Cause marketing can improve how people see a brand, but the product you attach it to determines IF that goodwill turns into buying.

Cause marketing usually seems made for stuff we love buying.

Like chocolate that helps feed children, sneakers that support youth sport, or concert tickets that fund community programs.

There’s an obvious logic to it.

If buying something indulgent creates a little guilt, attaching a good cause can make the purchase easier to justify.

A study in the European Journal of Management and Business Economics tested that assumption with both hedonic products, including chocolate and music players, and utilitarian products such as milk and printers.

The result was more complicated.

Cause marketing produced slightly more positive brand attitudes for the hedonic products.

But purchase intention was actually way higher for the utilitarian products. 

What?

In other words, the chocolate got a little more love. Because, chocolate.

BUT the printer was more likely to get BOUGHT.

The researchers suggest one possible reason: utilitarian purchases are already driven by practical value.

Adding the emotional benefit of supporting a cause can give an otherwise functional purchase a little somethin’ extra.

That’s wild, because marketers often treat cause partnerships as a layer of brand purpose sitting above the product.

The research suggests the product itself rejigs how the cause works.

There was another useful finding.

The closer the connection between the product and the cause, the more credible the campaign seemed and the more positively people viewed the brand.

A printer supporting Greenpeace made more intuitive sense to participants than a printer supporting a food-distribution campaign.

Milk and chocolate paired more naturally with the Red Cross food program.

But better fit did not significantly drive up purchase intention in this experiment.

That’s a useful reminder that LIKING a campaign, BELIEVING it and BUYING the product are three different things.

A perfectly sensible cause partnership may strengthen your brand without movin’ much product.

Another campaign might generate a purchase response even if it doesn’t create the warmest brand impression.

So if you’re thinking about cause marketing, I wouldn’t begin with:

What cause would make us look most amazing?

I’d start closer to the product.

What is the customer already trying to accomplish?

Is this purchase practical or indulgent?

Does the cause add something emotionally useful to that particular decision?

And does the connection make enough sense that customers won’t have to reverse-engineer why the heck you chose it?

The same charitable message can behave differently depending on what you’re selling.

One of the ideas I explore in I Need That is that marketing works best when it builds on the job the product is already doing for the buyer.

Who knew doing good worked that way too?

If you’d like help creating and marketing products people feel compelled to buy, the product marketing consultants at Graphos Product can help.