Exploring the link between cause‐related marketing and brand building

The use of cause‐related marketing (CRM) is increasing around the world and provides benefits to both firms and causes, by linking the two organisations together. Most of the CRM literature examines this strategy from a for‐profit perspective. This paper examines how this literature could be equally applicable to examining CRM from a not‐for‐profit perspective. That is CRM programmes can positively and negatively impact on a not‐for‐profit's brand, which is frequently its most valuable asset. In this way CRM can be related to a number of not‐forprofit brand and brand equity issues including brand awareness, brand attitude and intention to support the CRM programme. Copyright © 2000 Henry Stewart Publications     

Effectiveness of cause‐related marketing for differential positioning of market entrant in developing market: An exploratory study in Indian context

Cause‐related marketing is being increasingly used for forging strong relation between the brand and the customer. It is primarily being used by the well‐established brands to further strengthen their position in the market as it leads to a positive image of the brand, and customers are more receptive towards such brands because they tend to provide them with tangible as well as intangible benefits. This study tends to identify the effectiveness of cause‐related marketing as a marketing tool for newly launched products in developing market of India, which has so far remained a less explored area. A sample of 150 consumers was taken, and case studies were undertaken for validating these findings. The findings suggest that cause‐related marketing campaigns, even at early stages of brand development, can lead to customer trial and differential positioning thus providing these new entrants with an opportunity to interact with the customers. The proposed framework can provide useful insights to brand managers to design cause‐related marketing campaigns for newly launched brands. The results and findings have been deduced from real‐time market research, and it can help in furthering research in the field of cause‐related marketing in India and other developing economies with similar market conditions.     

Carbon performance and corporate financial performance: The moderating role of consumer awareness of corporate social responsibility

The paper detects the association between carbon performance (CP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) and the moderating role of consumer awareness (CA) of corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that CP has consistent positive impacts on CFP in the short and long term, whereas CA has opposite moderating effects on CFP. These results indicate that companies should increase corporate value by improving CP. In addition, improving CA of CSR is an effective way to promote CFP.     

Exploring the interactive effects of brand use and gender on cause‐related marketing over time

Research has shown that men and women respond differently to cause‐related marketing (CRM) appeals with fictitious brands; however, few studies examine how CRM works for existing brands or measure long‐term effects. To fill these gaps, we explore the influence of sponsor brand use and gender on responses to a CRM campaign at three points in time (premessage, postmessage exposure, and 2‐week delay). We are the first study to identify the moderating effect of brand use on gendered responses to CRM messages. Nonbrand users increased their purchase intentions after CRM message exposure; this was especially true for men. Overall, our findings reinforce past research showing that CRM can positively influence short‐term purchase intentions. We reveal new insights that show CRM can work especially well among nonbrand buyers; however, no significant long‐term influence was found. Our results demonstrate the importance of segmenting the market by demographics and brand use as well as considering the long‐term implications of CRM persuasion.     

Individualism/collectivism,charitable giving,and cause‐related marketing: a comparison of Chinese and Americans

• With the global expansion of cause‐related marketing (CRM), advertisers need to know whether and how cultural and societal differences impact attitude toward CRM across markets. To add to that knowledge, the present study identifies two consumer traits, that is, individualism/collectivism and perception of individual charitable giving as a social norm, and investigates and compares their influence on attitude toward CRM. By conducting surveys with Chinese and American samples, the present study found that gender, horizontal collectivism (HC), and perception of individual charitable giving as a social norm were significantly associated with attitude toward CRM in the American sample, whereas horizontal individualism, HC, and vertical collectivism were significant predictors of attitude toward CRM in the Chinese sample. Theoretically, these findings suggest that associations between one cultural dimension and the attitude toward CRM are independent to relationships involving other dimensions. And the particular circumstance of a local market may determine which consumer traits will actually have a significant association with attitude toward CRM. Practically, the findings suggest that advertisers may want to choose social causes that have national impact in China because there is a tendency of achieving egoistic enhancement through individual charitable giving whereas social causes that are relevant to female consumers are better strategic choices in the USA.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Turning corporate environmental ethics into firm performance: The role of green marketing programs

In this study, we develop a better understanding of the mechanisms by which corporate environmental ethics influences performance through the adoption of substantive actions. The empirical results of a moderated mediating analysis show that firms with higher environmental ethics are more likely to implement green marketing programs, consisting of the green production, pricing, distribution, and promotion programs and then improve firm performance. It is also observed that closure mechanism negatively moderates the mediation effect of green marketing programs because it leads to low trust and unwillingness to internal cooperation. These findings indicate that the value of corporate environmental ethics could not be determined in a vacuum, both strategy and people do matter when pursuing environmentally driven performance.     

The role of employee HR attributions in the relationship between high‐performance work systems and employee outcomes

Although research has shown that the use of high‐performance work systems (HPWS) is associated with employee outcomes, our knowledge of the meanings employees attach to HPWS systems and how these shape employee outcomes is still limited. This study examines the signalling impact of enacted HPWS on HR well‐being and HR performance attributions, and how these influence happiness‐ and health‐related outcomes. Using multilevel data (1,065 employees nested within 150 work units) obtained from multiple sources (line managers and employees), our results show that coverage of HPWS was positively associated with the two HR attributions. In addition, HR well‐being attributions were associated with higher levels of commitment and lower levels of job strain. HR performance attributions were associated with higher levels of job strain. The findings of this study highlight the importance of taking into account how employees attach meaning to enacted HPWS in order to predict employee outcomes.     

The HR role in corporate social responsibility and sustainability: A boundary‐shifting literature review

Although research on human and social sustainability has flourished in the past decade, the role that human resource management departments play (or should play) in facilitating more socially responsible and sustainable organizations remains unclear. In practice, this lack of clarity is due to the multiple features and dimensions of potential HR contributions to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability (CS), as well as widespread failure to integrate HR and CSR functions. Theoretically, the absence of a framework that articulates the HR role in CSR and CS and the substantial separation between HRM and CSR/CS studies among academics act as a reinforcing mechanism. The present study contributes to the growing research on this topic, presenting a framework and a typology to classify the potential HR roles in CSR and CS and comprehensively reviewing the literature at the intersection of HR with CSR and CS. The results of the review provide a broader perspective on the role HR might play in CSR and CS as well as its impact beyond organizational boundaries.     

Evaluation recommendations for nonprofit social marketing campaigns: An example from the Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco‐Free Living

Nonprofit organizations with limited capacity and resources must be strategic when designing, implementing, and evaluating social marketing campaigns. The Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco‐Free Living, a nonprofit public health program, implemented a mass media campaign in 2012, with the goal of increasing advocacy for policy change around the smoke‐free movement. The campaign was accompanied by a mixed–quantitative evaluation that was grounded in the diffusion of innovations theory. The evaluation consisted of unique, yet complementary, analytical components, employing traditional survey methods to measure population exposure to the campaign and Google Analytics to segment campaign website visitors into actionable categories for future programmatic efforts. Results from this study demonstrate that the 2012 Tobacco‐Free Living mass media campaign was moderately effective in reaching its target audience and highly effective in using Google Analytics to identify a group of activists (i.e., innovators) in support of the smoke‐free policy change. This study offers several recommendations for nonprofit organizations to consider when implementing and evaluating similar social marketing campaigns.     

Cause‐related marketing campaigns with luxury firms: An experimental study of campaign characteristics,attitudes, and donations

• Cause‐related marketing (CRM) partnerships between luxury firms and charitable organizations have grown in popularity, yet no study has examined such luxury CRM campaigns thus far. Using a fictitious campaign by the Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin and the Plan International Germany charity, the authors conducted an experimental CRM study among 281 actual luxury consumers. Realizing CRM campaigns in the luxury segment can be promising for luxury firms and charities. In particular, a CRM campaign works best when the donation magnitude is high (25% vs. 1%) and the price of the luxury service offering is moderate (€180 vs. €450). Furthermore, luxury campaigns enhance the attitudes of luxury customers toward charitable organizations, especially if they are unknown brands. Yet this study also offers a warning that luxury campaigns can be risky if consumers who have previously supported the charitable organization perceive the campaign as too high profile. Ultimately, this study reveals that CRM luxury campaigns play a major role for fundraising success.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Branding HIV/AIDS communication: the social marketing campaigns of MTV and Viacom

• Based on an ethnographic study of the production and reception of HIV/AIDS public service campaigns by MTV and Viacom, this paper examines the role of branding in HIV/AIDS education promotion. A main premise of the paper is that audiences for HIV/AIDS social marketing campaigns are now less addressed in terms of the classic HIV/AIDS prevention categories of ‘general public’ and ‘risk groups’ and are increasingly viewed as ‘market segments’ implicated in the campaigns in relation to the techniques of branding. Drawing on examples from research conducted amongst audiences in the North of England, the findings highlight the differing audience understandings of the branded consumer objects and icons of HIV awareness. Using a cultural materialist perspective, concerned with the relationship between the campaigns and social relations, this paper examines the process of corporate-sponsored HIV/AIDS campaigns. The findings underscore how social marketing campaigns are increasingly being related to as branded media objects and icons, closely tied to people's material experience and understandings of the aesthetics framing these branded objects and icons. The paper argues that identification and engagement with the campaigns is most evident amongst participants who shared the consumer values and the marketing discourses used by marketing managers and producers of the public service announcements.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managed activism: two union organising campaigns in the not‐for‐profit sector

Two union recognition campaigns are contrasted: one focusing on developing workplace activism but with little sectoral focus (a ‘bottom‐up’ campaign), and the other with a sectoral strategy and less emphasis on workplace campaigning (a ‘top‐down’ campaign). The outcomes indicate the need for approaches, which allow both a strong workplace activism and a clear sectoral strategy as both the ‘top‐down’ and ‘bottom‐up’ strategies present difficulties. Although there are positive outcomes in both campaigns, the cases show that unions seeking to represent the interests of previously unorganised groups of workers need influence at both the sectoral and workplace levels if they are to demonstrate their effectiveness.     

The mediating role of natural and social resources in the corporate social responsibility—corporate financial performance relationship

Failure to obtain definitive results regarding the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on corporate financial performance (CFP) has prompted scholars to investigate mechanisms behind this relationship. This paper follows the same path and distinguishes two dimensions of CSR (social and environmental) to expand the pool of potential mediators on the basis of natural‐ and social resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm. In a unique dataset comprising seven potential mediators for 300 companies, a direct relationship only existed between environmental CSR and CFP, in contrast to the “new road” from social CSR to CFP that goes through external reputation and innovativeness—variables that form an opposing mediation.     

Partners in protest: parents,unions and anti‐academy campaigns

An analytical framework has been developed in order to enhance our ability to interrogate and understand the critical factors for successful union–community coalitions. The framework is then tested on a single case study, a campaign run by trade unions, parents and community groups engaged in opposing academisation of their community school. The framework helps structure analysis and aids evaluation of the impact of activists' choices on campaign outcomes.     

Social norms and recognition in social fundraising campaigns: The moderating role of self-construal

Developing effective solicitation campaigns has become a priority for nonprofit organizations to raise funds. To do so, they have begun to introduce social information and recognition mechanisms in their campaigns to encourage donations, yet our current understanding of the effectiveness of these interventions is limited. This study intends to contribute to a better understanding of the effectiveness of these campaigns by investigating the role played by social norms, recognition, and their interplay in charitable giving. In addition, the study also investigates the extent to which these effects are moderated by self-construal, an important individual psychological trait. This empirical investigation conducted an experimental design between subjects on a sample of 261 participants. A two-stage correction approach was used to estimate two dependent variables. The effectiveness of social norms and recognition varies depending on the decision in play (whether to donate, or how much to donate) as well as on an individual's self-construal (independent or interdependent). Strategies that combine several of these mechanisms should take into account their objective, that is, whether it is focused on boosting symbolic support or on incentivizing significant contributions. This article contributes by demonstrating that the type of social norm and the type of recognition matter, as they produce significant different effects on both the donation decision and the donation amount.     

Board gender diversity and corporate environmental performance: The moderating role of family and dual‐class majority ownership structures

While prior work has investigated the impact of (a) ownership structure and (b) board gender diversity separately on corporate environmental performance, researchers have not studied the potentially important relationship between ownership control and female board diversity in influencing corporate environmental performance jointly. We do so in the context of majority ownership in family‐controlled and dual‐class firms whose motives and influence are theoretically different from that of the firm's minority shareholders. Drawing on resource dependency, socioemotional wealth theory, and secondary agency theory, we hypothesize that majority family owners and dual‐class owners likely choose women directors to help advance their personal preferences for environmental corporate social responsibility. Our empirical tests utilizing 2,755 U.S. firm years over the 2010–2015 show that, as hypothesized, these two majority ownership types interact with board gender diversity to positively influence corporate environmental performance.     

Individualistic philanthropy: the paradox of embodied participation for health‐related fund‐raising campaigns

• Movember and Julyna have emerged as examples of health‐related fund‐raising and awareness campaigns that require embodied participation in the form of temporary body modification. Reaching a younger demographic not traditionally motivated by appeals to altruism, these campaigns have capitalized on the signifying power of the body to reflect and construct identities and self‐perceptions to motivate participation. Taking a cultural studies approach and employing visual, textual, and discursive analyses of the campaigns' websites, a primary vector for information dissemination and recruitment, this study highlights how philanthropic activity has been successfully coded as making participants more physically, sexually, and socially desirable. In promoting such individualistic motives for philanthropy, however, these campaigns further a mentality that philanthropy is foremost about personal gain. The challenge these initiatives pose is how to convert participants from individualistic to altruistic models of philanthropy.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors affecting corporate environmental disclosure in emerging markets: The role of corporate governance structures

This study seeks to examine whether internal corporate governance (CG) mechanisms affect corporate environmental disclosure (CED) in emerging economies. Using a sample of 500 firm-year observations, this study distinctively applies a linear panel quantile regression (PQR) model to examine the CG–CED nexus in Jordan. This technique is supplemented with conducting a two-step dynamic generalised method of moment (GMM) model to overcome any potential occurrence of endogeneity problems. This study reports an increasing trend in CED practice among the sampled companies over the period of analysis, yet it is still at an early stage as compared with their developed counterparts. Furthermore, this study suggests that board size, board independence, CEO duality and foreign ownership have positive associations with CED. In contrast, managerial ownership, institutional ownership and ownership concentration are negatively associated with the disclosed amount of environmental information in the Jordanian context. Theoretically, board structures appeared to be more efficient than ownership structures in reducing agency conflicts by addressing the asymmetric gap of information and promoting the disclosure of environmental information. These findings add to the debate about whether ownership structures detrimental to CED in developing economies. Specifically, when it comes to spending money on CED, owners seemed to be more concerned about any reductions in their share of the pie and may, therefore, be less motivated to disclose their companies' environmental information. This paper provides managers, owners and policymakers with a set of context-specific recommendations related to the crucial need for a more concerted effort to integrate governance and environmental regulations in order to ensure sustainability in emerging markets.