Nonprofit Collaboration With Luxury Brands

Abstract

Luxury brands and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) increasingly engage in cause-related marketing (CRM) relationships. However, most previous studies analyzed CRM effects from a corporate, rather than a nonprofit, perspective. This study reverses the viewpoint to determine if luxury brand partners are beneficial for NPOs. Using a fictitious CRM cooperation between Plan International Germany and the Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin, two experimental studies obtained responses from 791 customers and 259 nonprofit employees/volunteers. The results show that partnering with a luxury brand can be beneficial because it enables the NPO to raise additional donations, enhances attitudes toward the nonprofit brand, and increases the chances of acquiring wealthy customers as future donors. Yet negative effects also arise, such as identification conflicts, especially among nonprofit employees and volunteers. Overall, this study reveals that nonprofit managers can pursue cooperation strategies with luxury brands—as long as they consider some important precautions.

Transformative Luxury Research (TLR): An Agenda to Advance Luxury for Well-Being

“…The goal should be to implement the right strategies focused on well-being outcomes and thus generate positive effects within communities. For example, charity and altruistic practices, such as investing in cause-related marketing (Boenigk, Silke, and Schuchardt 2015) via cross-collaborations with nonprofit organizations (e.g., UNESCO), can positively affect the perceptions of a luxury brand's altruism (Boenigk, Silke, and Schuchardt 2015).…”

“…As a result, playing an active social role within one's community is important for luxury brands. Authors who have investigated the positive impact luxury brands can have when they target the well-being of communities emphasize two main points: (1) studies that have explored the role luxury brands play in terms of promoting values, such as the inclusion of different communities and ethnicities along with social justice (e.g., Kipnis et al 2021;Cambrea et al 2017); and (2) research examining charity and altruistic practices among luxury brands (e.g., De-Miguel-Molina et al 2018;Boenigk, Silke, and Schuchardt 2015).…”

“…In fact, it has become nearly a universal hot topic due to the rise of social movements (e.g., the Black Lives Matter movement) and pressures from society and consumers for more diversity and inclusion offerings and business practices. Nowadays, values such as diversity and inclusion are considered key pillars to the success of brands (Boenigk, Silke, and Schuchardt 2015). Although these values are being implemented through various actions in other sectors, their implementation in the luxury sector is very recent.…”

The scope of “marketing” research in the nonprofit sector: Lessons from the last 20 years literature

“…In Year group 4, we found keywords such as “integrated marketing,” “(cause) related marketing,” “internal marketing,” “word of mouth,” “target audience,” “sponsorship marketing,” and “child sponsorship.” “Integrated marketing” is found to come along with the term “communication” which is generally used as integrated marketing communication about how to better reach out to nonprofit's multiple stakeholders (Henley, 2001). “(Caused) related marketing” is often used to study how private firms contribute to social goods by donating to (Varadarajan & Menon, 1988) or collaborating with nonprofits (Boenigk & Schuchardt, 2015). Despite relatively less research, “internal marketing” is an important factor of nonprofit marketing that focuses on nonprofit's staff and volunteers which has to do greatly with the marketing mix of 3Rs (Álvarez‐González et al, 2017; Hume & Hume, 2015).…”

Give Goods or Give Money? The Influence of Cause-Related Marketing Approach on Consumers’ Purchase Intention

“…Previous empirical research on CRM has mainly focused on two aspects, one was from the enterprise perspective and the other on the influence of CRM on consumer attitudes, behavior, and intentions (Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). In a recent study, Lafferty et al (2016) divided CRM studies into three areas: firm and cause (Chen et al, 2013;Boenigk and Schuchardt, 2014;Westberg and Pope, 2014;He et al, 2016;Kulow and Kramer, 2016), consumer (Grau and Folse, 2007;Kim and Johnson, 2013;Myers and Kwon, 2013), and CRM strategy and execution (Chang and Cheng, 2015;Coleman and Peasley, 2015;Hagtvedt and Patrick, 2016;Kulow and Kramer, 2016).…”