Cause related marketing : from a Swedish retail perspective

Today it is popular and even trendy for companies to get involved in and support charity efforts or charitable organzations. Companies today use cause related marketing not only to increase their sales but also to improve their image and reputation on the market and to win the consumers hearts in their decision of which company to support. The relationship between the business and the charity organization can be described as a "marriage" and these two have to work effectively with each other in order to create a successful cause related marketing campaign. The purpose of this study is to provide a deeper understanding about the use of cause related marketing. In order to reach this objective, research questions focusing on the objectives strived for in cause related marketing and the strategies used by companies in this area to reach those objectives were developed. Following these research questions, a review of the relevant literature was conducted, resulting in a conceptual framework used to guide this study's data collection. A qualitative, single case study methodology was used using telephone interviews with two respondents at Sweden's leading food retail chain. The findings show that there are a number of objectives strived for by companies and these can be viewed as being more or less suitable. There are also several different strategies for companies to use in terms of matching the company with its collaborating partners and customers, the implementation of different cause related marketing programs, and the time perspective of the cause related marketing programs. We found that the theories concerning both objectives and strategies overall agree with the empirical data from our case study. This of course deserves further research.Validerat; 20101217 (root