Attribution and Effectiveness of Cause-Related Marketing: The Interplay between Cause–Brand Fit and Corporate Reputation

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Zhang, Anran
Scodellaro, Alex
Pang, Bo
Lo, Hui-Yi
Xu, Zhengliang
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2020
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Abstract

In cause-related marketing (CRM) programs, the fit between the cause and brand is an important factor influencing consumer perceptions and behavior. However, the literature demonstrates that there is disagreement regarding the effect of cause–brand fit on consumer responses with varying corporate reputation. This study aims to examine the influence of cause–brand fit on consumer attitudes, attributed company motives, and the moderating role of corporate reputation. With a two (fit: high/low) by three (reputation: low/medium/high) experimental study, we reveal that consumers hold positive attitudes toward companies that engage in CRM campaigns. The effect of cause–brand fit on consumer-attributed company motives is moderated by corporate reputation. For low-reputation companies, a high cause–brand fit CRM campaign resulted in consumers attributing more negative motives to companies than low-fit campaigns. The opposite was true for medium-reputation companies. Meanwhile, high-reputation companies with a high cause–brand fit elicit greater value-driven attributed motives from consumers than other motives. Recommendations for implementing CRM programs and for future research are discussed.

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Sustainability

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12

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20

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© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Built environment and design

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Zhang, A; Scodellaro, A; Pang, B; Lo, H-Y; Xu, Z, Attribution and Effectiveness of Cause-Related Marketing: The Interplay between Cause–Brand Fit and Corporate Reputation, Sustainability, 12 (20), pp. 8338

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