Cause-Related Marketing Research

[TOM Merilahti]

Philanthropy Journal
October 20, 2008

Efforts by corporations to tie their products and services to charities and causes can boost sales in some instances, new research says.

Exposure to cause-related marketing had a positive effect on some product sales in two studies conducted by Cone and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

In an initial study, 182 people viewed either cause-related or traditional advertising and then shopped in a mock convenience store.

Almost two-thirds more people who had viewed the cause-related advertising for shampoo purchased the product than did those who had seen traditional advertising.

A similar, though lesser, effect was seen for toothpaste, with a 24 percent increase in actual purchase by those who had viewed cause-related ads.

For products including chips and light bulbs, however, cause-related ads were associated with only slight increases in actual purchase.

In a follow-up study with 1,000 participants, cause-related marketing was shown to have a positive effect, but not as strong as seen in the initial study.

Actual sales of shampoo and toothpaste jumped 19 percent and 5 percent respectively for people exposed to cause-related advertising.

"One thing we know for sure - consumers are paying more attention to cause messages, and as a result, are more likely to purchase," says Gavan Fitzsimons, a marketing professor at Duke and lead researcher for the study. "This is clearly great news for brand managers, as every percentage increase can translate to millions of dollars in revenue."

Professional Area: Marketing/communications

[RLB]

A simple rule applies / if it cleans your conscience or enables a feel of "positive doing" marketers can get away with it. However, in a world of open footprinting and complete traceability, one shall move (market) with caution.

Empty promises can lead to a deep plunge and seriously hurt the brand, more than a few percent of sales will ever do (Short Term success vs Long Term sustainability).

Other than that / it is nothing new, exchange cause with reason, and you have classic pre purchase triggering, just twisted to a new "in" subject..

... and what do we know about trends? Yep... they are short-term.

[TOM Merilahti]

The core values of people and their attitudes toward marketing advertising are changing with a continually increasing speed. The cooperation between commercial and non-profit organizations has become an important part of their marketing strategy to show Corporate Social Responsibilty (CSR) for instance. At this point one could ask: is CSR marketing at all, or “just” charity work? Don't you think that almost anything you see, hear or sense in our world is marketing in a way or another.

The business environment of commercial and the operational environment of uncommercial organizations changes rapidly, the consumer behaviour is changing uninterrupted, the target audience’s field of interest is splintering in smaller and smaller pieces...

Every organization have to find new ways to approach their target audiences, and begin to search for new communication channels to get their messages forwarded to, not only their target groups but, to single personalities as well.

When the marketing costs are continually expanding, Co-marketing in all of its forms is becoming more and more important. Different forms of Co-marketing are among others are Co-promotion, Cause Related Marketing, Event Marketing, Sponsorship, and Compositioning about very few, even marketing professionals know so much about.

As you all very well know, Ad-agencies sell ads, Media-agencies media, and the PR-agency public relations services. At the same time the marketing manager jumps back and forth to the Ad-agency, the PR-manager to the PR-agency. Everyone fights each other to get their own ideas through in the process, and to keep their post in organizations. Read more...

[Deborah J. Boyd]

Tom, I agree. I am not sure if this is happening worldwide but the latest thing here in the USA is social marketing. A company makes a widget. In order to sell their widgets they get profiles of people to discover that they have influence over several other people. Then the company sends a free widget to the source of influence with coupons for the widget purchase for their friends. Watch for product placement in You Tube to get popular too.