There has been increased interest in cause-related marketing and a focus of its importance. For firms, cause-related marketing is a means of achieving corporate social responsibility and cost-effectiveness. Meanwhile, the consumer not only receives the economic benefits of purchasing their chosen products, but there are also emotional benefits derived from their charity-oriented purchasing behavior. Despite this increased attention and its recognized practicality, there is still a lack of comprehensive and systematic studies of the marketing communication aspects of cause-related marketing. Most firms employ monotonous and non-strategic activities, so they have not yet fully obtained the effects of cause-related marketing. Therefore, deeper theoretical considerations are necessary in order to discover how to increase the effectiveness of cause-related marketing by approaching consumers strategically. Accordingly, this study aims to reveal underlying mechanisms of cause-related marketing before identifying effective messaging directly. This study proposes new message frames, different from the various message types currently used in related fields. The proposed frames are based on consumers' ambivalent intentions. That is, rather than intentions to donate based only on altruism, intentions are based on loss (cost)-aversion in a rational consumer position, which is not found in pure charity behaviors. This study verified the differential effects of two message frames by consumers’ ambivalent intentions and confirmed ambivalence toward cause-related marketing through moderating effect analysis of gender variables. Through these results, the study points to underlying mechanisms of cause-related marketing and explains the mixed results of gender variables in previous research. The results reveal that message frames in cause-related marketing have significant effects on consumer response. Specifically, the consumer response to cause-related marketing was more positive in value-focused frame than in cost-focused frame. Also, differential effects of message frames on consumer response by gender were explained. Males, as expected, showed a more positive response to cause-related marketing products marketed with the value-focused frame. Whereas, females exhibited a similar response for products with both message frames as females are comprehensive information processors and have moral standards based on particular situations. Consequently, the results confirmed different responses from male and female consumers on message frames. Finally, this study addresses implications and discusses the limitations and directions for future research.