Cause related marketing: from a Swedish retail perspective

Abstract: Today it is popular and even trendy for companies to get involved in and
support charity efforts or charitable organzations. Companies today use
cause related marketing not only to increase their sales but also to
improve their image and reputation on the market and to win the consumers
hearts in their decision of which company to support. The relationship
between the business and the charity organization can be described as
a "marriage" and these two have to work effectively with each other in
order to create a successful cause related marketing campaign. The purpose
of this study is to provide a deeper understanding about the use of cause
related marketing. In order to reach this objective, research questions
focusing on the objectives strived for in cause related marketing and the
strategies used by companies in this area to reach those objectives were
developed. Following these research questions, a review of the relevant
literature was conducted, resulting in a conceptual framework used to guide
this study's data collection. A qualitative, single case study methodology
was used using telephone interviews with two respondents at Sweden's
leading food retail chain. The findings show that there are a number of
objectives strived for by companies and these can be viewed as being more
or less suitable. There are also several different strategies for companies
to use in terms of matching the company with its collaborating partners and
customers, the implementation of different cause related marketing
programs, and the time perspective of the cause related marketing programs.
We found that the theories concerning both objectives and strategies
overall agree with the empirical data from our case study. This of course
deserves further research.