THE ROLE OF 'CAUSE INVOLVEMENT' IN CAUSE-RELATED MARKETING CAMPAIGNS IN ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Abstract

Cause-related marketing (CRM) is an exchange-based transaction in which the company invests its portion of earnings in causes. A study on cause involvement of interconnected, sustainable development goals (SDGs) across different cause categories in CRM campaigns is lacking. This research investigates the variation in cause involvement across different categories of SDG causes. The study used a mixed approach: a qualitative study followed by a quantitative study. The first qualitative research thematically categorised the causes of SDGs into social, economic, and environmental categories. Another qualitative investigation interviewed domain experts by telephone, resulting in ten prominent causes. Further, a quantitative analysis using MANOVA indicated that SDG cause involvement differed for individual causes, resulting in high, medium and low involvement causes in CRM campaigns. The study pointed out that the cause involvement of SDG causes has a higher impact than their interconnectedness in a CRM campaign.