A study on the evaluatıons of consumers towards cause-related marketing

Cause-related marketing, first occured in USA,1983, can be evaluated as a corporate social initiative and also we could see the examples of this initiative in our country for last years. Cause-related marketing being a relatively new subject in marketing literature, there is no written information exitid in Turkish literature. Cause-related marketing is a marketing tool whereby a firm donates a specific amount of sales income inder to support a social cause. Firm could choose a non profit organsition as a partner in this revenue making process with consumers. The research problem of this study considers determining how the consumers perceive the cause-related marketing activities of firms. The most important factors of cause-retaled marketing campaigns? success is doubtless consumers. In this respect, the objectives of this study can be stated as; a)How does the consumers evulate the firms executing a cause-related marketing activity? b)What are the consumers? perceptions and attitudes towards the non profit organisations participating in a cause-related marketing campaign? c)How does the cause-related marketing activity affect the consumers? decision making process? As methodolgy a questionaiere was develepod inder to get data to be used in this research.It is found that, cause-related marketing has positive impact on consumer puschase intentions, especially on women. Also, consumers have positive perceptions of the non profit organziations even they find their activities sometimes unefficient. Cause-related marketing could be a useful way to affect consumer purchase intentions. A strategic partnerhip with a non profit organization, will enhance the success of the cause-related marketing campaigns. Even the cause-related marketing is a new concept for consumers, ıt pretends to gain much attention in our country. Keywords: Social Marketing, Cause Related Marketing, Consumer Perceptions And Attitudes