Cause Related Marketing Research

1. Background of the research:

A growing numbers of firms are entering into commercial partnership with non-profit organisations to achieve specific business objectives of such. Cause Related Marketing is an example of such partnership. Companies are using Cause related marketing strategy in which they affiliate their products with a range of popular causes including social and ecological issues. Cause Related Marketing can be defined as mentioned in chapter two, as follows:

“It is a marketing strategy in which a company and non-profit organization pair to promote the company’s product or service and to raise money from the non-profit associations”[1].

In order for the companies to differentiate their products in the environment of increased

American Express national campaign to help reopen the Statue of Liberty. Within the campaign, the company will donate one cent to the Statue of Liberty for every purchase made on American Express card. Over a four month period, $1.75 million was raised for restoration, new users grew by 17% and transaction activity jumped 28%. Although American Express copyrighted the term of cause related marketing, the actual first CRM campaign may remains mystery. For instance, Marriott and the March of Dimes, a cause focused campaign in 1976. Marriott objective was to generate highly cost effective public relation and the March of Dimes objective was to increase overall donations for their pledge walk. This promotion reached 67 cities and become one of the most successful promotions. March Dimes received $2.5 million donations (a 40% increase). Another marketing campaign was Famous Amos Cookies and literacy volunteers of America in 1979[2]. Recent examples of CRM included Mercedes Benz donating a total percentage of 1$ million in order to help find in order to find a cure for cancer. Moreover there is some companies that have made cause marketing central part of their mission. One example of these companies is Ben and Jerry. This company choose different cause to support each year. CRM is an effective and socially responsible type of marketing. Companies are realizing the importance of CRM and trying to take

Types of Cause Related Marketing:

There are three types of CRM that are most prominent between non-profit and for profit organizations:

a) Traditional cause related marketing:

It is when a portion of a purchase or services goes toward charities or non-profitorganization. The advantages of this type of CRM includes, increasing sales, promoting repeat purchase, and increasing the level of merchandising activity at the retail level for the brand. Yoplait’s Save Lids To Save Lives campaign is an example of traditional cause related marketing. The consumer would send the pink lids of the yogurt .10$ donation to Susan G.Komen. In that way, the consumers would prefer to buy Yoplait over other products in order to benefit the society.

b) Event, initiative, or program sponsorship:

Event or program sponsorship is the association that occur on specific occasions in which a business will experience defined benefits during the exchange for donations. This type of CRM differs from the traditional one because there will be an expectation that there will be some type of visible brand alignment.

c) Consumer fundraising: in this type of CRM the consumers will give funds to non-profit organization but through the for-profit executing campaign. Therefore the money will be originated by the consumers and not the