Özet:

Nowadays, as a result of the increase in the needs of society and the impossibility that governments have to meet all of those needs, individuals expect the corporations to be sensitive and show social responsible behaviors towards the social cause. Furthermore, consumers’ prefering the corporate which are sensitive to the social cause while choosing the product causes the social responsibility activities to be necessity in marketing efforts. As a result of these trends, corporations give messages consisting of social responsibilitiy to their target audience by relating their product to a social cause. Cause related marketing is a kind of corporate social responsibility. In cause related marketing campaigns when the consumer purchases a product some amount of money they pay is donated to the cause. Drawing attention to cause related marketing and raising awareness about cause related marketing campaigns carry a lot of weight. It is expected that the concern of the world of business over cause related marketing campaigns will grow when the effect of cause related marketing ads on the customers has been exposed. Furthermore the research is important for drawing attention to the corporate social responsibility efforts. In this research, the attitudes of the individuals towards cause related marketing ads have been analyzed. In addition, the effect of their attitudes towards purchase intentions and brand attitudes in the context of Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and how this effect varies depending on social cause involvement have been investigated. The research has been applied to the academic staff of Anadolu University. Firstly the social cause involvement of the academic staff has been investigated and they have been grouped as the ones whose social cause involvement levels are high and the ones whose social cause involvement levels are low. Two ads “one of which brand cause alignment is low and the other one of which brand cause alignment is high” have been shown to the academic staff. The attitudes of the subjects towards the ad, their brand attitudes and purchase intentions as well as the correlation with their attitudes towards cause related marketing ads have been measured. As a result it has been revealed that cause related marketing ads have a positive effect on brand attitudes and purchase intentions of the subjects.

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