Cause-related marketing is not always less favorable than corporate philanthropy: The moderating role of self-construal

The present research examined the effectiveness of cause-related marketing (CRM) relative to corporate philanthropy in enhancing brand related outcomes and the moderating role of self-construal. We demonstrated that, overall, CRM helps less in improving brand image, consumer self-brand connection, and purchase intention than corporate philanthropy. However, this differential effect between the two types of corporate social responsibility approaches is moderated by consumers' self-construal. Specifically, consumers with interdependent self-construal, but not those with independent self-construal, either measured (Studies 1, 3 and 4) or primed (Study 2), responded to CRM as favorably as they did to corporate philanthropy. A survey regarding multiple real brands further confirmed that the more interdependent the consumers, the less likely they were to prefer corporate philanthropy over CRM (Study 5). However, when the reciprocity norm was made salient through an irrelevant task, independent consumers responded like those with interdependent self-construal, treating CRM and corporate philanthropy in the same way (Study 4).