ABSTRACT
Cause-related marketing (CRM) has developed into a versatile and cost-effective tool to accomplish corporate objectives. Understanding the consumer expectations and preferences while planning and designing effective CRM communication strategies has become necessary for marketers. In order to understand the effect of CRM communication on consumers purchase intention, two separate experiments were conducted to examine the interactive effect of donation message framing, donation magnitude, and product category with a sample of 180 participants for each. This study was drawn from a sample of undergraduate students from a mid-sized university in India. The results of study 1 indicated that exact message framing regardless of the product (i.e., high and low involvement) generated higher purchase intention. Study 2 demonstrated that purchase intention for high CRM donation magnitude was influenced most by product category involvement. Overall, the outcome suggests that design elements of CRM communication does influence consumer response to the campaign.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Professor Abhishek for his critical inputs in designing the experiment and refining the structure of the paper. This research was conducted without any financial support from a third party.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sonal Kureshi
Dr. Sonal Kureshi is a Ph.D. in marketing and has been closely associated for the last 30 years with the marketing area at the prestigious Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. She has several case studies and working papers to her credit. She is a prolific writer and has numerous research papers published in professional journals. She has presented papers at several national and international conferences. Her current research interests are in communication in the emerging media, social marketing, branding and new product related issues.
Sujo Thomas
Dr. Sujo Thomas is a faculty in marketing area with Ahmedabad University. He has over 14 years of experience in Academics and Industry. His research papers are published in National and International Academic journals of repute. He has published several case studies and has presented papers in National as well as International conferences. His areas of research interest include cause-related marketing, social media marketing and shopper marketing.