2000 - Linda I Nowak - MarketingAlliancesBetweenNonProfitsandBusinessesCh[Retrieved-2015!05!12]

Marketing AlliancesBetween Non-Profits and Businesses:

Changing the Public’s Attitudesand Intentions Towards the Cause

Linda I. NowakJudith H. Washburn

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study was to examine to what extentcorporate and non-profit alliances can impact the public’s attitudes andintentions to support a cause. Through the use of experimental design fourtypes of alliances were examined: (1) low affinity cause aligned withcompany with strong reputation, (2) low affinity cause aligned with com-pany with weak reputation, (3) high affinity cause aligned with companywith strong reputation, and (4) high affinity cause aligned with companywith weak reputation. Results of paired sample t-tests indicated significantchanges for only one type of alliance, that which is between a low affinitycause and a corporate sponsor with a strong reputation. The low affinitycause experienced increased: (a) customer trust in the non-profit, (b) inten-tions to support the cause, (c) evaluations of cause importance, (d) person-al feelings of responsibility to help the cause, and (e) evaluations ofconsequences for society through providing support. For the remainingthree types of alliances changes were not significant. [Article copies avail-

Linda I. Nowak, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Sonoma State Univer-sity. Her research interests are in brand management, corporate citizenship, relation-ship management, and cause-related marketing. She has published articles in theJournal of Services Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal ofEducation for Business, Health Marketing Quarterly, Journal of International BankMarketing, and the Journal of Small Business Strategy.

Judith H. Washburn, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Bowling GreenState University. Her research interests focus on relationships, particularly betweennonprofits and businesses and between co-branding partners. She has publishedarticles in the Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Education for Business, andHealth Marketing Quarterly.

Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, Vol. 7(4) 2000� 2000 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 33

JOURNAL OF NONPROFIT & PUBLIC SECTOR MARKETING34

able for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678.E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>]

KEYWORDS. Cause marketing, alliances, non-profits, corporate spon-sorships, donations, consumer support

Cause marketing alliances are collaborative marriages between cor-porations and non-profit groups to pursue mutually beneficial goals. Aproperly planned and executed alliance has the potential to improvethe corporation’s image as a ‘‘good citizen’’ and increase the non-prof-it’s financial support. For example, Calphalon, a maker of gourmetcookware, aligns itself with the antihunger organization Share OurStrength (SOS). Consumers react positively to this alliance by reward-ing Calphalon with increased sales and SOS receives millions of dol-lars to help feed the hungry (Lorge 1998).

Carefully researched, structured, and implemented cause marketingalliances have the potential to allow non-profits to benefit by increas-ing awareness and support for the entire movement. According toStafford and Hartman (1996), when a popular corporate icon publiclysupports a social issue, its suppliers, customers, and competitors arelikely to follow. For example, shortly after the announcement of theStarkist-Dolphin Coalition agreement, Bumble Bee and Chicken ofthe Sea announced that they would also honor the fishing restriction.

It is imperative that non-profits identify key factors motivating thepublic’s behavior in successful cause marketing strategies. For a cam-paign to be successful, key constituents must have an affinity for thecause (Drumwright 1996). Companies considering the sponsorship ofa social or environmental issue should select the cause only afterexamining customer priorities and attitudes. For example, US con-sumers prefer local causes to national ones (Drumwright 1996; Lorge1998). Too direct of an association, and the company sponsor may beseen as having an ulterior motive (e.g., between an athletic equipmentmanufacturer and its promotion of physical fitness).

For the non-profits, the major goals of these marketing alliances areto increase awareness, educate, and gain support for a cause. Thevalue of a corporate sponsor’s overall positive image is seen in itspotential for assistance in these areas. Reputation is one facet of acompany’s overall image. A corporate sponsor with a good overall

Linda I. Nowak and Judith H. Washburn 35

reputation owns valuable assets such as goodwill, customer loyalty(Herbig, Milewicz, and Golden 1994), and increased advertising cred-ibility (Goldberg and Hartwick 1990). Through public association,this positive corporate image may potentially be transferred to thecause.

The purpose of this research is to examine to what extent corporateand non-profit alliances can impact the public’s perceptions and inten-tions to support a cause. In other words, what happens if a corporationwhich possesses a strong reputation aligns itself with an important butnot so popular cause? Will this increase the popularity of the socialissue? What happens when a company with a weak reputation associ-ates itself with a highly visible and very popular cause? Does this hurtthe public’s trust and support for the cause?

BACKGROUND

Trust

Trust affects relationships with volunteers, employees, donors, cli-ents, and the general public. The topic has received much attention inseveral areas of the marketing literature, including buyer-seller bar-gaining relationships (Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987; Schurr andOzanne 1985), commitment formation (Achrol 1991; Morgan andHunt 1994), services marketing (Berry and Parasuraman 1991), andintraorganizational relationships (Moorman, Zaltman, and Deshpande1992).

Trust is a component of overall image; an important aspect of anyorganization’s reputation. Trust affects the public’s intentions to sup-port an environmental or social issue (Osterhus 1997). According toOsterhus (1997), trust in the marketing source, in this case both thenon-profit and the corporate sponsor, interacts with consumer respon-sibility attributions and personal norms to influence consumer choicebehavior.

Consumers may become skeptical of pro-social claims when adver-tising and source credibility are questioned (Thorson, Page, andMoore 1995). For example, business and industry, usually because oftheir conflicts of interest, are considered the least believable sources ofinformation on environmental issues (Ottman 1992; Stisser 1994). Infact, some corporations have chosen to keep a low profile regarding


their pro-social or environmental programs because they do not wantto be perceived as abusers of cause-exploitative marketing (Garrett1987).

Behavioral Intentions, Personal Norms, and Responsibility

Social and personal norms have an important influence on prefer-ence (Fishbein and Azjen 1975; Miniard and Cohen 1983). Social andpersonal norms have been specifically addressed in Schwartz’s (1977)model of altruistic behavior and has been applied successfully to mar-ket helping behavior (Price, Feick, and Guskey 1995). When a socialnorm becomes internalized, it becomes a personal norm. In the case ofsocial responsibility, a personal norm could be characterized by no-tions of ‘‘I feel I should do something to help future generations.’’

Osterhus (1997) found that an important moderator of personalnorms, attributions of consumer responsibility, must be activated forpro-social positioning strategies to be effective. An attribution of per-sonal responsibility could be ‘‘I am responsible, in part, to contribut-ing to this problem.’’ High responsibility attributions increase thechance that personal norms will influence behavior and low responsi-bility attributions decrease the translation of personal norms into be-havior.

Societal Consequences

The translation of personal norms into behavior is strengthenedthrough an awareness of the consequences of action or inaction re-garding the behavior (Osterhus 1997). Consumers targeted with pro-social marketing strategies may feel that the costs of changing theirconsumption behaviors exceed the benefits either to themselves or tosociety as a whole (Rangan, Karim, and Sandberg 1996). Consumersare sophisticated enough to realize that benefits accrue for a socialcause when a large segment of the population supports it through theirbehaviors. A study conducted by Roberts (1996), indicated that per-ceived consumer effectiveness (the ability of individual consumers toaffect environmental resource problems) explained 33% of the varia-tion in ecologically conscious consumer behavior. Consumers per-ceive more benefit to the cause when corporate donations are larger(Dahl and Lavak 1995).


Cause Affinity

Affinity for a cause increases the probability of a successful cam-paign (Drumwright 1996). In a Cone/Roper study on cause marketing,78% of the adults surveyed said they would be more likely to buy aproduct associated with a cause that they cared about (Carringer1994). Consumers appear to prefer local causes to national ones(Lorge 1998; Ross, Stutts, and Patterson 1991; Smith and Alcorn1991), disaster relief or curing diseases (Ross, Stutts, and Patterson1991), and issues that involve kids and the environment (Lorge 1998).

Associations

Most research on cause marketing alliances has related to the poten-tial benefits for corporate sponsors or specific brands associated with apopular cause. Shimp, Stuart, and Engle (1991) noted that associativelearning is the mechanism that generates consumer thoughts and feel-ings towards brands. Grossman (1997) established a connection be-tween associative learning concepts and co-branding. Brown and Da-cin (1997) found that corporate social responsibility associations (e.g.,corporate giving and community involvement) influence the overallevaluation of the company, which in turn can affect how consumersevaluate products from the company.

Associative learning has been described as the way that consumerslearn about the relationships among events in the environment (Shimp,Stuart and Engle 1991) that is brought about through the linkage orfusion of two concepts (Murdock 1985). These linkages can be estab-lished via classical or operant conditioning, two well known associa-tive learning concepts. Aaker (1991) established that brand associa-tions are anything linked in memory to a brand, and that brands with ahigh number of positive associations have high levels of brand equity.He also cautioned that ill-conceived pairings can potentially damage apositive image.

Classical conditioning is frequently studied as a mechanism to es-tablish favorable consumer attitudes towards advertising. Throughadvertising, a consumer learns of an association between a condi-tioned stimulus (such as a brand), and an unconditioned stimulus(celebrity endorser or music). The conditioned stimulus can later elicita conditioned response (consumer likes the brand) that may be similar


to the unconditioned response (consumer likes the celebrity) (e.g.,Shimp, Stuart and Engle 1991).

As indicated in the preceding discussion, there appears to be arelationship between the consumer’s:

a. trust in the marketing source,b. evaluations of the importance of the cause,c. feelings of responsibility to help,d. ability to make a difference (consequences), ande. behavioral intentions toward the cause.

The premise being explored in this study is that associative learningcan be used in cause marketing to negatively or positively affect thesefive dimensions through the appropriate or inappropriate selection of acorporate sponsor. On the basis of this reasoning, the following hy-potheses are proposed:

H1: A high affinity cause adopting a corporate sponsor with astrong reputation will receive larger improvements in consum-er: trust in the non-profit, evaluations of the importance of thecause, feelings of responsibility to help, feelings of ability tomake a difference, and behavioral intentions than it will ifadopting a corporate sponsor with a weak reputation.

H2: A low affinity cause adopting a corporate sponsor with astrong reputation will receive larger improvements in consum-er: trust in the non-profit, evaluations of the importance of thecause, feelings of responsibility to help, feelings of ability tomake a difference, and behavioral intentions than it will ifadopting a corporate sponsor with a weak reputation.

METHODOLOGY

The hypotheses were tested using before-after experimental design.A convenience sample of 240 business students was recruited for thestudy. The 240 students were divided into eight sets of 30 each. Eachgroup was matched by age, gender, business concentration, ethnicity,and grade point average.

The study included a pre-test, which measured perceptions of prod-uct quality, trust in the company, and consumer behavioral intentions


for four national pizza brands. The pre-test also measured cause im-portance, feelings of responsibility, trust in the non-profit, behavioralintentions towards the cause, and feelings of ability to make a differ-ence (societal consequences) for four non-profit organizations (seeTable 1). The pizza brand with the strongest ratings in quality, trust,and consumer behavioral intentions and the brand with the weakestratings in these three areas were selected for use in the next phase ofthe research. The non-profit organizations with the highest and lowest

TABLE 1. Scale Items

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importance ratings and behavioral intentions were selected as the highand low affinity causes.

Once the two brands with strong and weak reputations and the twonon-profits with high and low affinity ratings were selected, four shortscenarios using all possible combinations were developed describingcorporate sponsorship. For example:

Effective July 4, Little Caesars Pizza will be the official corpo-rate sponsor of the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation. They willbe donating $1.00 for each large pizza sold between now and theend of 1998. This is only the first of several campaigns they haveplanned to raise awareness and generate money for this veryimportant cause.

One month after the pre-test, the post-test was administered. Beforethe post-test each of the four experimental groups was asked to readone type of press release: strong reputation sponsor with high affinitycause, strong reputation sponsor with low affinity cause, weak reputa-tion sponsor with high-affinity cause, or weak reputation sponsor withlow-affinity cause. They were then asked to evaluate the high and lowaffinity causes on the five dimensions listed in Table 2. The fourcontrol groups received no press releases but were asked to evaluateone of the two non-profits on the same five dimensions.

TABLE 2. Respondent Ratings for Non-Profits Before and After Announce-ments of Corporate Sponsorships

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In both the pre-test and post-test participants were asked to respondto questions using a 5-point Likert scale with 1 indicating ‘‘stronglydisagree’’ and 5 indicating ‘‘strongly agree.’’ The measures developedfor trust, behavioral intentions, attributions of personal responsibility,societal consequences, and cause importance closely follow measuresused in the literature (Osterhus 1997; Schwartz 1977; Smith and Coo-per-Martin 1997). Items used for measuring each dimension are de-scribed in Table 1. Reliability of the measurements was determinedusing Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. Each dimension was measuredwith two items and had a coefficient alpha of at least .8000, indicatingacceptable reliability.

RESULTS

Hypotheses 1 and 2 were tested using paired sample t-tests in orderto look for any significant changes occurring for each dimension be-tween the pre- and post-tests (see Table 2). Hypothesis 1 could not besupported. Contrary to expectations, there were not larger increases intrust for the non-profit, intentions to support the cause, cause impor-tance ratings, feelings of responsibility, or feelings of ability to make adifference for society (consequences) if a high affinity cause aligneditself with the company with the strongest reputation.

H2 was supported. A low affinity cause adopting a corporate spon-sor with a strong reputation received larger improvements in the pub-lic’s evaluations of its societal importance, ability to make a differ-ence, feelings of responsibility, trust in the non-profit, and intentionsto support the cause than it would if adopting a corporate sponsor witha weak reputation.

DISCUSSION

The results of the study indicate that a high affinity cause, onewhich the public already intends to support either with volunteerismor money, does not appear to benefit significantly from forming apublic alliance with a corporate sponsor, whether the sponsor has astrong or weak reputation.

In contrast, a low affinity cause may have more to gain or losethrough its affiliations with strong or weak corporate sponsors. More


specifically, the public’s attitudes and intentions to support a lowaffinity cause appear to be significantly increased by association witha sponsor with a strong reputation and are not significantly effected bysponsorship from a company with a weak reputation. Trust for thenon-profit organization, intentions to support through volunteerism ordonations, perceptions of importance to society, feelings of responsi-bility to help, and feelings that personal support can make an overalldifference for society, were all significantly increased through associa-tions with a strong corporate sponsor. These results suggest that not-so-popular causes should pick their corporate sponsors wisely.

This study can only be considered exploratory in nature and shouldnot be the sole basis for a non-profit’s cause marketing strategy until.This research was conducted at a west coast public university. Thesample was predominantly caucasian business students in their earlytwenties. To be generalizable this research should be replicated withlarger sample sizes, employing different ethnic, income, and agegroups from various regions of the country.

It would also be valuable to examine the implications for corporatesponsors adopting popular and not-so-popular causes. Is it an unac-ceptable risk for a company to support, perhaps out of conscience, acause that has important implications for society but is not a popularenvironmental or social issue?

CONCLUSION

A successful cause marketing strategy will be predicated on anincreased understanding of what motivates the behavior of the sociallyconscious consumer. It appears as though low affinity causes maybenefit the most from carefully selected corporate alliances. A causewhich is not a priority in the minds of the public could increase itscredibility and public support through a carefully orchestrated alliancewith a strong corporate sponsor.

Before forming a cause marketing alliance, careful research shouldbe conducted by the non-profit organization. It is important to ascer-tain the public’s attitudes and perceptions about the non-profit’s cause.It is also important to research any potential corporate sponsors. Anon-profit should look for corporate sponsors whom the public trustsand respects so that the public’s perceptions about the corporate spon-sor will carry over in a ‘‘halo effect’’ toward the non-profit.


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2000 - Linda I Nowak - MarketingAlliancesBetweenNonProfitsandBusinessesCh[Retrieved-2015!05!12]