Consumer Brand Engagement Fostered by Cause-Related Marketing in Emotional and Functional Brands

Abstract

This study analyses the role of consumer perceived value in mediating the relationship between cause-related marketing and consumer brand engagement with emotional and functional brands. Two real brands that had developed cause-related marketing campaigns were selected as case studies for this research. In a survey with 369 participants, one brand was classified as emotional and the other as functional. A second survey with 268 participants tested the hypotheses using PLS-SEM and bootstrapping procedures. The results confirm that consumer perceived value exerts full mediation (in the case of the emotional brand) and complementary partial mediation (in the case of the functional brand) on the relationship between cause-related marketing and consumer brand engagement. The multigroup analysis reveals that the indirect effect is significantly stronger in the case of the emotional brand than in the case of the functional brand. This paper suggests the positive effect of cause-related marketing campaigns on consumer brand engagement and proposes that this relationship is enhanced when consumers perceive the brand as valuable, particularly in the case of emotional brands. This study is the first to test consumer brand engagement as an outcome of cause-related marketing and highlights the importance of brand value in this effect, which is reinforced by brand management that fosters the emotional side of brands. This study is also the first to test the effect of brand type – emotional and functional – on the engagement developed by cause marketing.