The relationship between cause-related marketing and corporate image: A reseacrh on the collaboration of Eker and Adım Adım Oluşumu

Nowadays, target groups and stakeholder groups are more demanding towards corporations and social responsibility takes place near to top in consumer expectations. In this context, corporations strive to carry out their communication of responsible behaviours more efficiently besides acting socially responsible. Cause-related marketing emerges both as an initiation of corporate social responsibility and as a communication type of corporate social responsibility. It is perceived and applied a key activity that allows corporations to dissolve their marketing and social responsibility activities in a single pot. While the term, cause-related marketing, that is summarized as a donation of a part of the income that derived from the sales of products of a company or brand for a social benefit or a cause is considered one of the gold marketing and public relations tools of the future, it also has doubts about sincerity in the motivation of the implementing institution. In this study, the general attitudes towards Cause-related Marketing activities of university students who are the consumers of the future were determined and it is examined whether this attitude has a relationship with the perception of the motivation of an institution that performs Cause-related marketing activities. It is also examined whether there is a relationship between attitudes towards Cause-related marketing activities, the perception of the motivation of an institution that performs Cause-related marketing activities and corporate image. In the study, data were collected through questionnaire that is one of the quantitative data collection techniques.In questionnaire, the statements about corporate motivation and corporate image were presented with an actual cause-related marketing campaign. In conclusion, it was ascertained that attitude and perceptions differ according to demographic variables and there is a statistically significant relationships between the scales were used. Keywords: Cause-Related Marketing, Corporate Image, Corporate Social Responsibility