Title: Cause related marketing – commercialism or altruism: Finding the balance?

Authors: Goran Svensson, Greg Wood

Addresses: Oslo School of Management, P.O. Box 1195 Sentrum, 0107 Oslo, Norway. ' Bowater School of Management and Marketing, Deakin University, P.O. Box 423, Warrnambool, Victoria 3280, Australia

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to describe a framework of questions that may provide guidance as to whether a company (i.e., a for-profit organisation) should engage in Cause Related Marketing (CRM) or not. CRM is an intriguing concept in which one finds a cause and intertwines one|s marketing push to sell both the cause and one|s products. The reality is that some companies do focus solely on the profit returns from socially responsible ventures and others do not, therefore, a framework of questions are provided that may guide companies as to whether to pursue a CRM relationship with a non-profit organisation (i.e., the cause).

Keywords: cause related marketing; CRM; for-profit organisations; non-profit organisations; charities; framework; worthy causes.

DOI: 10.1504/IJECRM.2007.017793

International Journal of Electronic Customer Relationship Management, 2007 Vol.1 No.3, pp.231 - 241

Published online: 14 Apr 2008 *

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