Co-branding strategy for Cause Related Marketing activities: the role of brand awareness on consumers’ perception

The present paper proposes a branding perspective for a specific kind of social marketing program: Cause-related marketing activities. The aim is to verify the separate and joint effect of brand awareness of two partners in a co-branded cause related program success. The intent is to understand which partner is most important to be aware in consumer mind to improve consumers’ attitude and trust and to feed their willingness to pay and to buy for the cause-related product. The study consists of an experimental 2 (profit brand awareness: high; low) x2 (no profit brand awareness: high; low) between subject design. Results have shown a significant interaction between the awareness of the for-profit and non-profit brand in defining consumer attitude and willingness to pay for the cause related product and a main effect of the awareness of the non-profit brand on purchase likelihood and on trust in cause related marketing program.