IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/svcbiz/v1y2007i4p275-293.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integrating public service and marketing differentiation: an analysis of the American Express Corporation’s “Charge Against Hunger” promotion program

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Nelson
  • Ali Kanso
  • Steven Levitt

Abstract

Dating back to the 1980s, American Express (AMEX) has been a corporate leader in successfully applying cause-related marketing (CRM) to boost membership and credit card usage in troubled markets. During a downturn in the mid-1990s, AMEX and Share Our Strength (SOS), a nonprofit organization tackling the problem of hunger in the United States, formed a strategic alliance to create one of the best known and most highly touted CRM campaigns. AMEX implemented an innovative cause branding (CB) effort to convince its cardholders to “Charge Against Hunger” (CAH) by utilizing their AMEX credit cards more frequently during the holiday season. Over the 4-year life of the program, the issue of hunger in the United States was put somewhat higher on the public agenda as more than US $21 million were raised for SOS projects. This study assesses how AMEX’s public relations efforts contributed to the success of the CAH campaign. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2007

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Nelson & Ali Kanso & Steven Levitt, 2007. "Integrating public service and marketing differentiation: an analysis of the American Express Corporation’s “Charge Against Hunger” promotion program," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 1(4), pages 275-293, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:svcbiz:v:1:y:2007:i:4:p:275-293
    DOI: 10.1007/s11628-006-0013-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11628-006-0013-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11628-006-0013-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pracejus, John W. & Olsen, G. Douglas, 2004. "The role of brand/cause fit in the effectiveness of cause-related marketing campaigns," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(6), pages 635-640, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ricardo Server Izquierdo & Jordi Capó Vicedo, 2012. "Corporate social responsibility of financial organizations in the social economy: a case study on savings banks," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 6(1), pages 99-115, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Som Sekhar Bhattacharyya & Sumi Jha, 2020. "Explicating micro foundations of corporate social responsibility: a moderated-mediation study of customer, investor and employee roles," International Journal of Ethics and Systems, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(4), pages 619-640, September.
    2. Woo-yeul Baek & Hyun-seok Song & Doo-Han Kim & Kevin K. Byon, 2020. "Cause-Related Marketing and Purchase Intention toward Team-Licensed Products: Moderating Effects of Sport Consumers’ Altruism," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-13, April.
    3. Chris Hydock & Neeru Paharia & T. J. Weber, 2019. "The Consumer Response to Corporate Political Advocacy: a Review and Future Directions," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 6(3), pages 76-83, December.
    4. Ilaria Baghi & Enrico Rubaltelli & Marcello Tedeschi, 2009. "A strategy to communicate corporate social responsibility: cause related marketing and its dark side," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(1), pages 15-26, January.
    5. Kureshi, Sonal & Thomas, Sujo, 2016. "Intention to Participate in Cause Related Marketing: Influence of Cause," IIMA Working Papers WP2016-03-12, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    6. Susana Costa e Silva & Paulo Duarte & Joana César Machado & Carla Martins, 2020. "Cause-related marketing in online environment: the role of brand-cause fit, perceived value, and trust," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 17(2), pages 135-157, June.
    7. Veronica Gabrielli & Ilaria Baghi, 2019. "How to choose the endorser: An experimental analysis on the effects of fit and notoriety," MERCATI & COMPETITIVIT?, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2019(4), pages 57-89.
    8. Chang, Chia-Chi & Chen, Po-Yu, 2019. "Which maximizes donations: Charitable giving as an incentive or incentives for charitable giving?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 65-75.
    9. Kick, Markus & Littich, Martina, 2015. "Brand and Reputation as Quality Signals on Regulated Markets," EconStor Preprints 182503, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    10. Bianca Grohmann & H. Bodur, 2015. "Brand Social Responsibility: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Outcomes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 375-399, October.
    11. James J Murphy & Molly Conlin & Bryan Haugstad, 2023. "An experimental test of cause-related marketing and charitable giving," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(4), pages 890-901.
    12. Sojung Kim & Sejung Marina Choi, 2018. "Congruence Effects in Post-crisis CSR Communication: The Mediating Role of Attribution of Corporate Motives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(2), pages 447-463, December.
    13. Mendini, Monica & Peter, Paula C. & Gibbert, Michael, 2018. "The dual-process model of similarity in cause-related marketing: How taxonomic versus thematic partnerships reduce skepticism and increase purchase willingness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 195-204.
    14. Gordon Liu & Wai Wai Ko, 2014. "An integrated model of cause-related marketing strategy development," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 4(3), pages 78-95, December.
    15. Grolleau, Gilles & Ibanez, Lisette & Lavoie, Nathalie, 2016. "Cause-related marketing of products with a negative externality," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4321-4330.
    16. Anran Zhang & Alex Scodellaro & Bo Pang & Hui-Yi Lo & Zhengliang Xu, 2020. "Attribution and Effectiveness of Cause-Related Marketing: The Interplay between Cause–Brand Fit and Corporate Reputation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-17, October.
    17. Shang, Jingzhi & Basil, Debra Z. & Wymer, Walter, 2010. "Using social marketing to enhance hotel reuse programs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 166-172, February.
    18. Urvi Agrawal & Arushie Mangla & Mahim Sagar, 2016. "Company-Cause-Customer: Interaction Architecture," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 17(3), pages 307-319, September.
    19. Lee, Jaedeock & Ferreira, Mauricio, 2013. "A role of team and organizational identification in the success of cause-related sport marketing," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 161-172.
    20. Anne Hamby & Niusha Jones & Guohong Yu, 2021. "Exploring the effects of for‐profit and nonprofit size congruency: An exchange perspective on cause‐related marketing," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 274-292, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:svcbiz:v:1:y:2007:i:4:p:275-293. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.