Cause-brand alliances: does the cause help the brand or does the brand help the cause?

Partnering charitable causes with brands has become a common practice for many marketing programs referred to strategically as cause-related marketing. While there is the perception that both partners benefit from the alliance, research has focused primarily on the benefits to the brand. This experiment (n=463) evaluates changes in attitude for both the cause and the brand as a consequence of the cause-brand alliance (CBA) using familiarity of the cause as a moderator. The results show that allying a cause with a familiar brand improves attitude toward the cause when the cause is unfamiliar but has less impact on a familiar cause. The effect of the alliance on brand attitudes is positive regardless of the degree of cause familiarity. These results suggest that managers of unfamiliar causes rather than familiar causes may have a greater vested interest in forming a CBA, and brand managers are beneficiaries of the partnership either way.