The willingness to pay for cause related products: Empirical evidence from a conjoint analysis in Mexico Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • © 2018 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,Marketing campaigns aligned with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are becoming more common as a strategy to attain brand differentiation and consumer preference. However, the challenge for many companies is understanding how social and environmental campaigns sponsored by a brand affect the purchase decision of the consumer and how these campaigns generate financial and social benefits. In view of the fact that consumers make purchase decisions based on different attributes, we utilized the joint analysis to determine the impact of three attributes in purchase decisions: CSR campaign, brand, and price. Information from a sample of consumers was collected through an electronic survey and it was analyzed using a regression model with panel data. Based on this sample, the direct and indirect effect of the CSR campaigns regarding consumer preference were determined, and a method to map the increase in the preferences in their monetary equivalent was developed. The results suggest that the consumer is willing to pay a premium of approximately 22% for leading products in the studied category associated to campaigns with a social cause, compared to 10% in products that are not that well positioned. This effect is not present in environmental campaigns. In this manner, it is demonstrated that social campaigns create financial benefits for the company while society benefits from the participation of the consumer in this type of campaigns.

publication date

  • January 1, 2018