When evaluating the determinants for a successful marketing strategy, it is critical to understand and then to test the boundary conditions of any possible variable. As noted, it is important to understand if customer attitudes toward CRM can be influenced by product type.
Also, an understanding of the relationship between product-cause fit is essential in the maximization of CRM effectiveness. This research was designed to provide an extension of prior findings by incorporating these two variables relevant to CRM effectiveness: product type and product-cause fit.
One result of this study is that there was no obvious difference between frivolous consumption and practical consumption on consumer responses to CRM programs. This result is inconsistent with the previous study which indicates that CRM is more effective in
promoting frivolous, or hedonic products as opposed to practical, utilitarian products (Strahilevitz, 1999; Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998). Thus, based on the finding of this study, product type may not play an influential factor to enhance consumer attitudes toward or likelihood of their purchasing charity-sponsored products.
Most previous research conducted on product-cause-fit is either based entirely on common values or on the logical connections (Lafferty, 2007). Regarding harmful products, this research extends the concept of product-cause fit and adopts two distinct view of high fit.
The results from the present study indicate that high fit between the product and the cause is not effective at eliciting more favorable attitudes toward a sponsoring company and a consumer purchase intention than low fit. Based on this observation, this research suggests that the perceived fit between the product and the cause may not always play a key role in determining consumer favorable attitudes and related purchase intention. One reason could be due to the emotion associated with a cause. Some causes may generate a degree of liking regardless of how fit it relates to the partnership of the product. These affective reactions can precede and then influence cognitions (Zajonc, 1980). Thus, an emotional reaction toward the cause stemming from the right hemisphere, or that part of the brain which governs emotive feelings, may precede and then serve to negate any need for a logical fit to occur. When the products are aligned with a particular cause, this may be sufficient enough to positively influence consumer perceptions of the company and their own purchase intent (Lafferty, 2007). This notion can be explained by the social identity theory (Mael & Ashforth, 1992).
According to this theory, individuals choose activities congruent with salient aspects of their existing identity and support institutions that embody those activities. Thus, when the consumer has a tendency towards altruism, and perceives that the company involved in CRM also represents the same sense of altruism, both high-fit and low-fit conditions can lead toward a more favorable attitude of a company regardless of the associated cause (Sen &
Bhattacharya, 2001).
The experimental results indicate the consumer’s level of skepticism regarding a company’s motivation could affect the consumer attitudes toward a company and purchase intention. When consumers tend to be more skeptical, the attitudes toward a company and purchase intention are more negative. Conversely, when consumer perceived a sponsoring company as more altruistic in its CRM efforts, the attitudes toward a company and purchase intention are more positive. The consumer skepticism can be possible explanation of why consumer attitudes toward a sponsoring company are evaluated more favorable under the consistency fit condition than under the compensation fit condition. Under the consistency fit condition, the company’s motives tent to be perceived as more altruistic with less skepticism.
On the other hand, under the compensation fit condition, consumers seem to generate higher levels of skepticism regarding a company’s true motivation. The results are similar to the pervious findings that consumers with a high level of skepticism would be less likely to respond positively to CRM campaigns than consumers would be with a low level of skepticism toward CRM (Webb & Mohr, 1998; Fein, 1990). Therefore, the different levels of skepticism that are perceived offer important insights in explaining of how different types of product-cause fit affect in the consumer’s decision making process.
In order to understand the different types of product-cause fit in detail. A comparison is conducted using an example of CRM advertisement in a consistency fit context, and another example use in a low fit context. The results indicate that consumer attitudes toward a company are more positive in the consistency fit context than in the low fit context. It is interesting to note that if high fit exists only related to the consistency fit, which can still be viewed as having more effect on consumer responses than low fit. In a review of previous CRM literature, the nature of fit can originate from multiple sources with different cognitive bases (Ellen, Mohr, & Webb, 2000; Varadarajan & Menon, 1988). While there was a cognitive association between the plastic products and environmental protection, this relationship of product-cause has a high correlation which is viewed as one type of highly fit.
However, according to the results of this study, when a company’s choice of a represented cause is made solely from a standpoint of compensation fit, consumers may not relate emotionally this type of fit. Thus, the compensation fit may not an appropriate match for use with products of a harmful nature.
When the product nature is perceived as frivolous, the compensation fit did not have an obvious difference from the consistency fit on CRM effectiveness. As mentioned, the compensation fit might be viewed as possessing a more altruistic rationale to reduce the guilt feelings, but meanwhile the relatively high skepticism was generated. This bi-directional effect between altruism and skepticism may reduce the influences of frivolous products. Thus, this could be one of the explanations of why consumers did not evaluate CRM programs more favorably under the compensation fit condition than under the consistency fit condition, when the perceive the promoted product as frivolous.
On the other hand, when promoting practical products, the consistency fit is more effective than compensation fit on CRM effectiveness. The one reason could be that under consistency fit conditions, a company’s motivations could be perceived to being highly altruistic. Especially, when consumers examine a CRM campaign in the context of consistency fit, consumer skepticism may not be easily triggered. Conversely, when a company decides to sponsor a non-profit organization that is the quite opposite of the company’s core values through some kind of compensation act to society, consumers may turn to suspect the company’s real motive and then may generate a series of questions about why companies are involved in this type of charity activities and how sincere the company chooses a sponsored cause. Thus, compared to the compensation fit strategy, the consistency fit strategy seems to be applied more appropriate for a company producing harmful products.
This study find that either different product types or different types of product-cause fit dose not reveal a significant difference in consumer purchase intention in the context of CRM.
One possible explanation could be that purchase intention may not be easily affected by CRM.
Research conducted by Mizerski et al. (2001) similarly found that purchase intention is not affected by CRM. In this study attitudes toward a sponsoring company easily reflect CRM effectiveness than consumer purchase intention.