Marketing Strategy: Cause Related Marketing

October 15, 2008 | By Marc Porcelli | No Comments »

I subscribe to a few Media Post blogs and came across an interesting post today titled, “Cause Related Marketing Influences Sales” (Free registration required to read). As consumers become more and more aware and social responsibility grows, these types of sustainability programs will increase in popularity and scale.

“The 2008 Cone/Duke University Behavioral Cause Study, released recently by Cone and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, confirms that cause-related marketing can exponentially increase sales, in one case as much as 74%, resulting in millions of dollars in potential revenue for brands.

182 participants evaluated a new regional magazine and were exposed to either a cause-related or generic corporate advertisement for one of four focus brands. Afterward, they entered a mock convenience store with nearly 150 SKUs and were given real money to purchase a product in each of the four categories.”

Here are some of the results:

• 74% increase in actual purchase for a shampoo brand when associated with a cause (47% of participants who saw the cause-related message chose the brand while only 27% of those who saw the generic corporate advertisement chose the brand)
• 28% increase in actual purchase for a toothpaste brand when associated with a cause (64% of participants who saw the cause message chose the target brand vs. 50% who viewed the generic corporate advertisement)
• Modest increases in the other two product categories tested (chips and light bulbs) – Qualitative consumer responses showed that the issue, the nonprofit and the inherent nature of products were key factors in making cause-related purchasing decisions, and helped explain why movement in these categories was not significant.

Readers interested in this can find more by here.

Also related is a great recap of Mac Cosmetics, MAC AIDS Fund published by Knowledge@Wharton. More great perspective on cause related marketing and it’s affect on sales.

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