The role of choice in cause-related marketing - investigating the underlying mechanisms of cause and product involvement

Linking consumer purchases to corporate donations has become common business practice to increase sales volumes. Most Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) campaigns support charitable causes that are predetermined by the company. Thereby, the role and underlying mechanisms of individual choice options of donation components remain unclear and were examined within this paper. In a one-factor between-subject online experimental survey the presence and different choice options of the charitable donation issued with the product purchase were manipulated in a product advertisement. Through planned contrasts and regression analysis it is shown that a Cause-Related Marketing campaign can be able to positively influence consumer purchase intentions - under the condition of no choice. Individual choice of cause even mitigates purchase intention in this context. Cause- and product involvement sequentially mediate this effect. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.