A Literature Review On Cause-Related Marketing Strategic Orientation In Business Research

A long time economic and social objectives have been seen as competing, but academic researchers underline that this two directions may converge in certain situations. Companies belong to communities where they develop their activities. When the social goals of the communities are related to the main objectives of the company, sustaining a social cause could produce economic benefits, in this case corporate philanthropy and shareholders interest take the same direction. Cause-related marketing is a marketing concept that gained more interest in the last three decades and exemplifies how social and economic objectives are achieved in a strategic manner in promoting campaigns. Researches in business and non-profit organizations reveal that cause-related marketing campaigns sustain the growth of market share and sales, and help at improving brands image. More and more companies and non-profit organizations find cause-related marketing as a strategic tool suitable for building long term relations to the customers, for increasing brand awareness, for gaining a social responsible corporative image, for supporting local community or for producing transformation in sustaining causes at global or international level. The study analyses the definitions of cause-related marketing the presence and evolution of the concept in the academic literature, and marketing terms that are connected more often to this concept. Comparative to non-profit marketing concept, cause-related marketing gained a larger interest in literature. On the other side, corporate philanthropy is still a concept that gains more interest than cause-related marketing in academic literature, being a more commune way used by companies in collaboration to non-profit organizations. Tided to cause-related marketing concept literature review reveals concepts as: consumer behaviour, brand image and corporate social responsibility being more often analysed. The salience of the consumer perspective, in academic research underlines the strategic and tactic role of cause-related marketing that has to be considered in building relations to the customers for companies.