In the past several years, companies have discovered the importance of strategic social alliances, particularly in the form of cause related marketing (CRM) programs. Varadarajan and Menon (1988) describe the key feature of CRM as is that the firms contribution is linked to consumers engagement in revenue producing transactions with the firm. It is essentially a way for a firm to do well by doing good and provides several benefits to both the firm and the non-profit organizations receiving the donations.
In general, academic researchers have found favorable consumer attitudes toward the firm, products and the non-profit organization involved. Consumers were more likely to switch brands and retailers to support socially responsible companies. Other researchers have examined several elements of a CRM campaign such as product type, donation size, gender, and perceived motivation of the firm.
This dissertation examines prosocial behavior and the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM) to explain consumers decision to participate in the CRM offer. In addition, this research examines several factors that potentially influence a consumers decision to participate in CRM programs including cause importance, cause proximity, congruence and participation effort.
Two pilot studies and one main study tests the influence of the four independent variables on attitudes and intentions. They examine the influence of these variables using skin cancer as the cause and fictitious brands. Results from student subjects provide evidence of the relationship between cause importance and cause proximity to affect elaboration. Additionally, congruency is perceived as more effective and a segment of consumers is identified based on their participation level.
The main study uses bone cancer and fictitious brands. Results from non-student subjects provide further evidence of the relationship between cause importance and cause proximity and highlights the effect of elaboration and congruency on consumer attitudes. Additionally, the research finds an initial point where consumers consider participation effort to be too high.
Overall, this research should help firms determine the best partners for strategic social alliances and how to best design them for maximum participation. It offers insight into variables that have mixed results and the identification and study of a new variable participation effort.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-0415102-123400 |
| Date | 19 April 2002 |
| Creators | Landreth, Stacy |
| Contributors | Abe Biswas, Al Burns, Judith Garretson, Al Schupp, Laura Lindsay |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0415102-123400/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in the University Libraries in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. |
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