Research Article
The Study on the Ambivalence of Cause-related Marketing and the Effect of Message Frame : The Moderating Effect of Product Type
Pusan National University
Pusan National University
Published: January 2019 · Vol. 48, No. 2 · pp. 435-462
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Abstract
Cause-related marketing is a type of corporate social responsibility activity that combines donations and product purchases. It is essential to understand the cause-related marketing and consumers’ responses from both perspectives of pro-social behavior of donation and reasonable purchase. This study assumes that the utility of cause-related products is determined by the relationship between benefits from donations (pleasure of consumption) and costs (pain of paying) by applying a double-entry mental accounting model. Furthermore, this study proposes the two message frames (benefit-oriented and cost-oriented) that can enhance the utility of cause-related products. The effects of message frames were examined by analyzing the interaction effect between message frames and product types that were divided into two categories: hedonic and utilitarian. Moreover, four hypothetical scenarios were made for the experiments. Result shows that consumers’ preference for the hedonic cause-related product was higher when the benefit-oriented message frame was presented than when the cost-oriented one was used. By contrast, consumers’ preference for the utilitarian cause-related product was higher in the cost-oriented message frame. On the basis of these results, this study addresses implications and discusses the limitations and directions for future research.
