stefanie & Eilert, Meike, 2018. "The role of message specificity in corporate social responsibility communication," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 260-268.
    15. Diana Gavilan & Maria Avello, 2020. "Brand-Evoked Mental Imagery: The Role of Brands in Eliciting Mental Imagery," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, November.
    16. Waßmann, Jan, 2011. "Corporate Social Responsibility in der Marketing- und Markenforschung: Ein systematischer Überblick zum aktuellen Stand der empirischen Forschung," Research Papers on Marketing Strategy 5/2011, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Lehrstuhl für BWL und Marketing.
    17. Veronica Devenin & Constanza Bianchi, 2018. "Soccer fields? What for? Effectiveness of corporate social responsibility initiatives in the mining industry," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(5), pages 866-879, September.
    18. Mohammad Nurunnabi & Yazeed Alfakhri & Demah H. Alfakhri, 2018. "Consumer perceptions and corporate social responsibility: what we know so far," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 15(2), pages 161-187, June.
    19. Y. Sekou Bermiss & Benjamin L. Hallen & Rory McDonald & Emily C. Pahnke, 2017. "Entrepreneurial beacons: The Yale endowment, run‐ups, and the growth of venture capital," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 545-565, March.
    20. Ascensión Barroso & Óscar R. González-López & Ramón Sanguino & María Buenadicha-Mateos, 2018. "Analysis and Evaluation of the Largest 500 Family Firms’ Websites through PLS-SEM Technique," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-22, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:corsem:v:16:y:2009:i:1:p:15-26. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1535-3966 .

    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.