To donate or not to donate? Product characteristics and framing effects of cause‐related marketing on consumer purchase behavior

The present study examines potential influences associated with donation framing, product price, product type, and donation magnitude on cause‐related marketing (CRM) campaigns, where money is donated to a charity each time a consumer makes a pur‐chase. In addition to the main effects of the aforementioned factors, experimental results indicate that beneficial effects of product type (i.e., frivolous products bundled with a cause are more effective than practical ones) occur when donation information is framed in absolute dollar terms. The effects of donation framing are found insignificant when the donation magnitude is high. Influences of donation magnitude on CRM effectiveness are limited in high‐priced items. When the donation magnitude is constant, a donation amount framed in absolute dollar value is more effective than that in percentage terms for low‐priced products, and the opposite is true for high‐priced items. In practice, marketers thus stand to gain not only by matching the donation magnitude in their advertised products with the right price but also by an appropriate “framing” of the offered bundles. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.