Cause Related Marketing
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Master thesis Fall 2009 Kristianstad University MBA International Marketing Cause Related Marketing How does a cause-related marketing strategy shape consumer perception, attitude and behaviour? Writer Valentina Alcheva Yonggang Cai Lingyan Zhao Supervisor Christer Ekelund Examiner Håkan Pihl I Abstract American Express initiated a new marketing strategy twenty-five years ago. For every new card user the company donated one cent for the recovery of the Statue of Liberty. The success of the campaign exceeds the expectations. This strategy where a company declares to spend a defined amount of money for a special cause in order to push up its sales is called Cause-Related Marketing. Now more and more companies use the cause-related marketing strategy as a way out of saturated markets and growing consumer awareness. Billions of dollars are spent every year in cause campaigns. Because it is a relatively new approach many researches has shown interest in this marketing communication strategy. However, there is still lack in the field of cause-related marketing and especially in the consumer part. This is also the field of interest for this dissertation and in particular how does cause-relates marketing strategy shape consumer attitude, perception and buying behaviour? In order to find out the answer of this question we relied on different theories and in addition we conducted a questionnaire among international students. The results, even though restricted trough the sample, showed that there is a connection between the cause-related marketing and buying behaviour and attitude. Consumers are more likely to support companies which are engaged in cause campaigns and tend to develop positive attitude toward this company and its products. The research was limited to sample of students who took part in the questionnaire. A further investigation in this field could deliver deeper information and be useful for companies and researchers in the field of marketing communication and marketing strategies. Keywords : Cause-related Marketing, consumer attitude, perception, buying behaviour, marketing communication, II Acknowledgment Kristianstad, December 2009 This master dissertation is our final assignment before we graduate from Kristianstad University. We are very grateful to have the opportunity to meet each other and enjoy the work as a team. For this work we express our great thanks to our supervisor, Christer Ekelund, whose effort, support, time and patience enabled us to complete this project. His humour also made this long learning process easier. Further, we would like to thank Annika Fjekner for her ever so important feedback on the written language and layout in our dissertation. Pierre Carbonnier and Timus Umans also deserve our gratefulness. Without their feedback and support in SPSS it would have been very difficult for us to complete our analysis. We would also like to thank Zana Malisevskaja for her help with our questionnaire. Without her it would have been very difficult to obtain so many respondents as we did in this research. Valentina Alcheva Yonggang Cai Lingyan Zhao III Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background ................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Purpose ........................................................................................................ 5 1.3. Research question........................................................................................ 5 1.4. Practical Problems ....................................................................................... 6 1.5. Outline of the thesis .................................................................................... 6 2. Method ........................................................................................................... 7 2.1. Choice of methodology ............................................................................... 7 2.2. Research philosophy ................................................................................... 7 2.3. Research approach ...................................................................................... 9 2.4. Choice of theory ........................................................................................ 10 2.5. Summary ................................................................................................... 11 3. Theoretical Framework .............................................................................. 13 3.1. Marketing .................................................................................................. 13 3.1.1. Definition of marketing ....................................................................... 13 3.1.2. Marketing mix- Ps and Cs ................................................................... 14 3.2. Marketing communication ........................................................................ 15 3.2.1. Marketing communication definition .................................................. 15 3.2.2. The objective of marketing communication ........................................ 15 3.2.3. CRM is one form of marketing communication .................................. 16 3.3. Cause-related marketing............................................................................ 16 3.3.1. Definition of Cause Related Marketing............................................... 16 3.3.2. Stages of Development ........................................................................ 17 3.3.3. Main requirement and cause ties ........................................................ 18 3.3.4. Types of CRM ...................................................................................... 19 3.3.5. Benefits and risks of CRM ................................................................... 20 3.3.6. Objective of CRM-brand purchase intention ...................................... 21 IV 3.4. Consumer analysis .................................................................................... 22 3.4.1. Perception ........................................................................................... 22 3.4.2. Attitude ................................................................................................ 23 3.4.3. Consumer behaviour ........................................................................... 24 3.5. Summary ................................................................................................... 29 4. Empirical method ........................................................................................ 31 4.1. Research strategy ...................................................................................... 31 4.2. Time horizon ............................................................................................. 32 4.3. Data collection .......................................................................................... 32 4.4. Population ................................................................................................. 33 4.5. Sample selection........................................................................................ 34 4.6. Operationalisation ..................................................................................... 35 4.7. Reliability .................................................................................................. 37 4.8. Validity ...................................................................................................... 37 4.9. Generalisability ......................................................................................... 38 4.10. The Questionnaire ..................................................................................... 39 5. Analysis ........................................................................................................ 42 5.1. Introduction and descriptive statistics ....................................................... 42 5.2. Background questions ............................................................................... 44 5.2.1. Gender ................................................................................................. 44 5.2.2. Nationality ........................................................................................... 46 5.2.3. Education program ............................................................................. 47 5.2.4. Consumer type ..................................................................................... 48 5.2.5. Summary of background ..................................................................... 50 5.3. Two-way ANOVA test for perception, attitude and behaviour ................ 51 5.3.1. Test description ................................................................................... 51 5.3.2. Normality ............................................................................................ 52 5.4. CRM perception ........................................................................................ 53 5.4.1. Question 5 ........................................................................................... 54 5.4.2. Question 6 ........................................................................................... 57 5.5. Attitude ...................................................................................................... 61 5.5.1. Question 7 ..........................................................................................