A Research About The Impact Of Consumer Guilt Appeals And Product Types On Cause-Related Marketing

With the economic development and social progress, corporatesocial responsibili ty is be required by the public. A new strategic marketing model named cause-related marketing (CRM) comes into being. Chinese companies also start to realize the value of CRM although it is still in infancy in China. More and more enterprises get involved and hope to achieve "fame and fortune" through CRM activities. It has being widely used in business and attracts a lot of attention in academia.Firstly, a concept marketing model which comprises product types, guilt appeals and CRM was built based on review and summary of existing research. Secondly, guilt appeals that divided into a guilt appeal ad or a non-guilt appeal ad were regarded as independent variables in this article. According to their utility nature or hedonic nature of different product types, they were be grouped into practical products, hedonic products and a product both values. The CRM effect would be judged by the willingness of consumer’s purchase intentions and the attitude toward the company. Lastly, scenario experimental methods were used to study guilt appeal intensity to the marketing effect and moderation of product type in CRM activities. This study had selected three high familiarity cheap products represented different product types. They were shampoo (practical product), film (hedonic products) and fruit yogurts (a product both values). Two types of ads were added in as the experimental stimuli which could be significantly differentiated and strongly guilt appeals. Participants were divided into six groups to receive different stimuli by using 3 (product types: practical, hedonic, and both)*2 (intensity of guilt appeals:a guilt appeal ad,a non-guilt appeal ad) trial targets. The experiment studied influence to the CRM by the different intensity of guilt appeals and product type and whether they have interaction in marketing activities.This article Takes college students as subjects, we got 468 questionnaires after formal experiments. We organize the data sample through SPSS20.0 and the empirical analysis of the results confirmed the basic conception of this study. The main conclusions of this article are as follows:(1) Guilt appeal has a significant influence on the CRM effectiveness. A guilt appeal ad will be more effective than a non-guilt appeal ad.(2) There is an interaction between guilt appeals and product type. Promoting different types of products should take guilt appeals into account in CRM activities. A guilt appeal ad will be most effective when applied to a practical product while a non-guilt appeal ad will be most effective for a hedonic product.In the end of this article, marketing proposals are presented as well as limitations of this article and directions for future research and development. The contribution of present study is demonstrated in the following two aspects. (1) Guilt appeals are used frequently in charitable donation as one of most common negative emotions appeal methods. Introducing the theory of guilt appeal into CRM study will has significative meaning. It can be explain in gradation of consumer psychology that the difference of appeal method will affect purchase intentions and attitudes toward the company. (2) Different combination of variables like marketing strategy (advertising appeals) and product nature to the influence of marketing effect were analyzed to give the most appropriate CRM suggestion for enterprises promoting different types of products. It also explains the influencing process of consumer intention and attitudes by match combination of product strategy and ad strategy in marketing activities.