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Abstract

Cause Related Marketing (CRM) is a widely used type of brand alliance in which companies donate a portion of their sales to social causes with whom they ally. Researchers have studied many aspects of CRM to learn why these programs are effective and how to enhance their success. An overlooked component in CRM research is the extent to which consumers identify with the brand and with the cause. The present study presented 604 U.S. college students with CRM campaigns for two brands (M&Ms and Crest) partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to assess whether brand-cause congruence, brand-consumer congruence, cause-consumer congruence, and assessment of the motives of the company influence consumer purchase intention. The results show that congruence between the self-image of the consumer with the image of the brand and with the partner both positively influence reaction to a CRM campaign, as does consumer perceptions of the motivations of the company.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

DOI

10.20429/jamt.2014.050205

Publication Date

12-2014

Recommended Citation

Goldsmith, Ronald E., and Yimin, Zhu (2014). The influences of brand-consumer and cause-congruence on consumer responses to cause related marketing. Journal of Applied Marketing Theory, 5(2),74-95. ISSN: 2151-3236. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/jamt/vol5/iss2/5

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