1 Introduction

Varadarajan and Menon (1988) define Cause-related Marketing (CrM) as “the process of formulating and implementing marketing activities that are characterized by the offer from the firm to contribute to a specified amount to a designated cause when consumer engage in revenue-providing exchanges”. Cause-Related Marketing (CrM) is a marketing strategy that combines philanthropic activities with structured marketing efforts in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

The concept of CrM was introduced in 1980s by American Express, and has, since then, been adopted globally by various organizations. It is a marketing activity that integrates promotion, fund raising, corporate philanthropy, strategic philanthropy, public relations, and social responsibility. CrM strategies are now being widely accepted in both developed and developing nations, driven by the shift of organizational policies towards sustainability; according to the Nielsen sustainability report 68% of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable brands that care for and work towards the betterment of society (Company 2015). In keeping with this development, CrM is changing the face of corporate social responsibility in Asia, and in particular in India (Patel et al. 2016). CrM advertisements featuring non-profit organizations to fulfil social causes are one of the important and fast growing concepts in advertising both the product and the cause. This partnership functions with an objective of improving the sales of the advertised product and at the same time raising funds for the non-profit organization to address the social cause (Wymer and Samu 2003).

Celebrity endorsement is a common promotional tool for marketing in developing economies like India. The featuring of celebrity in advertisements has proven to be a more successful and effective marketing tool than utilizing the services of company managers and professional experts (Friedman et al. 1978). Celebrities are typically engaged to increase the persuasiveness of the communication (Kim and Na 2007). Celebrities are able to persuade consumers to entertain/buy the brand and the related cause that they endorse (Nunnelley 2012). Celebrity endorsement is an attractive promotional tool for brand building as is evident from the extensive investments on celebrity engagement in advertisements in recent years. Indeed, brand endorsement has become a lucrative income source for celebrities in recent years (Keel and Nataraajan 2012); according to Forbes India magazine the earnings of top ten celebrities as brand ambassadors has been in the tune of 180 million US dollars (Magazine 2016).

A new phenomenon of involving celebrities in CrM campaign has emerged in recent times (Nunnelley 2012; Leiprecht 2013; Ilicic and Baxter 2014). Both profit-motivated and nonprofit organizations are focusing on the engagement of celebrities as the torch bearers of their CrM campaigns. In India, multinational companies such as Procter & Gamble have engaged many celebrities for their CrM advertisements. Celebrities have thus become an inevitable part of CrM campaigns supporting brands and promotional strategies of organizations and play a significant role in influencing consumers build a strong positive attitude towards the brand, which reflects on their purchase behavior (Bergkvist et al. 2016).

There are differences between the effects of celebrity endorsements of a brand and their effects in CrM campaigning of the brand. In CrM advertisements, the celebrity bears the responsibility of not only building brand image but also in conveying the importance of the supported cause and that of the nonprofit partner. The quantification of the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements in CrM cannot be extrapolated from research on consumer product marketing because CrM advertisements focus not on establishing transactional relationships but on creating a socially responsible buying experience among consumers. There have been, to the best of our knowledge, no studies to quantify the effects of celebrity engagement in a CrM advertisements in enhancing social cause and brand (Leiprecht 2013). We attempt to bridge this gap in our study.

The body of research on celebrity endorsement is well-developed and has been evolving in accordance with customer preferences. Our work addresses the influence of celebrity credibility in the context of CrM. This paper that presents the research work is structured as follows. A literature review of the conceptual framework of celebrity credibility and its relationship to CrM literature is first discussed, with particular focus on the influence of celebrity credibility on the antecedents of CrM such as celebrity brand fit, celebrity-cause fit, cause-brand fit and brand credibility. The factors that influence consumer attitudes towards CrM and behavioral intention towards the celebrity-endorsed product are identified and discussed. The procedure followed to test the model and the proposed hypothesis is then explained, followed by a discussion of the results obtained. The implications from the findings are presented followed by a summarizing conclusion and an outline of directions for further research.

2 Review of literature

2.1 Celebrity credibility

A celebrity endorser is defined as “any individual who enjoys public recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement” (McCracken 1989). Celebrity endorsement has been proven to be a successful marketing strategy. Today, both for-profit and nonprofit organizations constantly seek to identify a credible spokesperson for their product or service. The credibility of the celebrity plays an important role in increasing the persuasiveness of the advertisement and in attracting consumers (Ohanian 1990, 1991). Celebrity credibility is defined as “the extent to which the source is perceived as possessing expertise relevant to the communication topic and can be trusted to give an objective opinion on the subject” (Goldsmith et al. 2000; Ohanian 1990). According to source credibility model (Hovland and Weiss 1951), the three dimensions that contribute to the credibility of a celebrity are ‘expertise’, ‘trustworthiness’ and ‘attractiveness’ (Spry et al. 2011). The ‘expertise’ of a celebrity relates to the level of knowledge he/she possesses of the particular subject and ‘trustworthiness’ is a representation of his/her honesty (Ohanian 1990; Kamins 1990). ‘Attractiveness’ was later included by Ohanian (1990) based on the research findings that showed that consumers are more likely to be impressed by the celebrity for his/her physical attractiveness and are susceptible to opinion change and evaluation of product according to his/her attractiveness (Kahle and Homer 1985), as ephemeral as that may be.

Earlier studies emphasize that apart from the quality perception of the brand being promoted; there must be a match between the brand and the celebrity. The match or “fit” between the credibility of the celebrity and the product being endorsed significantly influences the brand acceptance by the customer. Additionally, a fit between the product and the celebrity in terms of characteristics and image is also highly influential (Friedman et al. 1976; Kahle and Homer 1985). Thus, celebrity credibility has a direct effect on all the antecedents of CrM considered for the study. When consumers perceive greater credibility in the celebrity, they tend to develop a positive attitude towards the brand and cause endorsed. In other words, the credibility of the celebrity passes on to the brand. The celebrity credibility is directly proportional to brand credibility (Spry et al. 2011).

  • H1 Celebrity Credibility will positively influence cause-brand fit.

  • H2 Celebrity Credibility will positively influence celebrity-cause fit.

  • H3 Celebrity Credibility will positively influence celebrity-brand fit.

  • H4 Celebrity Credibility will positively influence brand credibility.

2.2 Cause-brand fit

In general, the term fit is defined as “the perceived link between the company’s image, positioning and target market and the cause’s image and constituency” (Gupta and Pirsch 2006). Cause-brand fit is defined as “ the degree of similarity that consumers perceive between a brand and the cause with which it partners” (Lafferty 2007). The cause-brand fit is a well-researched antecedent in CrM literature. Brands are always associated with causes that fall in line with their core values and brand characteristics. Successful organizations constantly strive to create a more positive image of the brand and identify a suitable cause to sponsor. Good cause-brand fit results in fostering positive customer attitude towards CrM and studies have indeed shown that a poor cause-brand fit leads to the customer skepticism resulting in a negative attitude towards the CrM campaign (Bigne‐Alcaniz et al. 2009; Lafferty 2007). Research on co-branding has suggested that selecting a well-matched brand partner is very important for the success of co-branding (Bucklin and Sengupta 1993; Gupta and Pirsch 2006; Lafferty et al. 2004). It is, therefore, appropriate to study the influence of cause-brand fit on attitude towards the CrM.

  • H5 Cause-brand fit will positively influence attitude towards cause-related marketing.

2.3 Celebrity-cause fit

Celebrity-cause fit is defined as the “degree of fit between an attractive celebrity and a charitable cause [that] will be achieved when a charitable cause has symbolic traits and values that are congruent with the celebrity‘s image” (Nunnelley 2012). The “match up” hypothesis initially postulated that the impact of attractiveness of the celebrity can enhance the evaluation of product and advertisement, only if the “match up” of the image of the celebrity is conveyed (Kamins 1990; Kamins and Gupta 1994). Celebrities themselves are more likely to associate themselves with products of social cause because apart from creating a positive image of the endorsing celebrity among the consumers, such endorsements can also help negate possible negative reputations of celebrities. The partnership of the celebrity with a social cause is perceived to be a co-branding association, in which, the image of the celebrity influences the supported cause and in return, the goodwill generated influences celebrity equity (Diana and Bryan 2007; Ilicic and Baxter 2014).

There are, to the best of our knowledge, no scientific evidence or research that examines the relationship between celebrity and cause. Kamins (1990) suggested that the “match up” hypothesis can be extended beyond celebrity and product type. Thus, ‘cause’ can be considered as the part of a product associated. In this work, we study the celebrity-cause fit incorporating “match up” hypothesis (Nunnelley 2012) and expect celebrity-cause fit to influence consumer attitude towards cause-related marketing.

  • H6 Celebrity-cause fit will positively influence attitude towards cause-related marketing.

2.4 Celebrity-brand fit

Celebrity-Brand fit has been defined to occur when “the product is congruent with the celebrity’s image and when the celebrity is perceived to hold values similar to the targeted consumer market” (Kahle and Homer 1985; Kamins and Gupta 1994). Good fit between a celebrity and brand can always enhance the persuasiveness and effectiveness of an advertisement. The characteristics of the celebrity endorser and the brand must align with each other in order to create a significant impact on the overall success of advertisement. Considering the significance of celebrity brand fit in both scenarios (with congruence and incongruence), the perceived fit between the celebrity and brand leads to positive brand evaluations (Kim and Na 2007); consumers tend to favorably evaluate brands when the fit between celebrity and brand is congruent (Kim and Na 2007; Goksel 2014). Literature review shows that celebrity brand fit has been eliciting much attention in recent studies on branding (Bergkvist et al. 2016). It is; thus, appropriate to study the influence of celebrity-brand fit in CrM campaigns as the celebrities are the front-runners in the campaigns for established brands. Therefore, we expect celebrity-brand fit to have a significant impact on attitude to cause-related marketing.

  • H7 Celebrity-brand fit will positively influence attitude towards cause-related marketing.

2.5 Brand credibility

Erdem and Swait (2004) defined brand credibility as “the believability of the product position information contained in a brand, which depends on the willingness and ability of firms to deliver what they promise”. Bigne‐Alcaniz et al. (2009) defined brand credibility in perspective of CrM as “the extent to which a consumer perceives that the brand expresses sincerity and trustworthiness, the skill and experience necessary (expertise) to associate with the specified social cause”. Prior research has shown that brand credibility plays a significant role in influencing the consumers in brand choice and consideration (Erdem and Swait 2004).Maathuis et al. (2004) found that consumer emotions and reasoning ability towards a brand is significantly influenced by brand credibility. We expect that increase in credibility of the brand would trigger positive attitude of the customer towards cause-related marketing.

  • H8 Brand credibility will positively influence attitude towards cause-related marketing.

2.6 Purchase intention

The most important function of CrM campaign is to increase the sales of the product that benefits the cause supported, with more donations. Kropp et al. (1999) found that values play a major role in developing a positive attitude towards CrM. Research has also shown that women develop more positive attitude towards organizations involved in CrM than men (Ross et al. 1992). Previous research suggests that positive attitude towards CrM influences purchase intention (Hajjat 2003; Lafferty et al. 2002). Thus, the links among ‘celebrity’, ‘brand’ and ‘cause’ can induce positive consumer attitude towards CrM. Therefore, our hypothesis postulates that attitude towards CrM positively influences purchase intention of the consumers.

  • H9 Consumer Attitude towards cause-related marketing will positively influence purchase intention.

Figure 1 represents the proposed relationships among the variables.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Conceptual model

Full size image

3 Methodology

3.1 Data collection and sample

In order to test the hypotheses, a survey was administered with a personal questionnaire involving stimulus of a printed advertisement with CrM campaigns of a real brand endorsed by the celebrity. In order to eliminate respondent and celebrity gender biases among the responses, the CrM stimuli were framed into two versions, one with a male film celebrity who endorsed a fashion brand [Salman Khan endorsing Being Human fashion clothing brand] and the other, featuring a female film celebrity who endorsed a health drink [Horlicks Ahaar Abhiyan campaign endorsed by Vidya Balan] . Both stimuli were for a nonprofit organization that is involved in the CrM campaign. Existing brands of fashion and health drink were used in the study in order to enhance realism and to better understand the CrM campaign. The questionnaire was designed in a booklet form with instructions. Students were randomly assigned to one of the two versions of the stimulus. The booklet consisted of four pages. The first page of the booklet started with the instructions to the respondents, followed by one of the stimuli in the form of a poster that portrayed a real CrM advertisement. The remaining three pages had the measurement items and were the same for both stimuli. The respondents were asked to fill the booklet without turning back to the proceeding pages and by keeping the stimuli in mind.

About 462 questionnaires were given to the students and the responses with missing data (32) with incomplete forms (24) were discarded. Thus, 406 questionnaires with valid responses were finalized. The sample collected consisted of 67% men and 33% of women. 69.2% of respondents were of the age group 20–24, 18% in the age group of 25–29, 11.8% above 30 years and 1% below 20 years. Most of the respondents were pursuing undergraduate courses (71.18%), 17.99% of respondents were post graduate students and 10.83% were PhD scholars. 87.93% were single and 12.07% were married. The distribution of annual income of the respondents was as follows: 40.9% below 4400 USD, 20.2% of respondents in between 4400 and 5900 USD, 18.7% of respondents in between 5900 and 7350 USD and 20.2% were above 7350 USD. 73.9% were from urban background and 26.1% from rural background.

3.2 Measures

The measurement scales were adapted from various studies in order to operationalise the variables and are as follows.

  • The respondents indicated their level of agreement with statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” = 1 to “Strongly Agree” =5.

  • Celebrity credibility is a higher order scale with three sub dimensions: Trustworthiness, Attractiveness and Expertise. Celebrity credibility was measured using a 14 item scale, adopted from Ohanian (1990).

  • The alpha reliability coefficient of trustworthiness was 0.833, attractiveness was 0.753, and expertise was 0.774.

  • The celebrity-brand fit (α - 0.864) was measured on 5-item scale, adopted from Myers et al. (2012); Govers and Mugge (2004); Keller and Aaker (1992).

  • The celebrity-cause fit (α - 0.855) was measured using 5-item scale, adopted from Keller and Aaker (1992); Govers and Mugge (2004); Myers et al. (2012).

  • The cause-brand fit (α - 0.912) was measured using 6-item scale, adopted from Myers et al. (2012).

  • The attitude towards CrM (α - 0.869) was measured using 5-item scale, adopted from Kropp et al. (1999); Youn and Kim (2008).

  • The brand credibility (α - 0.840) was measured using 5-item scale, adopted from Tulin Erdem and Swait (2004).

  • The purchase intention (α - 0.866) was measured using 5-item scale, adopted from (Hou et al. 2008).

  • Demographic variables such as gender, age, education, marital status, place of living, combined annual income of family were also measured along with the other variables.

Refer appendix for all items used in the study.

3.3 Assessment of psychometric properties of the measurement instrument

The study used the two step structural equation modeling approach proposed by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) to evaluate the measurement and structural models. The evaluation of measurement model was constructed to assess the measures used for the study. The structural model was evaluated to explore the relationship among the constructs. The application used for the study was AMOS 20 (Table 1).

Table 1 Confirmatory factor analysis: measurement psychometric properties
Full size table

Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to evaluate the measurement model for examining the reliability measures in terms of convergent and discriminant validity. Examination of the results suggested removal of a few items from trustworthiness, attractiveness, expertise, and celebrity-brand fit to obtain a model with better fit.

The model fit indices of the measurement model were RMSEA = 0.044 below 0.10, CFI =0.932 larger than 0.9, IFI = 0.933 larger than 0.9, PGFI =0.747 larger than 0.5 and Chisq/df 1.785 less than 5. The values were found to be on par with acceptable model fit values (Hair et al. 2006).

The unidimensionality of the measurement model ensured the values for every single item in standardized regression weights to be above 0.7. This falls in line with the findings that factor loading for an item should be of the value either equal to or greater than 0.5 (Bagozzi and Yi 2012). Thus, the required results were obtained, signifying that the variables are in close association with the factor. Average variance extracted (AVE) was used as it validates the constructs that are estimated to be linked by convergent validity. In this study, all eight factors in the measurement model had values above 0.5, thus indicating convergent validity. In order to ensure the internal consistency and reliability of the constructs used in this study, reliability analysis was conceded using Cronbach’s alpha. The results were found to have Cronbach’s alpha values above 0.6 resulting in adequate internal reliability consistency.

The construct reliabilities (CR) of the measures in the model fell in the range of 0.606 to 0.880, thus showing to be better than the benchmark set of 0.6 recommended by Bagozzi and Yi (1988). The results of AVE were recorded as 0.549 to 0.692, falling within the acceptable range (AVE > 0.50). Discriminant validity refers to the scope in which a construct accurately differs from the rest. To test for discriminant validity, the AVE values of all constructs must be greater than the corresponding squared interconstruct correlation estimates (SIC) (Paswan 2009). In this study, there was no multi-correlation, except that there was adequate discriminant validity for all nine factors as correlation among each pair of latent exogenous construct was less than 0.85 ( Table 2).

Table 2 Discriminant validity
Full size table

4 Findings

4.1 Hypothesis testing

The celebrity credibility had a positive influence towards cause-brand fit (β = 0.126, p < 0.05), celebrity-cause (β = 0.783, p < 0.001), celebrity-brand fit (β = 0.772, p < 0.001), and brand credibility (β = 0.589, p < 0.001). The celebrity credibility could significantly influence all the antecedents of CrM, thus proving the importance of celebrity credibility in CrM campaigns. The results for Hypothesis 5, indicated that celebrity-cause fit do not exert influence on attitude towards CrM, thus rejecting this hypothesis (Table 3 and Fig. 2).

Table 3 Structural equation modeling: causal relations analysis
Full size table
Fig. 2
figure 2

Structural Equation Model Result

Full size image

The structural path for Hypothesis 6, indicated that celebrity-brand fit positively influenced attitude towards CRM (β = 0.201, p < 0.05). The structural path result for Hypothesis 7 indicated that cause-brand fit did not influence the consumers attitude towards CRM, Thus, the seventh hypothesis was rejected.

The structural path for Hypothesis 8 indicated that brand credibility positively influenced attitude towards CRM at a significance level of (β = 0.176, p < 0.05). The structural path for Hypothesis 9, indicated that attitude towards CRM positively influenced purchase intention at a significance level of (β = 0.369, p < 0.001).

5 Discussion and conclusions

The result of our study contributes towards extending CrM literature in the context of celebrity endorsement. Our aim was to empirically investigate the influence of celebrity credibility on the antecedents of cause-related marketing and the role of celebrity credibility in the success of CrM campaign. Byrne et al. (2003) and Erdogan (1999) found that the beliefs, opinions, attitude and behavior of consumer are significantly influenced when the information is transmitted from a credible source and in supporting this finding in our study the results indicate that celebrity credibility has a significant influence on all the antecedents of CrM used in the study. The celebrity credibility has a significant impact on cause-brand fit. The attitude towards brand and attitude towards the charitable cause supported in CrM campaigns are influenced by celebrity credibility (Goldsmith et al. 2000).

The celebrity credibility has a good impact on celebrity-cause fit. Branigan and Mitsis (2014) found that in nonprofit marketing the celebrities sharing a similar image of the social cause supported are more efficient in eliciting the source credibility. The credibility of the celebrity translates to credibility of endorsed brand. The consumers tend to develop an emotional attachment while supporting causes endorsed by their favorite celebrities. The results of this study indicate that a consumer not only gets attached with the cause but also with the brand when fit between celebrity and brand is perceived by them. The celebrity credibility has a positive influence on celebrity-brand fit. The celebrities connected and well matched with nonprofit organizations are perceived to generate more source credibility for the brand than other less connected celebrities (Wheeler 2009). The positive influence of celebrity credibility on brand credibility are in accordance with the results of previous study by Spry et al. (2011).

The cause-brand fit and celebrity-cause fit do not influence the attitude towards CrM in our study. The results are in alignment with earlier studies, cause-brand fit do not play significant role in influencing the consumers attitude and purchase intention (Edmondson and Lafferty 2007, 2014; Lafferty and Edmondson 2014). The studies reveal that presence of a social cause in the CrM campaign is capable enough in generating positive attitude in minds of the consumer whether it engages a low or high cause-brand fit in campaign. The overall brand image is enhanced in CrM strategy (Xiaoli and Heo 2007). The younger generation develops a skeptical views on the celebrity endorsed charitable causes due to their larger and prolonged exposure to advertisement. The celebrities endorsing causes are perceived to be involved in self promotion (Samman et al. 2009).

Celebrity-brand fit has a positive influence on the attitude towards CrM. The findings are consistent with earlier research that consumer anticipate a congruence between the brand and celebrity and fit is largely an outcome of comparison of the public image and perceived life style of celebrity with characteristics of the brand (for example athletic and sports celebrity endorsing health drinks and health supplements) (O’Mahony and Meenaghan 1997). This implies stronger the congruence or fit between brand and celebrity will work more favorably for success of CrM (Till 1998). There can be a moderate level of mismatch between the celebrity and endorsed brand when the product is of low risk and inexpensive and that results in positive purchase intention of the endorsed product (Lee and Thorson 2008).

Brand credibility was introduced as a significant antecedent of CrM in our study and has a positive impact on attitude towards CrM. Brand credibility acts as promotional communication to the target consumers because it creates positive influence on the attitude towards CrM and influences consumers to develop a altruistic attribution towards the CrM campaign (Bigne‐Alcaniz et al. 2009).

Attitude towards CrM influences the purchase intention of the consumer. Positive attitudes developed towards the CrM campaign results in enhancing favorable orientation of the consumers towards the brands that support the social cause. The ultimate goal of CrM campaigns are revenue maximization and increasing profits for all stakeholders. When the attitude towards CrM influences purchase intension of the consumers, the buying behavior of the consumer is also influenced (Chang 2008). The success of CrM campaigns is framed with a combination of right celebrity, good social cause and best brand.

The managerial implication drawn from this study is that organizations must be cautious in selecting the celebrity for CrM campaigns. Managers must therefore understand that both personal image and public image of celebrities must be considered before involving him/her in a CrM campaign. Consumers are influenced by information on the celebrity and their personal life activities and if such information is negative, it can adversely affect the brand value (Amos et al. 2008) of the endorsed product. Such adverse effects could destroy the brand value, the stakeholders of the nonprofit organization, and the social cause supported in the CrM campaign.

Negative information on the endorsing celebrity sows the seeds of skeptism in the minds of consumers. Organizations should avoid creating skeptism in the mind of consumers through choice of appropriate celebrities because once a negative impression has been created; consumers would tend to develop suspicion in all activities of the organization. Thus, the reputation and a credibility of the celebrity must be ensured before roping him/her as the face of the organization and/or the campaign.

The selection of the cause also plays a vital role in deciding the success of the campaign. In our context, the campaign must be aligned with the public image of the celebrity. Consumers are attracted towards the campaign based on the image of the celebrity in the minds of the consumers. A favorably impressed consumer not only gets the benefits of the product, but when induced to become part of the campaign, he/she gets the intrinsic benefits of supporting a social cause in addition to establishing social/ethical/moral connection to their beloved celebrity by supporting the cause. This gives the customer immense satisfaction in addition to a good shopping experience. Thus, organizations must concentrate on various outcomes to identify and position the celebrity along a social cause in accordance with their stature for noteworthy achievement of the CrM campaign.

The limitations of our study are as follows. We used real-time advertisements that may have resulted in a biased response due to predetermined opinions about the celebrities endorsing the brand. We have not classified the celebrity and consumer on the basis of gender and age. In future, researchers must replicate the study with more combinations of established and upcoming celebrities along with various social causes and brands. The celebrities belonging to various fields such as sports players, comedians and social workers must be studied in order to identify the significance of them in CrM campaigns. Stimuli with various levels of fit between the celebrity and charitable cause / brand should be studied and the influence of the celebrity on local and national social causes in CrM campaigns must be studied. Future studies can also focus on analyzing the differences in consumer attitude and moderating effects between various age groups, gender of respondents and gender of celebrity in CrM advertisements. In recent times there have been many brands being endorsed by sport celebrities to cater to younger consumers inclined towards sports and sports people. Future studies can compare the effects of sports and film celebrities in the context of CrM advertisements. This study analyzed CrM advertisements that used only a single celebrity endorser. Attitudes of people may vary when advertisements use multiple endorsers and hence future researchers can use this context to test moderating effects between single vs. multiple endorsers. It is also recommended that various combinations of social causes and celebrities with positive and negative reputation be studied in order to better understand the role of celebrity in the success of CrM campaigns.