When and with Whom to Ally? the Influence of Cm Strategic Alliances
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ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 When and With Whom to Ally? the Influence of Cm Strategic Alliances on Consumer Purchase Behavior Chien-Wei (Wilson) Lin, State University of New York at Oneonta, USA Qi Wang, State University of New York at Binghamton, USA Five studies investigate the impact of two types of strategic alliances in cause-related marketing: within- and cross-industry alliances. We find consumers perceive within- (vs. cross-) industry alliance as a high entitativity group with strong commitment to a cause, resulting in greater purchase intentions. Familiarity and cause involvement moderate the effect. [to cite]: Chien-Wei (Wilson) Lin and Qi Wang (2017) ,"When and With Whom to Ally? the Influence of Cm Strategic Alliances on Consumer Purchase Behavior", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 45, eds. Ayelet Gneezy, Vladas Griskevicius, and Patti Williams, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 749-450. [url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1024126/volumes/v45/NA-45 [copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/. When and With Whom to Ally? The Influence of CM Strategic Alliances on Consumer Purchase Behavior Chien-Wei (Wilson) Lin, State University of New York at Oneonta, USA Qi Wang, State University of New York at Binghamton, USA EXTENDED ABSTRACT Therefore, within-industry alliance message can be more desirable According to the IEG Sponsorship Report (2016), U.S. cause- for low- (vs. high-) cause involvement individuals. related marketing (CM) spending reached $1.92 billion in 2015, Results from four studies and an empirical data support our hy- representing a 135 percent increase from 2002. Recently, it is in- potheses. Study 1 employs a 3 (alliance: within, cross, no) x 2 (famil- creasingly common to find firms involved the strategic alliances with iarity: well-known, unknown) between-subjects design. Participants others firms to execute the CM program—CM alliance (Varadarajan were first asked to examine a recent company announcement, named and Menon 1988). For example, General Mills teamed up with the “The Fighting Hunger Project”: During the next three months the other food companies (e.g., ConAgra Foods, Kraft Foods, and Kel- firm(s) will donate 5% of the proceeds from the sales of the partici- logg) to donate meals to Feeding America. Likewise, the Product pating products to help fight hunger. We chose General Mills as the (RED) campaign engaged companies such as Apple, Gap, and Bel- well-known target company and a fictitious food company named vedere Vodka to contribute 50% of profits from designated products popp as the unknown target company. In the within-industry alli- to provide medicine to AIDS patients in Africa. ance condition, the company worked together with the other three We refer to the former type of CM alliance as within-industry companies from the same food industry (e.g., Kraft foods, Kellogg’s, alliance (General Milles), the latter as cross-industry alliance (RED). and Nestle) and in the cross-industry alliance condition, the company While solo CM campaign remains dominant in the marketplace (138 worked together with the other companies across different industries campaigns, 41 percent), both within- (83 campaigns, 25 percent) and (e.g., Ford, Motorola, and Gap). In the no alliance condition, the cross- (113 campaigns, 34 percent) industry alliances are viewed as company worked exclusively with the cause. As expected, partici- important strategic alternatives for many firms (Engage for Good pants were more likely to buy the products for within- than cross- 2015). The above raises important questions that have not yet been industry alliance when the company is unknown, but not when the fully investigated: With whom should firms ally to make CM more company is well-known. effective? Furthermore, the impact of within- and cross-industry al- Study 2 tested the moderating effect of cause involvement on liances may depend upon firm and consumer characteristics. When consumers’ preference toward cross-industry alliance products. The firms should ally to make CM more effective? between-subjects design and stimuli were the same as before. Par- A CM alliance can play a role in how a firm’s commitment to ticipants indicated their cause involvement in the end (Grau and a cause is perceived, which can affect acceptance of the good deed Folse 2007). Results replicate the finding in study 1 and this effect is (Van den Brink et al. 2004). According to attribution theory (Heider diminished for high cause-involvement individuals, supporting the 1958), when consumers perceive that a company is making a signifi- moderating role of cause involvement. cant effort to a cause, they are more likely to infer altruistic motives Study 3 ruled out company-cause fit as an alternative account on the part of the sponsor, and thoughts of corporate profits associ- (i.e., lower fit between fighting hunger and partners from different ated with the sponsorship act can be minimized (Rifon et al. 2004). industries than from the same food industry). Study 3 employed We predict that a within-industry alliance may elicit perceptions of a 2 (alliance: within, cross) x 2 (fit: high, low) x 3 (product: food, high entitativity group with strong commitment to the cause and detergent, calculators) mixed design with alliance and fit as the be- thus increase customer preferences to a firm’s products. Entitativity tween-subjects factors and product as the within-subjects factor. We has been defined as “the perception that an aggregate of individuals generated the high- and low-fit conditions for each product category is bonded together in some way to constitute a group” (Hamilton, (confirmed by a pretest). As expected, within- (vs. cross-) industry Sherman, and Castelli 2002, p. 141). High entitativity groups share alliance leads to greater purchase intentions, regardless of high (or properties such as similarity, common movement, and common goals low) cause fit with the company. (Campbell 1958; Lickel et al. 2000) and their members are perceived Study 4 examined the underlying mechanism in a 2 (alliance) as active participants in carrying out plans to achieve collective ob- x 2 (product) between-subjects design. We measured participants’ jectives (Brewer et al. 2004). These characteristics are related to the willingness-to-pay (WTP) and purchase intentions. To test the un- factors of greater perceived commitment: the amount of input, the derlying mechanism, participants responded to items including the durability of the association, and the consistency (stability) of input perceptions of corporate commitment to the cause and entitativity (Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987). regarding the alliance. As expected, within- (vs. cross-) industry al- The present work further examines firm and consumer char- liance leads to stronger perceptions of entitativity, which leads to acteristics that moderate the CM alliance effect. For a well-known greater perceptions of corporate commitment to the cause. The great- company, the degree of liking for the brand is established (Bettman er perceived corporate commitment in turn leads to a greater WTP. and Sujan 1987) so forming a CM alliance will not benefit brand Having observed the commitment issue of cross-industry alliance, attitude much. However, for an unknown company, consumers will we verified it using an empirical data. Using data from an online CM heavily scrutinize its motive to make a judgment due to a lack of trust news website, we found that firms are less likely to continue cross- (Ellen et al. 2006). Thus, we predict that a within-industry alliance (vs. within-) industry alliance. All effects were significant atp < .05. can enhance consumers’ confidence in the unknown firm’s intrinsic In sum, this research demonstrates novel effects of using CM motive, thereby increasing CM product preference. Further, Grau alliance by showing when and what types of CM alliance are effec- and Folse (2007) find that compared with high-cause involvement in- tive in influencing consumer response. By showing that entitativity dividuals, low-cause involvement individuals rely more on CM mes- affects perceived cause commitment, we demonstrate a novel process sage cues to produce favorable attitudes and participation intentions. through which emotional and charitable responses can be increased. Advances in Consumer Research 749 Volume 45, ©2017 750 / When and With Whom to Ally? The Influence of CM Strategic Alliances on Consumer Purchase Behavior REFERENCES Hamilton, David L., Steven J. Sherman, and Luigi Castelli (2002), Bettman, James R., and Mita Sujan (1987), “Effects of Framing on “A Group by any Other Name—The Role of Entitativity in Evaluation of Comparable and Noncomparable Alternatives Group Perception,” European Review of Social Psychology, by Expert and Novice Consumers,” Journal of Consumer 12 (April), 139-166. Research, 14 (September), 141-154. 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