The influence of cause-related marketing on consumers' attitude and its theoretical explanation

Abstract: Cause-related marketing is an important strategy to combine the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility with the improvement of brand image. If a company engage in cause-related activities, the consumers of the company will have the opportunities to participate in philanthropic events when consumption. Base on the current state of knowledge regarding the domain of cause-related marketing, we found that attribution theory, stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory, self-signaling theory, and balance theory can be used to explain the effects and mechanisms of cause-related marketing on consumer attitude. Future research should further explore new independent variables from the perspective of cause-related marketing that affects consumer attitude, the effect of cause-related marketing from consumer perspective, and even new mechanisms that underlying cause-related marketing effect on consumers' attitude."