Cause Related Marketing is one of the most important emerging modes of communication.
According to Westberg, (2004) Cause Related Marketing can be regarded as a unique marketing communication and it is very much different from sales promotion and is a practise of advocating of the corporate social Responsibility in the communication. Vardarajan and Menon have talked about cause related marketing as a process of designing and implementation of marketing activities which highlight upon an offer from the business organization to contribute towards some specific cause from the revenues that have been generated as a result of customers purchase. Multinational corporation agree that CRM has a positive impact on the sales and profits and helps business organization to make their competitive position strong and position their brand favourably (Meffert and Holzburg, 2009).
Types of CRM
The different types of CRM can be broadly classified under six headings.
In case of advertisement the business focuses on aligning with a specific cause and makes use of advertising to communicate the message of the cause (Berglind & Nakata 2005). In case of public relation the focus of the business organization is on getting the attention of press and people towards a strategic partnership that has been created between the business and the non profit organization, In case of sponsorship the company sponsors a particular programme or event related to a particular cause. In case of licensing the business pays and allows a charity logo to be used on the goods and services produced by it (Chiagouris & Ray 2007). In case of direct marketing the business organization as well as the non profit organization engage in raising of funds and promotion of brand awareness. Apart from these forms there are other two forms which have been referred to as facilitated giving and purchase triggered donations (Gupta and Pirsch 2006). In case of purchase triggered donation the business organization allocates some percentages of the sales to a specific cause. In case of a facilitated giving cause related campaign, the business organization acts as a medium and provides support to the customer donation. (Stole, 2006).
4 Key Literature
Consumer Behaviour – The marketing Communication makes a consumer go through the stages of response i.e. perception, attitude and behaviour. All these three have an important effect on the purchase made by the consumer. According to Kotler( 2005) perception formed by the consumer is a result of 4 step process which begins with a consumer receiving some information from external sources. In the next stage the consumer selects the information then the selected information is organized by the consumer and finally the interpretation of information takes place (Schiffman & Kanuk 2004). Consumers have different perceptions and there is also a difference in the way people make a selection and interpretation of products (Chaney and Dolli 2001) . There is a great deal of difficulty in making an analysis of perception and it requires combining different sensory inputs that includes not only the basic sensory inputs such as taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing but also includes sense of direction, sense of balance etc.(Blythe, 2008). Once the perception has been constructed the individual assembles the information mapping it with the outside world. The mapping is influenced by factors such as subjectivity, categorization, expectations, past experiences and selectivity. Attitude has been defined by Bohner and Wanke ( 2002) as a summarized evaluation about any object or idea. An attitude can be something which a person discriminates or possesses in his mind. Attitude has been considered important when we look at it from three levels. As far as the individual is concerned the attitude will have an influence on the perception, thinking and behaviour (Cone et. Al.2003). As far as interpersonal level is concerned information about attitude is very vital. When we look at it from the point of view of the society we can find that attitude proves to be very important field of study in the inter group cooperation and conflict (Krishna & Rajan 2009). The attitude formation takes place when the elements affect , cognition and conation are interlinked (Mohr & Webb 2006).
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4a Methodology: Methodology
The study is aimed at exploring how the cause related marketing strategy of an organization influences the consumer behaviour, perception and attitude. A large number of research studies that have been conducted in this regard have tried to stress upon the fact that cause related marketing campaign of a business has a positive influence on the consumer and there is an increase in sales and profitability. There is still a lack of clear evidence regarding how cause related marketing positively shapes the perception, behaviour and attitude of a consumer. The two widely used methods for carrying out a research are the qualitative and quantitative methods(Perry, 1988). The current study is an attempt towards examining how cause related marketing influences the perception, attitude and behaviour of a consumer and for this purpose quantitative methodology has been deemed to the appropriate. The research is going to focus on the information provided by the respondents. Quantitative Research method has been found to be suitable where data from large sample size has to be collected. It provides objective information and considering the constraints of cost and time, It is felt that the respondents will find it easy to answer and the quantitative questions.
Development of Structured of Questionnaire
Structured Questionnaire are particularly helpful where the sample size is large enough and respondents have a better anticipation(Saunders et al. 2003). Structured Questionnaire can be easy to administer, analyse and will lead to easy interpretation. A numerical value can be assigned to a question and the answer can be easily analyzed. The questionnaire will have questions which will aim at getting insights about the perception, behaviour and attitude of consumers regarding cause related marketing campaign.
Reliability and Validity
In order to ensure Reliability and validity the design and structure of Questionnaire is very important. A valid Questionnaire is the one which helps in accurate collection of data in a consistent manner. According to Churchill (1979) once reliability has been ensured an iteration based on new samples is vital to eliminate the chances of previous finding coming as a result of chance. A pilot test is proposed once the design of Questionnaire has been done. This will help in getting a better idea about the time and cost that will be incurred on administration of Questionnaire.
Likert Scales will be used to elicit the views and opinion of the customer that will reflect upon the attitude, perception and behaviour. It has been found that in order to increase the reliability sufficient variance should be used and therefore it has been decided to make use of a five point scale. In this study the questions that will be based on the likert scale will involve the respondents respond to the questions on a scale of one to five where one will mean strongly Agree and Five will mean strongly disagree. As far as data collection is concerned there can be different ways of collecting data such as interviews, focus group, structured questionnaire as well as websites of different business organization. As far as this research study is concerned it has been decided to make use of both primary and secondary data
The primary data will be collected using a structured questionnaire. The secondary data will be collected about some of the business organization which have a cause related marketing programme established.
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