The effectiveness of advertising that leverages sponsorship and cause-related marketing: A contingency model

Abstract

This paper shows that consumers are more likely to have ambivalent attitudes towards cause-related marketing (CRM) than sponsorship. Whereas consumers share similar positive perceptions of CRM and sponsorship, and attribute the motives behind them to altruism, their negative perceptions and attributions of CRM are more accessible than those of sponsorships. On the basis of these differences, this article proposes a contingency model in which suppressing the activation of CRM’s negative perceptions enhances the effectiveness of advertising that leverages CRM. The effectiveness of advertising that leverages corporate sponsorship, which is not associated with ambivalent perceptions, is less subject to the suppression of negative perceptions. The model includes two contingent factors, an individual difference factor and a situational factor. The results generally support the proposed model; the effectiveness of ads leveraging CRM improves when negative associations of CRM are less likely to be activated.