Cause related marketing: Improving peoples willigness to donate by selling them a product

Cause related marketing (CRM) is a way to link products with socially responsible activities following a strategy, which is directedto strength the emotional image of the product and to increase the market shares (Varadarajan, Menon, 1988). CRM programs allowconsumers to buy a product which devolves part of its revenues to a social cause and to integrate the donation into the price of the product.In order to implement a successful CRM program it is relevant to understand how consumers perceive the social cause. Previous researchhas shown that people has a diminished sensitivity in valuing life saving interventions against a background of increasing numbers of lives(psychophysical numbing, Fatherstanhough,et al., 1997). In addition, Kogut and Ritov (2005) found people less willing to contribute infavor of a group of victim rather than in favor of a single, victim. People seem to perceive a charitable program supporting a great amountof people less emotional and effective than a charitable program which aims to collect money in favor of one identifiable victim.The aim of the present study is to investigate people’s perception of CRM programs in different evaluation modes (joint versusseparate). In addition, we seek to assess if different description of the charitable program could influence consumers’ choices and theirwillingness to support a social cause through the purchase of a product.