Determinants of Participation and Outcomes in A Cause Marketing Event: A Laddering Approach

ABSTRACT

While a rich stream of studies has emerged to understand customer identification at the brand level, this topic has not been addressed from an event marketing perspective. Secondly, although the concept of self-brand connections has received increased attention in the marketing literature, there is a paucity of studies examining this behavioral outcome in the context of event marketing. This study is the first of its kind to provide insights into how value drives participation in a branded marketing event organized by a nonprofit institution. Using the example of the branded marketing event, “Walk the Talk Community against Violence,” organized by the Soroptimist organization, this study explores participants’ motives to engage in marketing events and the subsequent impact of the engagement on participants’ self-brand connections. Analysis of data obtained through a semi-qualitative laddering approach (n = 40 participants) revealed 3 dominant perceptual patterns: external value (“social engagement identity”); internal value (“moral identity”), and interpersonal value (“social citizenship”). Though limited in scope by its exploratory character, the study contributes toward a deeper understanding of participation and outcomes in a cause marketing event. Implications for theory and practice and further research are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Event Marketing
• Laddering
• Cause-related Marketing
• Customer Engagement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The exception is the retailing sector (e.g, Dhruv et al., 2017).

2. https://www.soroptimist.org

3. http://soroptimistmalaysia.org/

4. https://blog.bizzabo.com/event-marketing-statistics

5. This cutoff of 5 means that only the linked mentioned by at least 5% of the respondents were considered in the hierarchical map. The size of the arrows connecting the blocks is proportional to the number of connections between the constructs (the bigger the arrows, the stronger the ladder between one construct the other)