International Journal of Management (IJM)
Volume 14, Issue 7, Nov-Dec 2023, pp. 9-15, Article ID: IJM_14_07_002
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ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510
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A STUDY ON INFLUENCE OF CAUSE RELATED
MARKETING CAMPAIGNS ON CONSUMER
PURCHASE INTENTION
Dr. Nagaraja Pandukuri
Associate Professor, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Institute of Management and Technology,
Baghlingampally, Hyderabad, India
M. A. Rafiq Ahmed Khan
Assistant Professor, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Institute of Management and Technology,
Baghlingampally, Hyderabad, India
Shaik Abdul Mazeed
Assistant Professor, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Institute of Management and Technology,
Baghlingampally, Hyderabad, India
ABSTRACT
Cause-related marketing (CrM) is helpful to marketers in two aspects one is better
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and other is better commercial advantage as it
increase brand awareness and also increases their understanding about CSR related
activities. This research carried out to find out the whether the consumer purchase of a
product associated with cause is well thought decision or it is spontaneous. The effect
of gender has also been explored. To find out the relationship amongst CrM campaigns
and consumer purchase intention hypotheses were tested with the help of descriptive and
regression analysis. The result of study shows that consumers are aware about CrM
and consider it as an effective communication tool. They find that duration of CrM
campaign and company’s commitment to such campaign is crucial. The findings suggest
that CrM campaigns influenced the purchase intention of consumer. These results can
be helpful to identify the factors of CrM campaigns and will drive marketing
recommendations for companies to effectively address different consumer segments
with the help of CrM campaigns.
Keywords: Cause Related Marketing, Consumer Purchase Intention, Campaigns,
Corporate Social Responsibility, Decision
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A Study on Influence of Cause Related Marketing Campaigns on Consumer Purchase Intention
Cite this Article: Nagaraja Pandukuri, M. A. Rafiq Ahmed Khan and Shaik Abdul
Mazeed, A Study on Influence of Cause Related Marketing Campaigns on Consumer
Purchase Intention, International Journal of Management (IJM), 14(7), 2023, pp. 9-15.
https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJM?Volume=14&Issue=7
1. INTRODUCTION
Marketing campaigns and promotions associated with a social cause have become popular these
days. Organizations these days are connect with different corporate social obligation exercises
including gifts, connecting with a social cause, sponsorship’s or impacting an intended interest
group for the associations’ or advertisers’ advantage, as well as for the more prominent social
great, for example, the general society. Bhattacharya and Sen (2004) also suggest that “having
relationships which is steady and committed is beneficial for both sides.” Thus, social
partnerships, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs and Cause-related Marketing
(CrM) are found to have vital according to various organizations. This type of corporate
philanthropy is based on the belief that consumer will purchase from companies who are
associated with a good cause (Cone, 2015). Concept of CrM got immense popularity in 1980s
after a successful innovation and implementation by American Express Bank. In fact CrM
campaigns are intended to make an association between a brand and a cause with the goal that
buyers can define new assessments which enhance their perceptions of each partner. Simply
providing quality products or services does not suffice in today’s competitive business
environment towin the brand can be defined as a strategic alliance between the company and
a cause for the achievement of mutual benefits (Adkins, 2004). According to Varadarajan and
Menon (1988) successful Cause Related loyalty of the customers (Dowling and Uncles, 1997).
That is why the companies are called upon to design innovative strategies to not only attract the
new customers but also to retain the existing customers (Matson, 1994). In this context, Cause
Related Marketing (CRM) represents one of the modern marketing strategies (Taylor, 2007)
which are being used by most companies in the western world. Cause related marketing
campaigns can increase the sales of the company by increasing trial purchase, repeat purchase
and / or promoting multiple unit purchase. Today, most of the companies are using Cause
Related Marketing as a strategic tool (Till and Nowak, 2000) to build a positive corporate image
in the minds of consumers (Chattananon et al., 2008) which results in enhancing the sales of a
company’s products (Varadarajan and Menon, 1988) and profits as well (Adkins, 2004). Also
consumers have better perceptual associations with those organizations that work with charities
and good causes (Farache and Perks, 2008). CrM is not new in India and so far responses of
consumers are positive. Many of the companies like ITC, P&G, Idea, Toyota, Nokia, changed
the fate of many by their active involvement in socially beneficial activities and understanding
their corporate social responsibilities well (India’s Top 50 Marketer Awards: Social Marketer,
2010). Marketing practitioners are showing greater interest towards CrM but it is still at
emerging stage in India (Ferle et al., 2013). Hence, there is a profound felt need to assess the
rate of return of CrM particularly to defend its responsibility.
2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Varadarajan and Menon (1988) defined CRM in an article - which proved to be very influential
for later researches - comprehensively as “the process of formulating and implementing
marketing activities that are characterized by an offer from the firm to contribute a specified
amount to a designated cause when customers engage in revenue-providing exchanges that
satisfy organizational and individual objectives” (Varadarajan and Menon, 1988, p.60).
Introducing the aspect of worthiness, Skory, Repka and McInst (2004, p.2) posit that “Cause
Related Marketing is simply marketing with a worthy cause”.
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Nagaraja Pandukuri, M. A. Rafiq Ahmed Khan and Shaik Abdul Mazeed
Expanding the previous definition by characterizing the firms offer as a ‘promise’ having
relationship implications, Brink et al (2006, p.5) state that “CRM (Cause related marketing) is
a specific marketing activity in which the firm promises its consumers to donate company
resources to a worthy cause for each sold product or service.” Synthesizing these three
definitions, the definition of CRM used for this research is: The process of formulating and
implementing marketing activities that are characterized by a promise of the firm to donate
company resources to a worthy cause for each sold product or service satisfying organizational
and individual objectives.
CrM has been got an increased research attention among researchers in various countries
(Kotler & Lee, 2005; Nan & Heo, 2007; Patel, Gadhavi & Shukla, 2016; Sung and Lee, 2016)
and can refer to marketing campaigns which involves commitment by the business to create a
monetary contribution to a cause for every sale that’s created (Kotler and Lee, 2005). As one of
the first definition of CrM Varadarajan and Menon (1988, p. 60) defined it as: “The process of
planning and executing marketing activities that are characterized by an offer from the firm to
contribute a designated amount to a selected cause when customers engage in revenueproviding exchanges that fulfill organizational and individual goals.” Kotler (2011) defines the
social responsibility of the company as a promise of the company to contribute for welfare of
the community by business practices and optional contributions from company’s resources.
Corporate social initiatives are key activities undertaken by a company to support social causes
and to carry out their promises towards CSR. If we consider CrM as one of type of CSR, CrM
might have effect on behaviour of consumer on a large-scale (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003). It’s
been observed that the CrM campaigns that are effective have led to drastic increment in sales
(Hou, Du, & Li, 2008; Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). As per Soni and Soni, 2013 every citizen
of India wants to contribute for the development of the society they not only appreciate
companies doing CrM campaigns, highlighting emerging societal issues and making people
aware, but also want to participate in such campaigns. But researcher like Ferle, Kuber and
Edwards (2013) and Pawlak and Zasuwa (2011) have a converse view on CrM and conclude
that information regarding social initiative by an organization does not create favorable
consumer attitude towards it, this may be due reason that consumers already have positive
attitude towards companies selected. The results obtained also shows social initiative can have
negative effect if it not as per the company’s actions or for a single occasion. Based on the
literature review it was hypothesized that there is a significant impact of CrM campaign on
consumers’ purchase intention.
In order to answer the primary questions being empirically set forth in this paper, brand
awareness is seen as an important concept for two reasons: first, brand awareness is one of the
factors which affect the attitude of the consumers towards the purchase of products; second,
the relationship between CRM and brand awareness had been established in previous research.
Nedungad (1990) argued that consumers’ inclination to purchase a brand in the market place
depends upon the prior knowledge about the brand. Keller (2003) defines brand awareness as
the ability of customers to recall a brand among the clutter of rival brands. In the same vein,
Radder and Huang (2008) hold that, especially in highly competitive markets, awareness can
strongly influence a customer while buying a product. Consequently, to better exploit the
contributions of brand awareness companies are using different strategies to create brand
awareness among the consumers (Schmitt and Geus, 2006). Using cause related marketing to
create brand awareness (Varadarajan and Menon, 1988) leads to enhanced purchase intentions
(Hoyer and Brown, 1990; Grewal, 1998). Accordingly, Kotler and Keller (2006) regard
Cause Related Marketing as just one opportunity for the companies to enhance the brand
awareness. Implying the importance of experience on memory building (Kaufmann, 2004),
Skory et al (2004) argued that most of the companies use CRM to increase brand awareness
among the consumers through their participation.
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A Study on Influence of Cause Related Marketing Campaigns on Consumer Purchase Intention
So companies use the cause-related marketing campaigns consistently over time to change
the overall attitude of consumers towards the company and its brands (Till and Nowak, 2000).
3. OBJECTIVES & METHODOLOGY
The objective of the present study is to explore the relationship between CrM campaigns and
consumer purchase intention. The convenience sampling technique is used in order to get
responses from only genuinely interested respondents. Sample size is 100. The majority of them
were male 67 % aged from 30 to 39 (33 %). As per the review of previous literatures various
companies are running CrM campaigns in India. The campaign selected for the present study
was project “Shiksha” Procter and Gamble Co. (P&G). As it is one of the oldest and continuous
campaigns (running since 2005) by an FMCG company. In which company promise to donate
a certain amount towards the project as when consumer purchase the any one of the company
brand (like Arial, Gillette, Head & Shoulder, Pampers, Whisper, and Pantene) associated with
the campaign (Ferle et al. 2013). Data is collected using survey method and as convenience
sampling was used respondents were contacted personally by making personal visits or
contacted them in shopping mall. To get genuine and unbiased information respondents were
initially briefed about the importance of CrM concept and were assured about the privacy of
research. For the purpose of data collection a mixed method of self-administered questionnaire
and self-completion questionnaire was used based on previous studies. The questionnaire was
comprises of two sections. Initially the demographic information of respondents like gender,
income, and education were asked. In the second section different statements were asked
according to the variables of the study. As per Bowling (2002) and Priest et al. (1995) items for
scale development ought to be supported by various sources which includes discussion with
experts associated with the field, review of existing literature and discussion with recommended
respondents (Yadav and Verma 2015). Also face or content validity should be maintained.
Further Bowling (2002), Oppenheim (1992) recommended revisiting of generated items to
visualize their relevancy as per the research objectives. For present study to elicit the effect of
CrM campaigns the 5 point Likert scale in which respondents give responses varying from
strongly disagree to strongly agree has been developed containing items adopted from various
studies (Ćorić, & Dropuljić ,2015;Shabbir et al., 2010). To measure the consumers’ purchase
intention six items were adopted from the research of Hou et al. (2008). The responses were
recorded on a 5 point Likert scale with values varying from strongly disagree to strongly agree.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Descriptive analysis of demographic information of respondents shows that 67 % were male
and 33 % were female. Most of the participants were aged from 30 to 39 (33 %). The results of
regression analysis of relation between CrM campaigns and consumers’ purchase intention are
shown in tables 1-3.
Table-1: Model Summary
Model
R
R Square
1
.793a
.628
Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
.624
.88261
Predictors: (Constant), CrM Campaign
Dependent Variable: Consumer Purchase Intention
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Nagaraja Pandukuri, M. A. Rafiq Ahmed Khan and Shaik Abdul Mazeed
The table 1 shows the adjusted R square value which indicates the percentage of variation
in consumer purchase intention caused by CrM campaigns of the companies. The adjusted R
square value of .624 indicates that the variation in consumers’ purchase intention up to 62% is
caused by CrM campaigns of the companies.
Table-2: ANOVA results - CrM campaigns and Consumer purchase intention
Model
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Regression
128.954
1
128.954
165.537
.000a
Residual
76.343
98
.779
Total
205.297
99
Predictors: (Constant), CrM Campaign
Dependent Variable: Consumer Purchase Intention
Results in table 2 show the value of F-test which indicates the fitness of model. From the
table it was found that the proposed model is statistically significant as F (165.537) and p <
.001 thus leading to conclusion that there is relationship between CrM campaigns and
consumers’ purchase intention.
Table 3 Regression Coefficientsa - CrM campaigns and Consumer purchase intention
Unstandardized
Standardized
Coefficients
Coefficients
t
Sig.
Model
B
Std. Error
Beta
1
(Constant)
6.882
.958
7.186
.000
.793
CrM Campaign
.869
.068
12.866
.000
Dependent Variable: Consumer Purchase Intention
Table 3 shows the contribution of CrM campaign on consumers’ purchase intention in the
NCR region. The results of the t- value confirm that CrM campaign (t = 7.186; p = .000 < .005)
is significant at 0.05 level.
A linear regression equation between a dependent variable (Consumers’ purchase intention)
and independent variable (CrM Campaign) can be derived as:
CPI= a + b CrMC
(1)
The resulting regression equation is:
CPI=6.882 + 0.869 CrMC
(2)
Where, CPI = Consumers’ Purchase Intention CrMC = CrM Campaign
The equation (2) specifies that if CrM campaign changes by one unit, there will be 0.869 units
increase in the consumers’ purchase intention. The positive value of coefficient CrM campaign
indicates the positive relationship between it and consumers’ purchase intention.
5. LIMITATIONS
Although this study significantly contributes to the existing literature by showing the effect of
CrM campaigns on consumers’ purchase intention, there are a number of limitations associated
with the research. First, is that it has taken examples from only Fast Moving Consumer Goods
(FMCG) as such the nature and type of response may vary in other Indian industry and the
results cannot be generalized. Second, this research is based on self-reported responses, however
respondents own willingness to purchase cause supported products may not actually do so in
reality. Finally, due to the relatively small sample size some minor effects may be neglected.
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A Study on Influence of Cause Related Marketing Campaigns on Consumer Purchase Intention
6. FUTURE RESEARCH
A future research which can use findings of this research and overcomes its limitations is
recommended. First, the similar study can be replicated with respondents who actually purchase
such type of product. Also, the further research can be carried out to find out effect of other
variables such as brand loyalty, cause involvement and cause-brand fit on consumers’ purchase
intention. Due to small sample size some results of the study may not be generalized further
researches can increase the sample size to get more insight.
7. CONCLUSION
The objective of this study was to find out the effects of CrM campaigns on consumer purchase
intention in India. The data analysis clearly shows that CrM initiatives like CrM campaigns of
the companies are significantly results in forming positive attitude of consumers towards the
organization as well as higher purchase intentions. The variation in consumer purchase intention
up to 62% is caused by CrM campaigns of the companies. These findings confirm the findings
of existing literature, which proposed that the consumers’ purchase intention is positively
affected by CrM (Adkins, 1999; Patel, Gadhavi & Shukla, 2016; Shabbir et al., 2010;
Varadarajan & Menon, 1988). The results of this study can be helpful not only for the
academicians but also for the companies. As per the findings, there is a significant effect of CrM
campaigns on the consumers’ purchase intention so marketers must work on various CrM
campaigns positively and strategically.
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Citation: Nagaraja Pandukuri, M. A. Rafiq Ahmed Khan and Shaik Abdul Mazeed, A Study on Influence of
Cause Related Marketing Campaigns on Consumer Purchase Intention, International Journal of Management
(IJM), 14(7), 2023, pp. 9-15.
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