Cause-Related Marketing in the Digital Era: How Enterprises Can Deal with International Campaigns in Individualist Versus Collectivist Countries

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to (i) analyze how different users of social media (Twitter) interact and spread cause-related communication and (ii) explore how people search for cause-related marketing campaigns online, allowing a comparison between individualist and collectivist cultures. A social network analysis was used to map the different types of networks created by online users. A second in-depth study on how online users search for cause-related marketing campaigns used a 5-year analysis. Online users in individualist countries are more engaged with a broader community than those in collectivist countries who focus their attention on a narrower set of CRM messages. These findings are useful insights for companies and charities, which should adopt different strategies depending on the culture.

When cause familiarity leads to positive attitudes toward brands in a cause–brand alliance: a cross-cultural study during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Studies on CRM have provided evidence of the cultural differences among online users' engagement. As such, individualistic cultures have been found to be more active in searching for CRM campaigns, whereas collectivistic cultures focus on a narrower set of CRM messages (Guerreiro and Loureiro, 2020). Studies on CBAs have claimed that such cultural differences influence consumer skepticism toward CBAs' messages and that people in individualistic cultures are more skeptical of CBAs' messages (Chang and Cheng, 2015).…”

“…Second, this research provides new insights into perceived betrayal as a variable that can moderate the relationship between cause-brand fit and attitude toward a brand, thus offering a novel explanation for possible opposing drivers to CRM campaign adoption (Vrontis et al, 2020b). Third, this research presents empirical findings on the effects of CBAs across culture types (individualistic and collectivistic), thus advancing the international CRM literature in general (Christofi et al, 2020b) and the cross-cultural analysis of CRM messages in particular (Guerreiro and Loureiro, 2020).…”

“…Studies on CRM have provided evidence of the cultural differences among online users' engagement. As such, individualistic cultures have been found to be more active in searching for CRM campaigns, whereas collectivistic cultures focus on a narrower set of CRM messages (Guerreiro and Loureiro, 2020) (Chang and Cheng, 2015). Nonetheless, in the current study, we also investigated the effects of cultural distinctions (individualistic vs collectivistic cultures) toward CBAs regarding a global cause, especially when the level of cause familiarity is universally high.…”

“…Third, this research presents empirical findings on the effects of CBAs across culture types (individualistic and collectivistic), thus advancing the international CRM literature in general (Christofi et al. , 2020b) and the cross-cultural analysis of CRM messages in particular (Guerreiro and Loureiro, 2020).…”

Retweet to donate? Cause-related marketing in the era of social medialization

“…Besides directly influencing consumers' purchasing behavior, companies are increasingly focusing on other outcomes resulting from CM, such as the stimulation of word-of-mouth (WOM) and the enhancement of consumer perception of the company (Folse et al, 2010;Lafferty and Goldsmith, 2005). As such, in recent years many companies have begun using social media as a means to increase the visibility and publicity of their CM initiatives and even to facilitate consumer participation in their CM initiatives (Guerreiro and Loureiro, 2020). As a most recent trend, companies even invite consumers to contribute to a social cause by simply sharing the message, instead of purchasing a product and thus linking each share to the donation outcome.…”