The Moderated Mediating Role of Price Sensitivity and Brand Attitude in Cause-related Marketing: Insights from IPMA Analysis

Businesses have increasingly embraced cause-related marketing (CRM) as a tactical tool to align their brands with social causes. While CRM is widely adopted, little is known about factors influencing individual participation in such initiatives. This study investigates the impact of the warm glow effect, spirituality and brand anthropomorphism on attitudes towards CRM and how this attitude influence purchase intention, mediated by brand attitude. Price sensitivity’s moderating influence on this mediated relationship is also investigated. Variance-based structural equation modelling was used to evaluate hypotheses in a cross-sectional survey with 270 respondents, and slope analysis was used to evaluate the effects of interaction moderation. The results show that the indicated antecedents strongly affect views regarding CRM. In addition, the effect of CRM attitudes upon purchase intention is partially mediated by brand attitude. The study indicates that price sensitivity negatively moderates the mediated association. This study is among the first to look at how price sensitivity moderates the direct and indirect impacts of CRM attitude on purchase intention. Marketers can benefit from these perspectives to devise and extract greater strength from CRM strategies that will augment customer engagement when more unexplored aspects of the zone of CRM such as price sensitivity, spirituality and brand anthropomorphism get into the picture.