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The Cause Matters! How Cause Marketing Campaigns Can Increase the Demand for Conventional over Green Products

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  • Sarah S. Müller
  • Nina Mazar
  • Anne J. Fries

Abstract

Customers are increasingly attentive to the social and ethical ramifications of their consumption, which threatens the demand particularly for conventional over green products, as it may increase guilt and thus dull the hedonistic feelings experienced with those products. In an attempt to counteract this threat, some companies utilize cause-related marketing (CM) campaigns, in which they offer to offset some of their products' negative side effects. However, as such campaigns may emphasize the product's harmfulness, it is not clear if they are beneficial. One field and one laboratory experiment, both incentive-compatible involving real purchases, show that customers are more likely to buy a conventional over a green product when the former is bundled with a campaign that is offsetting an unrelated problem rather than a problem caused by the product--unless the donation offsets the specific damage caused by the customers' own consumption. These effects are mediated by guilt.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah S. Müller & Nina Mazar & Anne J. Fries, 2016. "The Cause Matters! How Cause Marketing Campaigns Can Increase the Demand for Conventional over Green Products," Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(4), pages 540-554.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jacres:doi:10.1086/688437
    DOI: 10.1086/688437
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Elena-Simina Lakatos & Ligia-Maria Nan & Laura Bacali & George Ciobanu & Andreea-Maria Ciobanu & Lucian-Ionel Cioca, 2021. "Consumer Satisfaction towards Green Products: Empirical Insights from Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-15, October.
    2. Small, Felicity & Mehmet, Michael & Miles, Morgan P., 2019. "Applying a causal ambush marketing framework to social media: The ‘Pleasure is Diverse’ campaign and the Australian marriage amendment," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 149-157.
    3. Thamaraiselvan Natarajan & Daniel Inbaraj Jublee & Dharun Lingam Kasilingam & Gladys Stephen, 2018. "The moderating role of social themes in cause-related marketing advertisements," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 15(4), pages 433-454, December.

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