Brand prominence in cause-related marketing: luxury versus non-luxury

Pages716-731
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-07-2017-1512
Date17 September 2018
Published date17 September 2018
AuthorIlaria Baghi,Veronica Gabrielli
Subject MatterMarketing,Product management,Brand management/equity
Brand prominence in cause-related marketing:
luxury versus non-luxury
Ilaria Baghi and Veronica Gabrielli
Department of Communication and Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia, Italy
Abstract
Purpose Past research on cause-related marketing (CRM) suggests that these socially benecial initiatives can be implemented as co-branding
strategies. Little is known, however, about the role of brand prominence, in terms of visual conspicuousness of the two brands that are partner-
involved (for-prot and non-prot brands). This study aims to advance a model of moderated mediation that explains how and under what
circumstances brand prominence disparity enhances consumersattitudes toward CRM co-branded products and increases purchase intention
Design/methodology/approach The authors test a model of moderated mediation in two studies. Study 1 shows that the effectiveness of brand
prominence disparity is explained by the mediating role of attitude toward a CRM co-branded product. Study 2 demonstrates that this mediation is
moderated by the positioning of the for-prot brand partner (luxury vs non-luxury positioning).
Findings Results show that brand prominence disparity has a role in dening consumerspurchase intention toward a CRM co-branded product
through mediation of attitude. Moreover, positioning of the for-prot brand partner moderates the cognitive processes activated by the visual brand
prominence. In luxury positioning, a loud visual prominence of the for-prot brand signicantly improves consumersattitudes and inten tions to buy
the CRM co-branded product.
Originality/value The study extends our understanding of how visual brand presence can promote the effectiveness of co-bran ded CRM
initiatives, and it offers practical guidelines for marketers wishing to partner with social causes, while promoting products with luxury or non-luxury
features.
Keywords Brand prominence, Luxury branding, Cause-related marketing, Co-branding
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Currently, more companies worldwideconsider it necessary to
dene their roles in society and apply social, ethical and
responsible standards to their brand management strategy
(Wymer and Sargeant, 2006). Cause-related marketing
(CRM) represents a brand ethics orientation, and it is an
important tool for activating relationships among non-prot
organizations, companies and consumers (Kotler and Lee,
2005).
We dene CRM as a strategic partnership between a for-
prot brand and a charitable organization that produces a
promotional marketing campaign,with a specic proportion of
the prots earned from sales of a rms products or services
donated to the designated charitable cause (Boenigk and
Schuchardt, 2013). CRM falls within the realm of corporate
social responsibility (CSR) programmes (Kotler and Lee,
2005;Vanhamme et al.,2012;Guzmán and Davis, 2017)and
contributes to virtuous business practices by activating
relationships among non-prot organizations, companies and
consumers to support socially desirable goals (Lafferty et al.,
2016). In the past 10 years, CRM has become the fastest-
growing category of sponsorshipsin US andEuropean markets
(IEG, 2015). Many companies across different industries,
including consumer packaged goods, retailing, luxury and
nancial services, have implemented campaigns linking them
to social causes such as medical research, care for children in
need or aid initiatives in developing countries (Nielsen, 2014;
Pringle and Thompson, 1999). A transactional-based
denition of CRM links the companys donation directly to
customersbehaviour (Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). A
growing trend in CRM campaigns involves the luxury brand
segment (Gupta and Pirsch, 2006). For example, Bulgari and
Save the Children ran a prominent Rewrite the Future
campaign that raised more than $7.4m in 2011 for education
programmes thanks to sales of a dedicated ring. Another well-
known example is Guccis special editionSukey bag to support
UNICEFsSchools for Africainitiative. As these examples
suggest, partnering with highly admired luxury brands (Phau
and Prendergast,2000;Ko and Megehee, 2012) offers charities
the opportunity to improve the visibility of their CRM
campaigns (Bennett and Ali-Choudhury, 2009). Moreover,
Hagtvedt and Patricks results (2015) show in a retailing
context that an associationwith a charity at the point of sale can
increase consumersintention to purchase a luxury brand and
can facilitateupselling to a luxury store.
Marketing literature on CRM has been implemented in
different elds, such as CSR (Brønn and Vrioni, 2001),
corporate motivation (Brønn and Vidaver-Cohen, 2009), and
employee commitment (Smith and Alcorn, 1991). These
works focused only on literature of consumersbehaviour
towards CRM. Existingresearch on this topic has examined the
CRM programme as an additional productattribute, and it has
analysed which elements,such as a congruent donation amount
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
27/6 (2018) 716731
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-07-2017-1512]
716
(Koschate-Fischer et al., 2012), a positive productcause t
(Trimble and Rifon, 2006;Bigné et al.,2012;Pracejus and
Olsen, 2004;Samu and Wymer, 2009) or a vivid
communication (Baghi et al.,2009), make it more effective in
terms of intention to purchase (Chang, 2008;Folse et al.,
2010), product evaluation (Dahl and Lavack, 1995), product
choice (Arora and Henderson, 2007;Pracejus and Brown,
2003;Chun and Cheng, 2015) and willingness to pay
(Koschate-Fischeret al., 2012).
This study goes beyond the avenue of such research,
considering a CRM product as a genuine new product arising
from the deep collaboration between two entities, in other
words, a co-branding activity. In particular, it investigates the
effect of the relative importance given to each brand involved
(the for-prot brand that isresponsible for the product and the
non-prot brand that is responsible for the cause) in provoking
consumersreactions. The presence of these two brands is
embedded in the product by their visual prominence in the
packaging. The visual prominence is considered as the state or
condition of being visually and physically shown off on the
product (Samu and Wymer, 2014;Meyer and Manika, 2017).
In our perspective, the manipulationof the relative prominence
of one brand compared the other one on the CRM product
might be considered an empirical vehicle to investigate if in a
CRM product the cause plays the central role or, alternatively,
the product brand.
Moreover, this study analyses the role of relative brand
prominence on a CRM co-branded product in dening
consumersattitudes and behaviours by comparing two
different segments: luxury and non-luxury. The intent is to
enlarge the investigationto comparing different CRM contexts,
with different product positioning, characterised by a potential
overlap between for-protbrand and non-prot brand in terms
of symbolic meanings.
This study contributes to existing debates in several ways.
From a theoretical point of view, the manuscript extends
previous work on CRM (Baghi et al.,2009;Samu and Wymer,
2009, 2014) analysing the CRM product as a co-branded
product proposed by two brands and investigating the relative
importance of product brand and cause salience by means of
visual conspicuousness (Han et al.,2010). In so doing, our study
uses as a stimulus one of the most common communication
activities, the packaging, instead of analysing advertising
campaigns (Samu and Wymer, 2009,2014), which are not ever
present in a CRM activity. Moreover, compared with recent
literature (Hagtvedt and Patrick, 2015;Janssen et al.,2017), the
present study deepens the analysis by investigating two types of
segment positioning, luxury versus non-luxury. Accordingly, the
intent is to merge literature that conceptualizes and investigates
brand prominence (Han et al.,2010) in the luxury domain with
existing research on co-branding in the CRM domain.
From a managerial point of view, it contributes to an
understanding of the effects of a differentco-branding strategy
within the CRM context: it is preferable for a CRM product to
be a co-branded product made by two master brands or, in
turn, it would be a more effective co-branding strategy to
include a master brand and another brand with the optional
role of differentiationor energizing?
From a practical point of view, our ndings make
recommendations to practitioners in deciding upon branding,
product and packaging strategy when developing their CRM
programme. By following our advice, practitioners should
consider brand prominence a vehicleto give importance to the
social mission or to the productsfeatures.
The paper is organized as follows. First, we present the
theoretical background and develop the hypotheses
underpinning our research. Second, we present evidence from
our two studies showing consumersreactions to brand
prominence disparity in a CRMproduct within a luxury versus
non-luxury context.Study 1 demonstrates the mediating role of
attitude in explaining the effect of the two brandsvisual
prominence on consumerswillingness to buy a co-branded
CRM product. Study 2 replicates thisnding while also testing
the moderation of luxury and non-luxurybrand positioning in a
CRM context. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of our
research ndingsand the implications for theory and practice.
Cause-related marketing as co-branding
Hoefer and Keller (2002) suggest that a co-branding strategy
is the most appropriate way to develop CRM activity that is
effective for both brand partners (Lafferty et al.,2016;Michel
and Rieunier, 2012): the for-prot brand responsible for the
product and the charity brand responsible for the socialcause.
This branding strategy seems to be the most effective for
complementing brand image with the specic association
leveraged by the cause and its brand (Hoefer and Keller,
2002). Aaker (1996) asserts that co-branding is particularly
effective when a rm wants to enter another eld. It might be
the case of charities that are quite far from the core prot
business of companies, so even in the case of CRM, a co-
branding strategycould be a good opportunity for them.
Indeed, a CRM alliance includes all the essential
characteristics that dene a co-branded product (Huertas-
García et al., 2017;Rao, 1997;Blackett and Russell, 1999;
Vaidyanathan and Aggarwal, 2000).First, the two participants
are independent before, during and after the product is offered
(Ohlwein and Schiele, 1994). In a CRM activity, the product
results from the collaboration of two organisationsthat operate
in a distinct context (one in charge of product realisation, the
other in charge of the funded social activity), have different
natures (one a for-prot company; the other a non-prot
organisation) and are independent because they are not linked
by any type of ownership.
The second typical co-branding characteristic is arranging a
specic strategy for the product (Blackett and Russell, 1999).
The CRM product is consistently similar to, but not an exact
copy of, one product that is part of the for-prot companys
offering. The product is usually realised in a different version
(colour, size, visual prominence of the brand) and presented
through different communication activities (different
packaging, personalised ads, dedicated social network
initiatives)and sometimes in different distribution channels.
The third typical co-branding characteristic is that the
product is identied simultaneously by two brands that are
both visible to consumers (Hillyer and Tikoo, 1995;Rao,
1997). In a CRM product, the brands of for-prot and non-
prot manufacturers are both visible to potential buyers and
present on the product apparel or packaging. The presence of
Luxury versus non-luxury
Ilaria Baghi and Veronica Gabrielli
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 27 · Number 6 · 2018 · 716731
717

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