COMPANY-CAUSE FIT AND LIKING FB PAGES: A PROPOSED MODEL FOR CSR MARKETING COMMUNICATION

Abstract

Marketing messages in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are major tools utilized by enterprises to show their genuine concern towards customers in the Covid19 pandemic. This study focuses on two forms of CSR marketing communications: Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) and Cause Sponsorship (CS). The focus of this research is about how CRM and CS Facebook posts of the organization and their company-cause fit impacted customer response, specifically, liking/joining company pages. A CRM and CS x 2 survey-based within-subjects experiment was conducted on Facebook on engaged users between the ages of 18 and 64. Ten Philippine companies with both CRM and CS Facebook posts were used in the study. The 10 CRM posts are shown in half of the sample size (N=272), while the second half is given 10 CS posts and scored by questionnaires. This study proposed models that use regression and modeling to advice companies how to perform online CRM and CS operations effectively, particularly during emergencies, such as the covid19 pandemic, to optimize investments. Results showed all positive relationships between variables but CRM and its company-cause fit had greater impact towards liking/joining FB pages.