The Influence of Consumers' Perception and Attitude to Causes on Consumer Attitude toward a Cause-related Marketing Campaign

공익에 대한 소비자의 지각과 태도가 공익관련 마케팅캠페인에 대한 소비자 태도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

Purpose - Ethical consumption is the action of buying one product over another with an ethical idea in mind. It has gained in popularity since the 1990s with more emphasis being put on the power of consumer actions to create social, economic, and environmental change. Ethical consumption involves boycotts of certain products or brands as well as purchases linked to ethical issues. Cause-related marketing (the buying behavior of ethical consumption) involves a for-profit and non-profit entity teaming up to promote a product at the same time as promoting a social cause. Each time a consumer buys that product, a donation is made by the for-profit entity to the non-profit entity supporting the specific cause. Cause-related marketing has become a tremendously popular type of ethical consumption in recent years owing to its reputation of allowing companies to "do well by doing good." This study examines how consumers' perception of cause and attitude influence their attitude toward a cause-related marketing campaign and attempts to suggest implications for marketers. Research design, data, and methodology - First, this study was designed to examine the consumers' perception factors (cause involvement, attitude for cause, attitude for company and brand familiarity) in order to determine whether these factors have significantly affected consumers' attitude toward a cause-related marketing campaign. Second, this study developed a structural equation model and tested it empirically using survey data from 223 individual respondents. Respondents were undergraduate students in Chungnam. They were shown an existing real campaign message of cause-related marketing, and then filled out a questionnaire. Data were analyzed with SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 17.0 programs. Results - The hypotheses were tested using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The study's results showed that brand familiarity, attitude to the company and attitude to the cause significantly affected consumers' attitude toward the cause-related marketing campaign and performance. In particular, attitude to the cause was significantly related to attitude and performance of the cause-related marketing campaign. However, the hypothesis about cause involvement was not supported with the results indicating that cause involvement did not affect consumers' attitude toward the cause-related marketing campaign. The findings underline the importance of consumer perceptions of the cause and the company and their attitude to the cause. They point to the importance of individual differences that influence consumer perceptions of the cause, the company and brand familiarity. Also of importance is the consumer's attitude to the cause. Conclusions - The findings suggest some practical implications in designing and implementing cause-related marketing campaigns. It is important to enhance brand familiarity and create a favorable attitude to the company and attitude to the cause before designing cause-related marketing campaigns. The rising popularity of cause-related marketing has been attributed to its potential to cut through advertising clutter. The findings in this study suggest that marketing campaigns supporting a cause make a difference.