Cause-related Marketing : A qualitative study into Millennials’ perception

Sammanfattning: Background: Consumers in today’s market place request companies to take on responsibility and to act as good citizens. In this sense, cause-related marketing (CM) is a campaign format whereby a company promises to donate a specific amount to a non-profit organization (NPO) or cause in response to every CM-labeled product purchased by the consumer. Throughout the last 30 years CM has proven a successful campaign format that resonates well with consumers but also provides benefits for companies and NPOs. While scholars focused on the assessment of attitudes and behavioral responses towards CM, the specific Millennial age cohort and the study of consumers’ perception have been limited. Considering Millennials’ peculiar and unique characteristics, it was worth to investigate how Millennials view CM and to evaluate if a different set- up, management and communication of CM campaigns is required to best resonate with this age cohort. Better understanding Millennials is especially valuable because of the age cohorts’ spending power and future importance in the market place.  Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to explore Millennials’ perception of CM by focusing on different stimulus factors associated with CM and individual factors related to the consumer.  Method: To attain the purpose, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify relevant stimulus factors and individual factors influencing perception of CM. Based on the factors identified three research questions were made central to semi-structured in-depth interviews as the main method of primary data collection. A total of twelve interviews were held with Millennial participants. The qualitative research approach chosen for this thesis allowed for rich data and deep insights into the perceptual process and Millennials’ interpretation of CM factors.  Conclusion: The findings indicate that Millennial participants processed CM campaign stimuli in a highly individual top-down approach, implying that individual beliefs, knowledge and experiences guided perception. Moreover, it became apparent that participants had a high need for transparency and required framing of different stimuli to resonate with this need. Regarding individual factors the findings of the thesis suggest that especially familiarity with the CM campaign format, personal identification with and perceived relevance of the supported cause as well as skepticism influenced participants’ perception of CM.