Factors Affecting the Effectiveness of Cause-Related Marketing Campaign: Moderating Effect of Sponsor-Cause Congruence

This study aimed at identifying the factors affecting cause-related marketing and the moderating effect of sponsor congruence. Data were collected using a self-administrated questionnaire from 500 Jordanians’ consumers from Amman/Jordan. Results of the study showed that there is a positive effect of statistical significance of cause-fit on Jordanian customer’s brand credibility. Contrary to our expectations, the results showed that there is no statistical significant effect of altruistic attribution on Jordanian customer’s brand credibility. The results also showed that there is a positive statistical significant effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on cause-related marketing. In addition, it was found that there exists a positive effect of statistical significance of brand credibility of Jordanian customer on cause-related marketing due to sponsor-cause congruence. The current study recommends the necessity of spreading the awareness of cause-related marketing and its benefits to the society. It is also necessary for decision makers in business organizations to concentrate on the fitness of the cause during marketing for some kind of product.


Introduction
Firms adapting social responsibility concept are gaining a large amount of power to affect the consumer brand perception (Almajali et al., 2016;Yadav et al., 2016), as cause-related marketing (C-RM) is subsumed under corporate social responsibility (CSR); in practice CSR and C-RM can serve as different public relations instruments. On the other hand, Che'ron et al. (2012) show that C-RM has a positive effect on consumer attitudes and can be more efficient cost-wise. Therefore, organizations are increasingly partnering with charitable causes and non-profitable organizations in order to improve their corporate image, differentiate their brands from competitors and eventually increase sales (Alalwan et al., 2016). C-RM could be seen as the link between corporations' sales promotion and its corporate philanthropy (Ricks, 2005). Research has further revealed many factors that contributes on improving the effectiveness of C-RM, including the level of cause-fit (Bigne et al., 2012), brand credibility (Trimble & Rifon, 2006;Al-Salti et al., 2011) and altruistic attribution (Becker-Olsen et al., 2006;Obeidat & Abdallah, 2014). In particular, the main objective of this study is to analyze the moderating role of congruence on the key mediator to C-RM success-credibility.
Previous studies showed that increased awareness and knowledge about a certain product produces differential effects in information processing Obeidat et al., 2016). Consumer choices are often motivated by intense, mixed, and opposing emotional states (Williams & Aaker, 2002;El-Masri et al., 2015;; individuals may feel guilty about buying an expensive good, ashamed of being associated with an embarrassing product, or feel pleased about flaunting a fashion brand. The interest of marketing literature in consumers' emotional experiences has two main motivations: on the one hand, the attention to examine subconscious influences on consumer choices (Shannak et al., 2012;Msa'deh et al., 2015); on the other hand, the recent interest in studying the coexistence of both positive and negative emotions (Penz & Hogg, 2011;Aviezer, Trope, & Todorov, 2012;Alenezi et al., 2015;Sharma et al., 2016). Also, increased number of wars and conflicts in the Middle East create many humanitarian situations that are used by business organizations toward marketing in a cause-related basis; using cause fit, altruistic attribution, and brand credibility. Factors leading to the success or failure of C-RM campaigns undertaken by for profit organizations haven't been yet documented or explored in a methodologically broader way (Grau & Folse, 2007;Larson et al., 2008;Moosmayer & Fuljahn, 2010;Hajir et al., 2015). In order to fill this gap, there is a need for research that identifies those factors that have an influential power over the success of C-RM and the importance of this study is derived from the above. More specifically, the current study aims at identifying the level of impact of cause-fit on brand credibility. Also, in order to identify the level of impact of altruistic attribution on brand credibility, the current study aims at identifying the level of impact of brand credibility on C-RM. Finally is to investigate the presence of any difference of the effect of brand credibility on C-RM due to sponsor-cause congruence. The findings of this study could be taken into consideration while formulating marketing strategies, as known, the main goal of marketing is to develop a good promotion in order to generate sales. Thus, managers can use the contribution of this study in their managerial decisions by integrating those factors with the other marketing strategies to create a well-developed cause-related campaign that leads to sales and increase the purchase intention by creating a positive attitude toward the brand that is associated with social cause.

Literature Review
This study was conducted to identify the factors that increase the effectiveness of C-RM. The below subsections will discuss C-RM and commitment-consistency principle, brand cause-fit and brand credibility, functional-based fit, altruistic attribution and brand credibility, altruistic attributions, importance of the cause, effects of fit on customers' responses to C-RM, congruence, congruence effects in sponsorship, brand credibility and C-RM effectiveness moderated by sponsor-cause congruence. Vaidyanathan et al. (2013) used marketing communications to create a link between a charitable cause and a product supporting that cause. Subjects were first asked to declare their commitment to save the rainforests.

Cause-Related Marketing and Commitment-Consistency Principle
They were asked questions about their willingness to buy a product (detergent). Subjects indicated a stronger willingness to buy when they had made a prior commitment to save the rainforests and when their purchase resulted in the company making a charitable contribution to the cause. The authors explained this increase in willingness to buy as an expression of the commitment-consistency principle: having made a prior commitment, subjects felt a pressure to engage in subsequent behaviors that were consistent with their prior behavior. Schwarzwald et al. (1983) showed that making people sign a petition to establish a club for handicapped individuals resulted in those people becoming more willing to comply with larger donation requests that followed. Girandola (2002) showed a similar effectiveness of the principle in the context of organs donation. Research also suggests that although the cultural context might influence the strength of the effect of commitment-consistency, the compliance behavior continues to be exhibited across cultures. Petrova, Cialdini, & Sills (2007) used a field experiment to test whether individuals from different cultures respond differently to persuasion attempts using the commitment-consistency principle. They found that the principle worked for both collectivist and individualist cultures, though its effect was more pronounced for subjects in individualist cultures (Hamoud et al., 2016). related to the cause sponsored, while image-based fit is defined as some aspects of the companies' image such as the company corresponds to the image of the sponsored cause (Trimble & Rifon, 2006). Moreover, according to Che'ron et al. (2012), brand credibility in the context of cause-related marketing C-RM is defined as "the extent to which a consumer perceives that the brand expresses sincerity (trustworthiness) and has the skills and experience necessary (source expertise) to associate to the specified social cause". Moreover, in a C-RM campaign, consumers try to know the actual motives that led the brand to associate itself to a social cause when it comes to evaluating the brand credibility. As the perception of compatibility between social cause and credibility increases, consumers are more likely to perceive the brand as having more skills and expertise when it comes to associating with the cause (Becker- Olsen et al., 2006). The degree to which the cause fits with the product plays a major role in maximizing the campaign effectiveness and avoiding negative effect of C-RM (Moosmayer & Fuljahn, 2010;Hassouna et al., 2015). As pointed out, it is concluded that greater cause-fit inhibits the generation of egoistic judgment and so can be used directly as an indicator to evaluate brand honesty and sincerity in C-RM campaign (Rifon et al., 2004;Becker-Olsen et al., 2006).

Altruistic Attributions Concept
Companies usually see corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a strategic opportunity for obtaining short and long-term organizational benefits while also achieving social objectives (Graafland, 2006). The maxim of ''doing better while doing well'' encapsulates this ''win-win'' logic and is an excellent expression of what has been termed the logic of ''enlightened self-interest'' or ''pragmatic altruism''. Enlightened self-interest explains why companies invest in activities, which seek a social objective even though they obtain no private benefits in the short term (Alcaniz et al., 2010). Such behavior is simply the result of their belief that these activities will also bring them private benefits in the long term. The long term is where it makes sense to speak of social objectives as part of companies' private objectives.

Altruistic Attribution and Brand Credibility
Brand credibility in the context of cause-related marketing is defined as "the extent to which a consumer perceives that the brand expresses sincerity (trustworthiness) and has the skills and experience necessary (source expertise) to associate to the specified social cause". According to the attribution theory (Folkes, 1988), people seek to find a logic and explanation for what is happening in an attempt to gain a better understanding, hence, higher control for their lives and that act happens when it is impossible to know everything about an event. Thus, individuals make causal attribution, which means cognitive processes where a cause is assigned to a specific event (Folkes, 1988).
By linking C-RM to the altruistic attribution, it is found that C-RM is the type of promotional strategy that activates this type of attributional mechanism. Furthermore in the C-RM context and based on Forehand & Grier (2003), individuals attribute two types of motives in a C-RM campaign, the first is Altruistic motives, where this type of motive that focuses on the potential benefits of the social cause. The second type is Egoistic motives where this type of motive that focuses on the potential benefits of the brand itself. Or sometimes they attribute both types of motives which is called "mixed motives" (Ellen et al., 2006) in summary the results suggested that, congruence will be greater between social commitment and altruistic motives than between social commitment and egoistic motives (Klein & Dawar, 2004;Ellen et al., 2006;Du et al., 2007). And this reasoning suggests that altruistic attribution is an indicator that helps individuals in the evaluation of sincerity and honesty of the brand's social commitment (Varadarajan & Menon, 1988;Webb & Mohr, 1998). Moreover, it is a useful indicator to get a greater confidence in the judgment of brand credibility (Bigne' et al., 2012). Therefore, altruistic motivations will positively influence brand credibility (Varadarajan & Menon, 1988;Webb & Mohr, 1998) and inhibit the susceptibility towards the C-RM campaign.

Importance of the Cause Related Marketing
Given the number of causes that exist that could be selected as a potential partner in a CBA, how important the cause is perceived to be by the consumer should have a differential effect on attitudes and purchase intentions. The dozens of CBAs that were developed to generate donations for the "(2004) Tsunami" exemplify this. Robinson et al. (2012) demonstrated the conditions in which C-RM campaigns that allow consumers to choose the cause that receives the donation, lead to greater consumer support than those in which the company determines the cause. The study showed that choice in this context is helpful as long as it increases consumers' perception of personal role in helping the cause. Specifically, allowing consumers to select the cause in a C-RM campaign is more likely to enhance perceived personal role and, thus, purchase intentions (1) for those consumers who are high (vs. low) in collectivism and (2) when the company and causes have low (vs. high) perceptual fit. Finally, the study showed that under certain conditions, choice might have a negative impact on perceived personal role and consumer support of C-RM campaigns.
In general "Fit" is one of the most factors influencing C-RM. Thus, the link between the product and the cause of marketing this product is very important.

Effects of Fit on Customers' Responses to C-RM
Fit is the degree of similarity and compatibility that consumers perceive between a social cause and brand (Lafferty, 2007). Despite theoretical proposals defending the positive-mediating influence of cause-brand fit on consumer responses to C-RM, there is no such consensus in the empirical evidence. A broad set of contributions have demonstrated empirically a direct and positive relationship between cause-brand fit and a large number of consumer responses, such as brand image, altruistic attributions, brand credibility and product purchase intention (Rifon et al., 2004;Gupta & Pirsch, 2006). Other studies, however, have empirically rejected the notion that cause-brand fit has a positive-mediating influence on brand image, attitude towards C-RM, attitude towards brand and product and product purchase intention (Nan & Heo, 2007). Empirical evidence may be lacking because most of these contributions have analyzed the effect of cause-brand fit from a processing perspective, which is too rationalist, where fit is diligently evaluated by the consumer and said evaluation mediates subsequent C-RM responses (Hoek & Gendall, 2008).

Congruence
Congruence is defined as the perceived link between the cause and brand (Mizerski et al., 2001). Congruence is in terms of the brand's product and the issue that the cause supports, or the brand and the cause targeting similar markets, or brand image associations. Thus, congruence is an important variable that may influence consumers' perception of corporate motive (Larson et al., 2008).

Congruence Effects in Sponsorship
In the sponsorship literature, it is "relatedness" and "relevance", or compatibility; in cause-related marketing research, it is a "fit". Some sponsorship researchers have defined congruence based on the direct or indirect relevance of the sponsor to the event (Rifon et al., 2004). The impact of congruence has been clarified through schema theory, but some elements of the explanation are still missing. A schema is a cognitive structure that represents an object of domain that includes a person, event, or place. Cognitive explanations for congruence effects assume that incongruence yields a greater number of inferences, and as a consequence, facilitates recall of the sponsor's name based on the development of stronger, more elaborate schema (Johar & Pham, 1999).

Brand Credibility and C-RM Effectiveness Moderated by Sponsor-Cause Congruence
Brand credibility was defined as the sincerity and honesty of the brand. This research examines the impact of credibility on cause-related marketing with the moderating effect of congruence. C-RM programs has increased recently to communicate with customers to create commitment to social responsibility, a specific objective of all C-RM is to generate sales and promotion (Polonsky & Speed, 2001). In addition, cause-related marketing can be implemented to support specific marketing objectives such as accessing new markets, and in order to provoke customers to respond to the campaign creating a perceived similarity between his/her identity and company's identity is required and that is based to (Lichtenstein et al., 2004). Creating customer identification leads to desired responses including sponsor-cause congruence.
Congruence between a sponsor and cause refers to the natural likelihood that two entities match up in the consumers mind (Donald, 2010), this phenomenon is applied to C-RM in terms of belongingness principle that notes that "the most easily formed pairings of cause and fit will be those in which perceived as a natural fit between the cause and the brand" (Till & Nowak, 2000). The effect of sponsoring a specific cause will not create the same influence over all companies associated with the cause, but the perception of congruence between the sponsor and the cause will be a "facilitating effect" (Rifon et al., 2004). Furthermore, congruence plays a major role with sincerity to consumers and their attitude toward the cause-related marketing (Donald, 2010).

Conceptual Model
The following conceptual model demonstrates the factors that affect the cause-related marketing effectiveness:  Figure 1. The proposed conceptual model

Study Hypotheses
In order to develop a hypothesis, we at first design the null version of the hypothesis which must be in the exile form first, then conducting the alternative hypothesis, which represent the presence of the relationship as follows: The current study aims at testing the following hypotheses: H01: There is no statistical significant effect of cause-fit on Jordanian customer's brand credibility.
H02: There is no statistical significant effect of altruistic attribution on Jordanian customer's brand credibility.
H03: There is no statistical significant effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on cause-related marketing.
H04: There are no differences of statistical significance of the effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customer on cause-related marketing due to sponsor-cause congruence.

Methodology
This study aims to examine the effects of cause-fit, altruistic attribution, credibility and congruence in increasing the effectiveness of cause-related marketing campaign. The main study aim is to investigate the main factors of C-RM success in terms of attitude and purchase intention. Data were collected using a self-administrated questionnaire using a convenience sampling technique from Jordanians consumers who have experience in purchasing any type of cause-related products in shopping malls in Amman/Jordan. Thus, 550 questionnaires were distributed to the available sample of male and female customers. The number of returned questionnaires was 529 indicating a 91% response rate. After screening for missing data, 500 were attained to final analysis. Among these, there were 320 (64%) female and 180 male, 44% were less than 24 years old, 32% with frequency of 160 were in the age group of (25-30); (20%) with frequency of 100 for the group of (31-35) years old, and finally; (4%) with frequency of 20 individual were in the age group of (36 years and more). The result also shows that 76% of the study sample had bachelor degree with frequency of 380 individuals and the majority of them (84) have a monthly income below 1400 USD. The demographic data for respondents are shown in Table 1. It should be noted that all items used in this study were adopted from previous studies where they proved to be valid. Brand cause-fit were adopted from Bigne' et al. (2011) and Drumwright (1996), Altruistic attribution items adopted from Rifon et al. (2004) and Becker- Olsen et al. (2006), Brand credibility adopted from Trimble & Rifon (2006), Sponsor-cause congruence and cause-related marketing were adopted from the work of Varadarajan & Menon (1988) and Till & Nowak (2000). All items were measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1-strongly disagree to 5-strongly agree.

Descriptive Analysis
To present study data, means and standard deviations were calculated for the items of the questionnaire for independent and dependant variables. Also, levels of importance were measured in order to differentiate between the highest and lowest items to give an indication about the rank of the items and help in discussing this result.
The results in Table 2 show that the mean for all the items were above the mid-point (2.5) and ranged from 2.72 to 4.28 which indicate that the respondents have good responses towards the constructs being measured. In addition, the standard deviation ranges from 0.75 to 1.21 which shows a fairly narrow spread around the mean. Based on the cause-related product, the brand was socially motivated.
3.92 0.85 Based on the cause-related product, the brand was altruistically motivated.
4.08 0.80 Based on the cause-related product, the brand was egoistically motivated.
2.72 0.92 Credibility Field After seeing cause-related product, I think the brand related to the cause is sincere. 3.88 1.21 After seeing cause-related product, I think the brand related to the cause is experienced.
3.48 0.70 After seeing cause-related product, I think the brand related to the cause is expert.
3.28 0.67 After seeing cause-related product, I think the brand related to the cause is honest.
3.28 1.08 Sponsor-Cause Congruence Field After seeing cause-related product, sponsor sincerity was perceived.
3.72 0.92 Purchase intention has been developed after seeing the cause-related products.

Hypotheses Testing
This study proposed and tested five hypotheses and each will be discussed in the below sub-sections: First Hypothesis (H01): There is no effect of statistical significance of cause-fit on Jordanian customer's brand credibility. Table 3 shows the results obtained from conducting a simple regression analysis by testing the relationship between cause-fit and brand credibility.  Vol. 8, No. 5; From Table 3, the R value for the effect of the cause-fit on Jordanian customer's brand credibility was 0.272 and the F (df 1, 498 = 39.723, P < 0.05), which means: There is an effect of statistical significance of cause-fit on Jordanian customer's brand credibility, also the R Square value that is 0.074 indicates that 7.4% of brand credibility explained by the cause-fit factor. The results of the ANOVA test for the effect of cause-fit on Jordanian's customers credibility is shown in the Table 4. In order to identify the type of effect of Cause-Fit on Jordanian customer's credibility; coefficients were calculated as shown in Table 5. As can be shown in Table 5, the value of Standardized Beta Coefficients (ß) shows that a positive effect of cause-fit on the Credibility (ß =0.272, t = 6.303, P < 0.05). This result could be explained by saying that the type of product affects brand credibility and it is fit to the customer's needs. In addition, fitness of the cause drives the individual towards buying the product and feeling its credibility. Our result is similar to that of Alcaniz et al.
(2010) which showed that image fit is the cause that consumers use to evaluate company trustworthiness when linking to a social cause.
Second Hypothesis (H02): There is no effect of statistical significance of altruistic attribution on Jordanian customer's brand credibility. Table 6 shows the results obtained from conducting a simple regression analysis by testing the effect of altruistic attribution on Jordanian customer's brand credibility. From Table 6, the R-value for the effect of the altruistic attribution on Jordanian customer's brand credibility was 0.005 and the F (df 1, 498 = 0.012, P > 0.05), which means: There is no statistical significant effect of altruistic attribution on Jordanian customer's brand credibility, also the R Square value is 0.00 indicates that 0% of brand credibility explained by the altruistic attribution factor.  Vol. 8, No. 5; In order to identify the type of the effect of altruistic attribution on Jordanian customer's brand credibility coefficients were calculated as shown in Table 8. From Table 8, the value of Standardized Beta Coefficients (ß) shows that a negative non statistical effect of Attribution on the Credibility (ß =-0.005, t = -0.109, P > 0.05). This result can be explained by saying that if an individual is looking for brand credibility will not correlate that to their attribution nature. However, coefficients results indicated negative non statistical effect of attribution on brand credibility. This result is inconsistent with the findings of Alcaniz et al. (2010) which showed that altruistic attribution is the cause that consumers use to evaluate company trustworthiness when linking to a social cause.
Third Hypothesis (H03): There is no effect of statistical significance of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on cause-related marketing. Table 9 shows the results obtained from conducting a simple regression analysis by testing the effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on cause-related marketing. From Table 9 the R value for the effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on cause-related marketing was 0.584, and the F (df 1, 498 = 257.781, P < 0.05), which means: There is effect of statistical significance of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on cause-related marketing, also the R Square value is 0.341 indicates that 34.1% C-RM explained by the Credibility factor. In order to identify the type of the effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on cause-related marketing coefficients were calculated as shown in Table 11:  Vol. 8, No. 5; Cause-Related Marketing (ß =0.584, t = 16.056, P < 0.05). However, some customers intend to buy some products for cause-related reasons, they are willing to buy some accredited products and brands. This result explains the positive effect of credibility on cause-related marketing which is similar to that of Tangari et al. (2010) study, which showed that consumers' temporal orientation (present or future) moderates the influence of the temporal framing within the ad (either proximal or distal) for a C-RM campaign on attitudes and purchase intentions.
Fourth Hypothesis (H04): There are no statistical significant differences of the effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customer on cause-related marketing due to sponsor-cause congruence.
As seen in the study model, the moderator variable creates differences in the effect of brand credibility on cause-related marketing, the current hypothesis intents to test the presence of these differences and measure its influence on the whole relationship. To test this hypothesis, a simple regression analysis was conducted, and Table 12 shows the results. As can be shown in Table 12, the R value for the effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on cause-related marketing was 0.584, and the F (df 1, 498 = 257.981, P < 0.05), which means: There is an effect of statistical significance of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on C-RM, also the R Square value is 0.341, that indicates that 34.1% cause-related marketing explained by the Credibility Factor.
In the second step, congruence entered into model the R value for the effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on C-RM due to sponsor-cause congruence was 0.584 and the F (df 2, 497 = 164.699, P < 0.05), which means: There is an effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customer on cause-related marketing due to sponsor-cause congruence. In order to identify the type of effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customer on cause-related marketing due to sponsor-cause congruence coefficients were calculated as shown in Table 14:  Vol. 8, No. 5; As can be shown in Table 14, the value of Standardized Beta Coefficients (ß) shows that a positive effect of Credibility and Congruence on Cause-Related Marketing (ß =0.412, and 0.295 respectively, t = 9.62 and 6.894, P < 0.05). This result could be explained by reviewing the process tree beginning with the brand credibility and C-RM but in the presence of congruence. Thus, having compatibility between the product and the cause is marketed for its necessity for the success of such type of marketing

Conclusion and Recommendations
This study aimed at identifying the factors affecting cause-related marketing, and the moderating effect of sponsor congruence. Results of the study showed that there is a positive effect of statistical significance of cause-fit on Jordanian customer's brand credibility. Contrary to our expectations, the results showed that there is no statistical significant effect of altruistic attribution on Jordanian customer's brand credibility. The results also showed that there is a positive statistical significant effect of brand credibility of Jordanian customers on cause-related marketing. In addition, it was found that there exists a positive effect of statistical significance of brand credibility of Jordanian customer on cause-related marketing due to sponsor-cause congruence.
The following recommendations were derived based on the study results: 1) As results indicate that there is effect of cause-fit on brand credibility, it is necessary for decision makers in business organizations to concentrate on the fitness of the cause during marketing for some kind of product.
2) The current study recommends the necessity of spreading the awareness of cause-related marketing, and its benefits to the society.
3) Studying cause-related marketing must be improved, due to the expanding wars and phenomenon of epidemics, which is related to the expanding wars and Middle East situation, which needs more attention from Arabian countries.
4) It is recommended to conduct more studies that is able to identify the relationship between different variables with cause-related marketing as it is one of the most modern and valuable marketing fields.

5)
As the study showed negative effect of altruistic attribution on cause-related marketing, it recommends the need to distribute awareness about social solidarity to drive people to help each other and forget selfishness.