A Study On Implementations Of Cause-Related Marketing Strategies In European Multinational Enterprises

With the development of economic globalization,the competitions between multinational enterprises become more and more intensive in the host countries' market.Meanwhile,the popularization and development of Internet technology and social media has promoted the right to know and the right to choose of the consumers from all over the world.Under this background,multinational enterprises have updated their strategy to improve their market competitiveness to show their attention from the product and service to the social responsibility.Multinational enterprises are making effort to get closer to the consumers in the host countries.Cause-related marketing as an innovative marketing idea and promotion method,has gained the preference from many multinational enterprises,especially those enterprises which know well the powerful influence of cause-related marketing and hope to draw attention from consumers rapidly in order to set up a positive brand image.This strategy can not only increase the sales of the brand but also work for public relations,as it can create a corporate brand image which has a sense of social responsibility and care for consumers' welfare among the consumers.This essay takes two European multinational enterprises-Mercedes-Benz and L'Oreal Paris as examples,by using the theories of cause-related marketing,corporate strategic philanthropy,and corporate brand and so on,as well as case analysis and questionnaire survey to collect the first-hand and second-hand data to study the implementation cause-related marketing strategies in multinational enterprises and its influence towards corporate brand image under the background of international marketing.Through the research,we verified that the price of the product which is being marketed will influence the evaluation from the consumer towards the corporate brand image;being compared with components,cause-related marketing is better for improving the corporate brand image than direct donation;on-going cause-related marketing is better for improving the corporate brand image than on-shot one;cause-related marketing with high relevance of products is better for improving the corporate brand image.In the meanwhile,the research founding of this essay can provide some decision –making references for our country to practice the strategies of “going out” and “one belt and one road”,for other countries to build up a favorable brand image especially a positive one from the aspect of corporate multinational marketing.