All Cause-Related Advertisements Are Not Created Equal: Influences of Product Characteristics and Framing Effects on Consumer Purchase Decision

The present study sets out to investigate influences associated with donation amount framing, product price, product type, and donation magnitude on cause-related marketing (CRM) effectiveness (i.e., the effectiveness of using promised donations to charity as purchase incentives) in advertising contexts. The results indicate that influences of product type (i.e., frivolous products bundled with a cause are more effective than practical ones) hold when a donation amount is framed in absolute dollars, but not when the amount is presented in relative percentage of a sale price. Impacts of product type on CRM also decrease when high product price and high donation magnitude are presented in the ad. In addition, framing effects of donation amount become insignificant when the donation magnitude is high. The study thus raises concerns over possible ineffectiveness of product type and donation magnitude in CRM. In practice, marketers hence stand to gain not only by changing the donation magnitude in their advertising strategies but also by an appropriate “framing” of the offered bundles.

Citation:

Chun-Tuan Chang and Yu-Kang Lee (2007) ,"All Cause-Related Advertisements Are Not Created Equal: Influences of Product Characteristics and Framing Effects on Consumer Purchase Decision", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 491-494.