Sebastian Adam Sadowski
Consumer co-creation in Cause-related Marketing
campaigns.
Master thesis
Author: Sebastian Sadowski Student ID: 1938932
Kornoeljestraat 2 A02 • 9741JB Groningen Email: s.sadowski@student.rug.nl
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Businesses, Department of Marketing
Master Thesis MSc Business Administration – Marketing – Marketing Research October 2011
Abstract
This research concentrates on the topic that has not yet been approached in the academic literature – customers’ co-creation in cause-related marketing campaigns. Nowadays, engaging customers in the corporate philanthropy has become more and more popular (Pepsi Refresh Project, JP Morgan Chase Community Giving. Maxwell House Drops of Good, Google Project 10^100). Nonetheless, the relational rewards originating from corporate donations to prosocial ideas developed in close cooperation with the customer base have not been studied so far. By means of the experiment and choice-based conjoint analysis the effect of customers’ co-creation in cause-related marketing setting on campaign evaluations, purchase intentions, skepticism towards the campaign, WOM and advocacy behavioral intentions and willingness-to-pay have been investigated. Further, brand familiarity has been introduced as a moderating variable in order to infer whether less known brands can gain more from involving in crowdsourced cause-based campaigns in comparison with the brands that have already high market visibility.
Contrary to expectations, co-creation turned out not to have a positive influence on campaign evaluations, purchase intentions, skepticism towards the campaign and WOM and advocacy behavioral intentions for unfamiliar brand. Co-creation strategies are more effective for familiar brand as they enhance customers’ campaign evaluations and their willingness to spread positive word-of-mouth. However, it has to be underlined, that it is not of focal importance to what extent the customers are empowered in the cause-related campaign execution, as the differences in effects between various researched strategies applying the co-creation concept were not statistically significant. In addition, co-creation in the field of corporate helping behavior influences positively customers’ willingness-to-pay. Nevertheless, closer investigation showed that the patterns of this influence are different for familiar and unfamiliar brand.
Preface
This thesis is the last stage of my education at the University of Groningen. Two years of studies at the Faculty of Economics and Business, department of marketing changed my world view significantly and enriched my knowledge. It was a big adventure, but also a huge challenge, which now comes to an end. At this point I would like to thank some important people, without whom I would have not been probably able to come that far.
First of all, I would like to thank my mother, father and my brother for all their support over the course of these two years and their encouragement to pursue my dreams.
Second, I would like to thank my supervisor, dr. Jenny van Doorn, for all her help and constructive criticism. I have a feeling that without her the quality of this research project would be much less satisfying for me than it is at the moment. Further, I would like to thank my second supervisor, dr. ir. Maarten Gijsenberg for his remarks on my second draft.
Last but not least, I would like to thank all my close friends, the ones that are in Poland and the ones that I met here. Without you my studies in Groningen would not have been so great as they were.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction
Problem Statement and Research Questions
1 2
1.Background 4
1.1. Corporate Social Responsibility and Cause-Related marketing 4
1.2. Outcomes of Cause-Related Marketing 5
1.3. Enhancing the effectiveness of Cause-based marketing 7
1.4. Co-creation and crowdsourcing 11
1.5. Outcomes of co-creation 13
2. Theoretical framework 15
2.1. Conceptual model 15
2.2. Outcomes of co-creation in cause-related marketing setting 17
2.3. Brand Familiarity as a moderator 20
3. Research Design 22
3.1. Sample and Sampling Technique 22
3.2. Data Collection Method 22
3.3. Manipulation of the Independent Variable 23
3.4. Manipulation of the Moderator Variable 24
3.5. Dependent Variable Measures 24
3.6. Manipulation Checks Measures 25
3.7. Estimation of the Willingness-To-Pay 26
4. Results 26
4.1. Description of the Final Sample 26
4.2. Discriminant Validity and Reliability of the Scales 26
4.3. Manipulation Check 28
4.4. H1: Effect of Degree of Co-creation on Campaign Evaluations 28 4.5. H6a: Moderating Effect of Brand Familiarity on the Relationship
Between the Degree of Co-Creation and Campaign Evaluations
29 4.6.H2: Effect of Degree of Co-Creation on Purchase Intentions 29 4.7. H6b: Moderating Effect of Brand Familiarity on the Relationship
Between the Degree of Co-Creation and Purchase Intentions
30 4.8. H3: Effect of Degree of Co-Creation on Skepticism Towards the
Cause-Related Campaign
30 4.9. H6c: Moderating Effect of Brand Familiarity on the Relationship
Between the Degree of Co-Creation and Skepticism Towards the Cause-Related Campaign
31
4.10. H4: Effect of Degree of Co-Creation on WOM and Advocacy Behaviors
31 4.11. H6d: Moderating Effect of Brand Familiarity on Relationship
Between the Degree of Co-Creation and WOM and Advocacy Behaviors
32
4.12. H5: Effect of Degree of Co-Creation on Willingness-to-Pay 32 4.12.1. Willingness-to-Pay for a Product Associated with a Certain
Co-Created Cause-Related Campaign – Polish Market
32 4.12.2. H6e: Moderating Effect of Brand Familiarity on
Relationship Between the Degree of Co-Creation and the Willingness-to-Pay – Polish Market
34
4.12.3 Willingness-to-Pay for a Product Associated with a Certain Co-Created Cause-Related Campaign and the Moderating Effect of Brand familiarity – Dutch Market
4.13. Summary of the Results 38
5. Implications of the Research 39
5.1. Conclusions 39
5.2. Managerial Implications 43
5.3. Limitations and Future Research 44
References 48
Appendix 1 – Scenarios 59
Appendix 2 – Choice-based conjoint analysis 60
Appendix 3 – Results choice model general – Poland 61
Appendix 4 – Calculations of the willingness-to-pay for a cause-related campaign associated with the 1st degree of co-creation (example on the basis of the results from the Polish sample)
61
1 “Purpose is now the fifth P of marketing. It’s a vital addition to the age-old marketing mix of product, price, place, and promotion.”
(Mitch Markson, founder of Edelman GoodPurpose) ‘Welcome to the age of crowd.’
(Jeff Howe ‘The rise of crowdsourcing’)
Introduction
The use of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and cause-related marketing projects is nowadays a sustainable and profitable product and brand strategy employed by the marketers worldwide. IEG Sponsorship Report (The Growth of Cause Marketing, Cause Marketing Forum, 2010) predicts a 5% growth of corporate cause sponsorship in year 2011. Moreover, among all the sponsorship categories that IEG tracks, cause sponsorship was found to be the fastest growing sector. As the latest edition of the Cone Cause Evolution Study (2010) has shown, 83% of the Americans wish that more products, services and retailers they encounter on the market support causes. In addition 41% of the citizens of the United States stated that they have bought product because of the fact that it was associated with a cause or issue over the course of the last year. The results of the Cone Cause Evolution Study (2010) have been corroborated in an international perspective by Edelman GoodPurpose study ‘Citizens engage’ in 2010. This research was conducted in 13 countries among 7,259 adults. 86% of the surveyed individuals believe that business should put at least the same weight on society’s interests as on business’ interests. Customers from the emerging markets (India, China, Brazil, and Mexico) turned out to be the most dedicated to supporting the causes – more than 7 out of 10 customers in these countries would take action to support social purpose brands. Furthermore, corporate cause donation appeared to be a key purchase motivator in the case of equal quality and price, outperforming both design, innovation and brand loyalty.
2 centre is focusing on collaborative design, helping the company to improve the current concepts of its products while cooperating with local designers, universities and end users (Ribeiro, 2007). Additionally, the company launched Beta Labs website, where various users and designers have the opportunity to share their ideas on improvement of current products offered by Nokia and to develop new applications for the mobile phones. Beta Labs constitutes also a virtual community of customers that allows Nokia to test their innovative solutions before introducing them to the market. The popularity of this online service is remarkable – the page generates more than 1 million views and about 200,000 downloads per month according to Nokia (Ewing, 2008). Among the other multinational companies that have incorporated customer co-creation in their business strategy are: Nike with its NikeID project, IBM and Facebook. Also smaller, more niche oriented companies implemented crowdsourcing strategies into their business model. A good example here is Threadless, community-centered online apparel store, allowing customers to design their own T-shirts, which are consecutively put to a public vote. The most popular designs are afterwards used in the production process and offered for sale in an online store.
Co-creation has been already countenanced in academic literature as an important instrument for successful brand differentiation (Helm & Jones, 2010). In addition, customer cooperation as a specific type of customer engagement behavior is believed to positively influence future purchase intentions (and consequently customer equity), word-of-mouth, recommendation behaviors and customer feedback (Kumar et al., 2010; Verhoef et al., 2010). A lot of companies are striving nowadays to reap the relational rewards originating from customer co-creation also in the field of cause-related marketing. The most prominent example here is Pepsi Refresh Project, launched in 2010 by PepsiCo. The company decided to award $20 million in grants to individuals, businesses and non-profits for undertakings aiming to help local communities, states or nations. The project increased indubitably brand recognition and improved the brand reputation as Pepsi was voted the number one purpose-driven company in the market in Edelman GoodPurpose’s ‘Citizens engage’ study (2010). Also other businesses are trying to implement customer co-creation in their cause-based campaigns (American Express with its Members Project and Chase Bank with Chase Community Giving). However, the direct effects of customer participation in cause-related undertakings have not yet been researched in the academic literature. This study is aiming at closing this research gap.
Problem statement and research questions
3 descriptions of cause-related marketing campaigns have been presented to the customers (see Appendix 1) in order to analyze the effect of different co-creation strategies on their attitudes/behavioral intentions. Academic literature has already confirmed that cause-related marketing projects exert a positive influence on campaign evaluations (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001; Brown & Dacin, 1997; Murray & Vogel, 1997), purchase intentions (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001; Pringle & Thompson, 1999; Lacey & Kennett-Hensel, 2010), willingness-to-pay (Meyer, 1999; De Pelsmacker, Driesen & Rayp, 2005) and WOM and advocacy behaviors (Du et al., 2007, Lacey & Kennett-Hensel, 2010). Therefore, it seems indispensable to infer whether these positive effects are enhanced when the customers are empowered by means of co-creation in the process of cause-related campaign execution. Moreover, since customer skepticism has been recognized in the literature as one of the main obstacles in the field of corporate philanthropy (Ellen et al., 2000; Varadarajan & Menon, 1988; Drumwright, 1994), the effect of customers’ co-creation on this attitude will be investigated as well. Since preparing and implementing co-created campaigns in the cause-based setting demands much more effort and resources (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2002), it is crucial to find out whether these initiatives result in enhanced customer attitudes and more positive behavioral intentions. In order to analyze the effect of customers’ co-creation on the abovementioned dependent variables, an experiment was designed where both degree of co-creation and brand familiarity are manipulated. This research will strive to answer two following questions:
1. Do campaign evaluations, purchase intentions, WOM & advocacy behavioral intention, willingness-to-pay improve and does the level of skepticism towards the campaign decrease in the case of a higher degree of customer co-creation?
2. To what extent does brand familiarity affect the consumers’ inferences about engaging in crowdsourced CSR campaigns? Can less familiar brands benefit more from engaging customers in co-creation experiences in the cause-related marketing setting than more familiar brands?
4 Furthermore, chapter 2 concentrates on developing specific hypotheses basing on the theory that has been developed so far in the field of cause-related marketing and relationships with customers. Chapter 3 focuses on the design of the experiment that is applied in this study. In chapter 4 the results of hypothesis testing can be found. Further, on the basis of these results, conclusions and managerial implications are derived in the last chapter of this thesis. Eventually, some limitations of the current study and directions for the future research in the field of co-creation in cause-related marketing campaigns are proposed.
1 BACKGROUND
1.1. Corporate Social Responsibility and Cause-related Marketing
There is visible lack of agreement in the academic literature with respect to the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility. Many definitions have been so far coined for this construct and various frameworks have been applied in this field. Kotler and Lee (2005) define this notion as ‘a commitment to improve [societal] well-being through discretionary business practices and contributions of corporate resources’. Therefore, in the framework of this definition, corporations should not only focus on their own interest and increase of profit but at the same time they are obliged to concentrate on the environment they are operating in and strive to improve the general welfare of various stakeholders. One of the most prominent theorists of CSR, Caroll (1979), implies that apart from their economic success, the companies ought to pay attention to non-economic criteria as well. In order to become good corporate citizens businesses have to comply with four basic responsibilities: economic (be profitable while delivering a product of a good quality for a fair price), legal responsibilities (abide by the laws regulating business code of conduct and rules of the game), ethical responsibilities (doing what is right, just and fair) and philanthropic responsibility (social contributions of the corporations to the society) (Caroll, 2000).
5 the consumers will support their social endeavors and as a result, customers’ brand associations and interest in company’s products will improve.
Thus, although the constructs of cause-related marketing and corporate social responsibility are interrelated, the difference between these two concepts should be underlined at this point. Corporate Social Responsibility is a broader and more complex notion because of the diverse character of the area of interest (Sheikh & Beise-Zee, 2011). Corporate Social Responsibility embraces the whole range of corporate activities, from human resources management to protection of the natural environment, aiming at positive impact on the society. Cause-related marketing denotes an application of corporate philanthropy for business profits (increase in sales, enhanced company reputation). There are two main objectives of these marketing strategies: improving corporate performance and supporting worthy causes (Varadarajan & Menon, 1988).
1.2. Outcomes of Cause-related Marketing
A broad area of academic research is focusing nowadays on the positive effects that supporting good causes can have on the companies and brands. McWilliams and Siegel (2001) argue in their theoretical investigation that Corporate Social Responsibility can be successfully implemented by the corporations as a differentiation strategy which could entail higher willingness-to-pay of the customers. Varadajaran and Menon (1988) examine various cases reported in articles and conclude that cause-related marketing projects could be applied in the business model as an attractive tool for gaining national visibility, enhancing corporate image, increasing brand awareness and broadening customer base.
6 benefits (store loyalty, emotional attachment to the store and store interest). These outcomes of implementing CSR strategies are closely related to measures and correlates of the brand equity concept (Keller 1998). Thus, investing in Corporate Social Responsibility projects can entail increase in the value of the brand. Also Hoeffler and Keller (2002) suggest in their theoretical investigation that the use of corporate societal marketing can have positive effects on building brand awareness, enhancing brand image, establishing brand credibility, evoking brand feelings and eliciting brand engagement. Nonetheless, it is of focal importance for the brand and the product not to overcommunicate the corporate donations for the cause as in this case the customers can easily come to the conclusion that the company is more focused on marketing and promotion goals than on supporting the good cause and aiming at the well-being of the society. There are also advantages of cause-related marketing projects for the non-profits involved, as partnering with a corporation can lead to higher public support of the cause. In addition, the businesses can provide vital resources, such as funds and expertise (Hoeffler and Keller, 2002).
Brown and Dacin (1997) introduced in their empirical study the concept of corporate associations embracing all the information about the company that a person holds. They contended that there are two main positioning strategies for the corporations: 1) focus on corporate ability understood as expertise in producing and delivering product or service offering, 2) focus on its Corporate Social Responsibility. The customers develop their brand associations on the basis of this positioning. Higher CSR associations held by the customers result in more favorable product evaluations and consequently enhanced responses to the market offerings. Luo and Bhattacharya (2006) have managed to test the positive relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and customer satisfaction, which consecutively enhances firm’s market value measured by means of Tobin’s q indicator.
Nevertheless, consumers’ responses to cause-related marketing projects are not always positive. Webb and Mohr (1998) on the basis of their exploratory qualitative research have distinguished four different consumer groups that vary with respect to their response and attitudes towards cause-based marketing undertakings:
1) Skeptics - these customers demonstrate generally negative attitude towards Corporate Social Responsibility and Cause-related marketing strategies. They perceive this approach of the marketers as a manipulation. CRM campaigns do not affect their view on the company itself and do not change their purchase behavior.
7 3) Attribution-oriented - these people still question the honesty of the project and corporate motivations however they manifested a postive changes in the image of the companies donating to the good causes. However, this adjustment of the corporate image in the minds of the attribution-oriented customers did not translate directly into increased purchase intention.
4) Socially concerned – people assigned to this segment appeared to be willing to support causes and the well-being of the society and therefore their attitude towards the companies involving in Cause-related strategies are favorable. In addition, some of them are even prepared to pay more for a product, change the retailer or switch brands in order to choose these businesses that employ CSR strategies in their activities. They turn out also to be the most knowledgeable about CRM programs and are ready to boycott companies that assist the causes conflicting with their personal values.
Thus, from this analysis of cause-related segments, it is discernible that consumers’ responses towards CSR undertakings are rather mixed. Higher skepticism of the customer base has already been proved to undermine the corporate CSR endeavors (Vlachos et al., 2009, Barone et al., 2000). Especially in the business environment where recently more and more corporations decide to invest in cause-related undertakings in order to improve their reputation, the customers are stricter in their evaluations of companies’ motivations underlying the support of good causes (Bronn & Vrioni, 2001). Webb and Mohr (1998) assumed that skepticism towards cause-related corporate undertakings originates from customers’ cynic attitude towards advertising. It is advised in the academic literature to try to decrease the level of public’s skepticism towards corporate CSR activities by means of an increase of knowledge about company’s motivations and goals (Mohr, Eroglu & Ellen, 1998). Further, the consumers appear not be sufficiently aware of the specific steps taken by corporations in order to support a given cause (Boulstridge & Carrington, 2000). All in all, customers’ skepticism towards cause-based corporate strategies is recognized as one of the greatest challenges nowadays in the field of CSR (Kim & Lee, 2009). Consequently, it appears to be crucial for the marketers to get more insight into the process of development of skeptic attitudes in the minds of the customers and to establish new practices and techniques that could decrease the level of consumers’ cynicism towards cause-based undertakings.
1.3. Enhancing the effectiveness of cause-based marketing
8 Wide scope of academic research focuses on the donation behavior and the factors affecting its effectiveness. Strahilevitz (1999) analyzed in her study whether the type of the product associated with the charity donation could influence customers’ response. She found that charity incentives prove to be more effective in promoting products seen as ‘frivolous luxuries’ (e.g. a luxury cruise) than in promoting products perceived as ‘practical necessities’ (e.g. new washing machine) when the donation magnitude is large and the monetary incentives (for instance the percentage of the price being discounted) significant. Furthermore, when consumers face the choice between multiple brands that are linked to a charity, large donations turn out to be more beneficial for frivolous products and smaller donations are preferred when associated with practical products. Product type was also confirmed to moderate the relationship between consumers’ self-construal tendencies and promotion preference in the study conducted by Winterich and Barone (2011). In this empirical investigation customers that could be labeled as interdependents (more focused on the others than on themselves) are more likely to choose the promotion linked to a charity donation than the independents. Better performance of donations to charity than cash rebates as purchase incentives for hedonic products was further corroborated by the study of Strahilevitz and Myers (1998).
9 abstract in nature. Adding the word ‘substantial’ to the information that a portion of the proceeds will be donated to a specific cause influenced estimations of the consumers and caused that they expected the corporation to donate more money. In addition, when the price of the product increases, the expected amount of donated money is also visibly augmenting. Nonetheless, when this expected amount is compared with the price of the market offering, it turns out that the relative percentage of donation amount to price diminishes. Other research analyzing the influence of the presentation of the donation magnitude on consumer inferences conducted by Olsen, Pracejus and Brown (2003) showed that expressing the donation as a function of profit entails an upward bias as the consumers in order to derive the exact amount of money offered to a good cause first have to estimate the total profit of the company, which is based only on their feelings and opinions and not on specific financial data. Testing the results among the group of the participants with formal accounting training and giving monetary incentives for taking part in the study did not manage to neutralize this bias effect. Nevertheless, presenting the donation as a percentage of price or profit did not have significant influence on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions. Framing of the donation information turned out to affect the consumers’ level of skepticism as well. Kim and Lee (2009) analyzed the effect of donation size claim objectivity on customers’ inferences and proved that when the donation amount was expressed in a verifiable manner, people were more likely to believe the CSR advertisement in comparison to vague donation statements.
Research on decreasing the level of consumers’ skepticism towards cause-related marketing campaigns was also conducted among the Norwegian customers by Singh, Kristensen and Villaseñor (2009). The researchers found that increasing the familiarity with the CRM claims by repeating them reduces the cynical attitudes of consumers and reduces the adverse effect of skepticism towards advertising. Consumers’ inferences with respect to firm motives and Corporate Social Responsibility projects were also investigated by Folse, Niedrich and Grau (2010). The researchers proved that increasing the purchase quantity required for a firm donation negatively influences participation intentions and intensifies consumers’ skepticism. On the other hand, customers are more willing to participate when the company increases the donation amount. Additionally, also the perception of the company as ethical or unethical was confirmed to affect the perception of the firm motives (Strahilevitz, 2003). People are more inclined to think that the company does not have selfish motives while engaging in cause-related strategies when it was perceived prior to its cause-related projects as ethical.
10 involvement with the cause for consumers’ attitudes and behaviors was further substantiated – consumers were demonstrating higher levels of support and stronger emotional attachment to the campaign which was donating money to personally important causes. Empirical investigations of Grau and Folse (2007) and Chowdhury and Khare (2011) further validated this observation. Moreover, apart from cause involvement or personal relevance of the cause, also cause-affinity drives positive consumer attitudes (Sheik & Beise-Zee, 2011).
11 1.4. Co-creation and crowdsourcing
With the emergence of Service-Dominant logic in marketing (Vargo & Lush, 2004) the crucial role of the consumer in the process of value creation started to be indisputable. In contrary to the goods-dominant logic where the producer was the creator of value and customer was only the user, in service-dominant logic both producer and the customer are perceived as ‘resource integrators’ and ‘co-creators’. The interaction between the producer and the end user according to this new rationale began to be one of the most important processes in the course of production. Thus, this marketing logic focuses particularly on interactivity, connectivity and building ongoing relationships (Vargo & Lush, 2004). Hennig-Thurau et al. (2009) define co-creation as a concept that includes consumers’ collaboration with companies or other consumers to create some kind of value. The customer can be involved in the production process at different stages.
There are various ways to engage the public in the process of value-creation. Payne, Storbacka and Frow (2007) distinguish five different strategies that the companies use nowadays to engage customers in co-creation. First, the company can try to incorporate people in the course of production of marketing and promotional materials (Emporio Armani while launching their new line of perfumes ‘Get together’ designed an online contest for delivering the videos or visuals that could be used in the promotional campaign of this new fragrance). Second, there is a practice of self-service in the business, where the end user is perceived as an outsourced labor (self-checkout counters in the supermarkets). Third, creating the experience for the public for instance in the theme parks always involves the participation of the end user, because without customers there is no experience. Fourth, the process of solving a problem by the customer following the instructions provided by the producer could also be seen as a way of value co-creation (e.g. customer participation in service recovery practices). Last but not least, the customers can be also engaged in the process of co-design of the products (project DEWmocracy launched by Mountain Dew, where end users had the opportunity to suggest new tastes of soft-drinks).
12 applications. This can help the company to deliver more innovative solutions to the market that will match the needs of the consumers. It is believed that involving consumers in the New Product Development can improve product quality, reduce risk and increase market acceptance (Business Wire, 2001).
The Internet and various virtual tools available there (websites, social media) have facilitated to a great extent the process of customer co-creation. As Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010) contend with the emergence of Web 2.0 - web applications that allow producing content collaboratively, the consumers got more familiar with the concept of production, especially in online environment. Web 2.0 phenomenon united the activities of consuming and producing in one act of prosuming (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010). The customers are getting more and more accustomed not only to making a use of the content available online, but also to the process of delivering and sharing new content, for instance on websites such as Facebook, Wikipedia or YouTube. According to O’Hern and Rindfleisch (2009) the Internet has empowered customers in the process of co-creation in three ways. First, it is incredibly easy to access the knowledge indispensable for the generation of new ideas and production process. Second, the World Wide Web facilitates the process of knowledge use by means of different virtual tools (open source software, various applications) available online. Sometimes, thanks to this abundance of various design instruments, the end user has a comparable knowledge level with the professionals (Leadbeter & Miller, 2004). Last but not least the Internet provides the environment that could enhance the individual’s creativity and actuate the process of idea generation and amelioration. Collective co-creation can especially thrive within the framework of virtual communities. The participants of these cyber environments have the opportunity to learn from each other and co-operate in the process of project development. It is argued in the literature that creative outputs originating from virtual communities exceed by far the results of individual work (Jeppesen & Molin, 2003; Leadbeter & Miller, 2004). Such communities have been already implemented in the business models of various market leaders (BMW and its co-creation Lab, Opel with its Car Design Contest or Siemens with Smart Grid Innovation Contest).
13 the world. The map is created by people with the use of GPS portable devices, aerial photography and other widely available free sources.
1.5. Outcomes of co-creation
Co-creation practices have been already proved in the academic literature to positively influence customer satisfaction. In the field of service research it was so far found that customer participation in the process of service delivery will result in final offering that is better suited to customers’ needs and has higher quality which entails enhanced customer satisfaction (Mills & Morris, 1986). Contribution of the customers to the quality of the final offering delivered by the company has been recognized by Lengninck-Hall (1996) in her conceptual paper. This researcher contends that consumers have the potential to improve the product quality in four different ways: providing the vital resources (wealth, information, ideas), co-producing, buying (customers purchase products and services on the basis of the perceived level of their quality) and using (user satisfaction as an indicator of quality and providing feedback). Additionally to enhanced quality, co-created products are usually much more innovative and consequently more attractive for the customers (Franke, von Hippel & Schreier, 2006). Aligning the production process better with the needs of the end users affects the customers’ perceptions of the delivered product and results in more favorable attitudes. As a result, the customers are willing to pay premium price, their purchase intention increases and they engage more often in word-of-mouth spreading the positive reviews about the co-created good or service (Franke, Keinz & Steger 2009). Thus, the co-production of the company deliveries strengthens significantly the relationships between the consumer and the producer. Customers become more engaged with the corporation and their skepticism towards marketing and promotion undertakings diminishes (O’Hern & Rindfleisch, 2009).
Moreover, involving customers in co-creation can help the corporation to gain competitive advantage in the market in two ways: a) increase productivity through improved efficiency (Lovelock & Young, 1979) and b) enhance effectiveness (while improving innovativeness, meeting customer needs, organizational learning (Hoyer et al., 2010)). The producer can also save money by means of consumer co-production, for instance by decreasing the scope of market research and reduced risk of market failure (Hoyer et al., 2010).
14 internal factors and failures to external ones that could not be controlled by them. These academicians have found that the co-producing customers are more satisfied than nonparticipating ones when the service encounter is better than expected. Meanwhile, in the case of service failure, the level of customer satisfaction with the service among the co-creators decreases significantly. Hence, it seems to be essential for the managers to pay attention to the service process while co-operating with the customers in order to prevent their disappointment with the results and consequently, emergence of unfavorable attitudes and behaviors.
15
2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The following section provides the conceptual model that constitutes the foundation for this research. Furthermore, on the basis of current findings and developments in the academic literature regarding the Corporate Social Responsibility and cause-related strategies the specific hypotheses are going to be derived.
2.1 Conceptual model
16 Schumann, 1983; Zajchkowsky, 1985) and customer participation in the service encounter (Cermak & File, 1994; File et al,, 1992) affect positively people’s perception, attitudes and behaviors. Therefore the higher the degree of co-creation, the higher the customer engagement and participation and consequently, the more positive attitudinal and behavioral benefits should originate for the company. On the basis of this rationale the conceptual model depicted in figure 1 has been developed. Brand familiarity has been introduced in this model as a moderator as the literature (Sundaram & Webster, 1999; Carillat, Lafferty & Harris, 2005) shows that the effects of sponsorship and positive/negative word-of-mouth for known and unknown brands can differ significantly. It is probable that similar phenomenon occurs in the case of co-creation in cause-related marketing setting.
17 After depicting the relations between constructs on conceptual model, different linkages will be elaborated on in order to derive predictions regarding the effects of co-creation undertakings in cause-related marketing setting on relationships with customers.
2.2 Outcomes of Co-creation in cause-related marketing setting
Co-created cause-related campaigns are much less predominant at the moment on the market than other promotional instruments, therefore they should have positive effects on customers’ campaign evaluations. As Song and Adams (1993) contend in their conceptual paper, participation of the customers in the production or delivery can be used as an opportunity for the product differentiation which is vital for evoking more positive feelings about a certain market offering (Kotler & Keller, 2006). Moreover, consumers are more involved in co-created projects as they exert some perceived control over the whole process of their design and implementation. The sense of control that customers have in the service environment influences positively their judgments of service validity and reliability and as a consequence drives customers’ satisfaction (Van Raaij & Pruyn, 1998). Customers can also engage in co-creation activities for pure enjoyment (Lusch et al., 2007; Lakhani & Wolf, 2005; Shah, 2006). In addition, providing co-production opportunities for the customers enhances customer experience (Lusch et al., 2007). As a result, allowing them to co-create cause-related marketing campaigns could be perceived as a more entertaining activity cause-related to the helping behavior than the traditional corporate philanthropy undertakings and enhance campaign evaluations. Furthermore, the company has to put more effort into the process of campaign execution when the cause-related project is co-created with the customer base (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004a) and consumers were found to evaluate the CSR projects more favorably when the firm engaging in donations dedicates more resources over the course of campaign implementation (Ellen et al., 2000). Consequently,
Hypothesis 1: The degree of consumers’ co-creation of cause-related campaign will positively affect campaign evaluations.
18 of higher cause involvement (Grau & Folse, 2007) but also meeting consumers’ needs regarding the corporate donation. Bitner et al. (1997) suggested that ‘effective customer participation can increase the likelihood that needs are met and that the benefits the customer is seeking are actually attained’. Customer participation in the service encounter for the non-profit sector influences positively the purchase intentions as it was found by Cermak and File (1994). Moreover, higher level of perceived empowerment of the individuals should lead to more favorable attitudes as the consumers feel that the company appreciates their opinions and suggestions. More positive attitudes will consequently enhance purchase intention. Thus,
Hypothesis 2: The degree of consumer’s co-creation of cause-related campaign will positively influence purchase intentions.
20 willing to engage in positive WOM in case of rewarding and enjoyable co-creation experiences (Füller, 2010b). Hence,
Hypothesis 4: The degree of consumer’s co-creation of cause-related campaign will positively affect consumers’ intention to engage in positive WOM and advocacy behaviors.
Crowdsourced cause-based marketing projects provide consumers with the instruments to participate in the decision making process while selecting the specific causes that could receive company’s sponsorship. The research on mass customization (Franke & Schreier, 2008; Dellaert & Stremersch, 2005; Franke & Piller, 2004) provides enough evidence to contend that people are willing to pay more for self-designed products as they are more tailored to their needs and more unique. The results from the studies on mass customization prove that consumers want to have something to say in the production process and are willing to reward the companies that are opening up for the public and giving them this opportunity. These findings could be translated into the setting of cause-based marketing – consumers should be also more willing to pay more for a product linked to a cause that they helped to select or that they had the opportunity to suggest to the company. This supposition have been already partially supported by the research of Arora and Henderson (2007) where it has been found by means of conjoint analysis that the customers are much more willing to choose a product associated with a donation beneficiary that they can select than the one combined with the donation to a good cause determined by the company. Thus,
Hypothesis 5: The degree of consumer’s co-creation of cause-related campaign will positively influence willingness-to-pay.
2.3 Brand Familiarity as a moderator
21 it helps to close the gap between the two brands on the market with respect to attitudes towards the brand and purchase intentions. It appeared in this study that when an unfamiliar brand supports the causes relevant for its customers, its market position significantly improves, while for the familiar brand such philanthropic strategies have significantly weaker effects (Lafferty, 2009). The research of Arora and Henderson (2007) corroborates this phenomenon of higher effectiveness of certain cause-related strategies for unfamiliar brands. Their study showed that unknown brand benefits more from the embedded premium promotions in comparison with the known one, as the effect size and percent gain regarding perceived product quality, purchase likelihood and brand attitude were much higher for the unfamiliar brand. Arora and Henderson (2007) have elaborated on this observation similarly to Fazio (1986, 1989) contending that unknown brands are comparable to a blank slate, and consequently customers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions towards them are highly flexible and can easily change. This phenomenon could be further observed in other three studies analyzing the effect of different marketing actions on customers, whereas brand familiarity is manipulated. In the research focusing on the effect of WOM and advocacy behaviors on brand evaluations (Sundaram & Webster, 1999) it was shown that positive and negative word-of-mouth have a stronger effect on less known brands than on familiar brands. Similar stronger effects for unfamiliar brands were reported in the case of sponsorship of sport events (Carrillat, Lafferty & Harris, 2005). Last but not least, the study conducted by Morrin and Ratneshwar (2000) proved that pleasant ambient scent improves brand evaluations to a higher extent when the brand is unknown. Consequently,
Hypothesis 6: Brand familiarity will moderate the relationship between the degree of consumer participation in cause-related marketing campaigns and
a) campaign evaluations b) purchase intentions
c) WOM and advocacy intentions d) skepticism
e) willingness-to-pay,
22
3. RESEARCH DESIGN
3.1. Sample and sampling technique
The research focuses on two focal markets: The Netherlands and Poland. As in the European Union there is a common currency and the prices of the product that has been chosen for this study – instant coffee – seem to be quite similar on various European markets (e.g. Germany, France, and Spain), also people living in other European countries within the eurozone are targeted with the questionnaire. Two versions of the same survey were developed with donation magnitude and prices expressed in the local currency.
Snowball sampling is considered to be a sampling technique that is suitable for this setting because of its scope and low costs (Malhotra, 2007). Despite the fact that this is a convenience technique, it is applied in this research due to the easiness of administration and possibility to reach enough respondents in order to obtain valid results of the research. The survey is distributed via various online channels – social networking sites (Facebook), mailing facilities of the University of Groningen (three master students communities are approached, namely students specializing in marketing, operations & supply chain and international economics & business) and AEGEE Polish mailing list. All the people that received the questionnaire were also informed that in order to fill it in they should drink instant coffee and live currently or come from one of the countries investigated in this research. The approached respondents were also asked to forward the questionnaire.
3.2. Data Collection Method
The product that was chosen for this experiment is an instant coffee, as there are brands that have strong international image (Nescafé, Maxwell House, Tchibo) and this product is highly popular in one of the target markets – Poland and attracts enough consumer interest in the countries of the eurozone (Euromonitor, 2006). Therefore, it can be considered to be a relevant product for the sample population. In order to investigate the relationships between various constructs depicted in Figure 1 the 4 (degree of co-creation: no co-creation/customers’ choice of the donation beneficiary/customers suggesting the ideas and company selecting the donation beneficiary/customers suggesting the ideas and customers choosing the donation recipient) by 2 (brand familiarity: low/high) between-subject factorial design has been used in this experiment. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the eight treatment conditions.
23 • Brand: Nescafé, Dao
• Price: on the Dutch market – 4,99 €; 5,49 €; 5,99 €; on the Polish market – 19,99 zł; 21,99zł; 23,99 zł
• Cause-related campaign type: campaign without co-creation, campaign with 1st degree of co-creation, campaign with 2nd degree of co-creation, campaign 3rd degree of co-creation (for more detailed description see subchapter 3.3).
Sawtooth software has been used in other to develop an efficient design of the conjoint experiment. The conjoint design was implemented in this research in order to infer actual willingness-to-pay for the products associated with cause-related campaigns with a higher degree of co-creation and moreover, in order to investigate their actual choice on the market among various products.
3.3. Manipulation of the independent variable
24 belonged to a given cause category. This approach increased the level of comparability of various experimental conditions. All the scenarios used in this experiment are presented in Appendix 1. 3.4. Manipulation of the moderator variable
In order to manipulate the brand familiarity, a pre-test was conducted on the two markets that are of focal importance for this investigation: Poland and the Netherlands. In the pre-test 31 customers (13 from Poland and 18 from the Netherlands) have been approached as representatives of the national customer base and they were asked which 3 of the mentioned coffee brands were the most familiar for them. This way of inferring the level of customers’ familiarity with various brands on the market has been already applied in the research of Lafferty (2009). The brands that were used in this investigation were those that are at the moment present on both markets (Nescafé, Douwe Egberts, Alcafe [marketed only in Aldi]), brands that are present on the Polish market and some other European markets (Jacobs, Tchibo, Maxwell House), brands that are only sold on the Dutch market (Kanis & Gunnink), brands that can be bought only on the Polish market (MKCafe, Café Prima), brands that are present on neither of the selected for the research markets (Kenco – marketed in United Kingdom and Ireland, Dao – sold in China, Cambodia, Lao, Thailand and Vietnam) and some fictitious coffee brands (Freeway, Columbina, Delicioso). In total 14 various coffee brands have been included in this pre-test study. The results of the pre-test showed that customers on both targeted markets are the most familiar with Nescafé (30 out of 31 respondents have chosen this brand among three brands of coffee they are most familiar with). From the brands that are not familiar for the customers Dao coffee has been selected for further experiment, as none out of 31 respondents has selected this brand among the ones they are the most familiar with.
3.5. Dependent variable measures
25 scientific literature are listed in Table 1. Afterwards the respondents were requested to make a choice of one most preferred product from nine choice sets composed of three product descriptions and one none-option. On the basis of these choices their willingness-to-pay for a certain product attribute level was going to be calculated.
3.6. Manipulation checks measure
In order to check whether the manipulation of the moderator variable turned out to be successful each of the respondents was asked three questions about his/her level of familiarity with a given brand. The scales for the manipulation checks are adapted from Simonin and Ruth (1998) and measured on a 9-point Likert scale. They are included in Table 1.
Table 1. Measurement of Constructs
Constructs/Items Scales Source
Campaign evaluations
Please evaluate this campaign
CE1: Extremely unfavorable/extremely favorable CE2: Extremely negative/extremely positive CE3: Extremely bad/extremely good CE4: Extremely not likable/extremely likable
Seven-point semantic differential items
Yoon, Gurhan-Canli & Schwarz, 2006
Purchase intentions
PI1: It is very likely that I will buy (brand). PI2: I will purchase (brand) the next time I need a (product).
PI3: I will definitely try (brand).
Seven-point Likert Scale (strongly disagree/strongly agree)
Putrevu & Lord, 1994
Skepticism towards the campaign
1: There is an ulterior motive hidden in this campaign.
2: By means of this campaign the company acts in its own self-interest.
3: By means of this campaign the company acts to benefit itself.
4: In this campaign the company has something other than altruistic intentions.
Seven-point Likert Scale (strongly
disagree/strongly agree) Dean, 2002
WOM and advocacy intentions
1: How likely are you to speak positively about (FIRM NAME) with your friends/family?
2: I would recommend (FIRM NAME) to my friends. 3: If my friends were looking for a new, I would tell them to try (FIRM NAME).
1: Seven-point Likert scale (completely not probable /completely probable) 2/3: Seven-point Likert Scale (completely agree/completely disagree)
Maxham III, Netemeyer, 2002
Manipulation checks
1: This brand is for me ………
2: To what extent do you recognize this brand? 3: Have you heard before about this brand?
1: Nine-point Likert scale (unfamiliar/familiar)
2: Nine-point Likert scale (Do not recognize/Do recognize)
3: Nine-point Likert scale (Have not heard/Have heard of)
26 3.7. Estimation of the willingness-to-pay
In order to estimate the actual willingness-to-pay for a product associated with a certain cause-related campaign, a conjoint analysis has been conducted. This approach of deriving the price that the customers are willing to pay for a given market offering has been developed by Kohli and Mahajan (1991) and further implemented in other academic papers (Mann et al. 2008; Strube, Pohl and Buxmann 2008). Conjoint analysis has been also used in the prior research investigating the effectiveness of various cause-related marketing strategies (Arora & Henderson, 2007). In addition, Bloom et al. (2006) advised to use this research technique in order to infer what kind of affinity program can offer the best return on investment for the brand.
The customers were asked to make nine choices out of nine choice sets consisting of three instant coffee products and a none-option (see subchapter 3.2 for more detailed description of the conjoint-based experiment, Appendix 2 presents all the nine choice sets used in this research). Choice-conjoint-based conjoint analysis was conducted separately on two samples (Polish and eurozone). All the attribute levels were coded with effects coding method.
4. RESULTS
4.1. Description of the final sample
168 Polish customers and 274 customers from the Netherlands and eurozone have filled in the online questionnaire distributed in a form of experiment. After data cleaning process and thorough investigation of the given answers it turned out that some of the people that responded to the survey do not drink coffee or never buy instant coffee products. As it is not possible to measure the influence of the specific cause-related campaign on purchase intention and willingness-to-pay for this specific group of the customers, these respondents have been excluded from the total sample, what resulted in the final sample of 127 Polish customers and 192 respondents from the Netherlands and the eurozone market – 319 people in total. The average age of the respondents participating in this survey was 25 years (SD =4.608) and the customers participating in this study were between 15 and 35 years old.
4.2. Discriminant validity and reliability of the scales
27 derived from the academic articles are unidimensional for the collected data; therefore all the scales listed in Table 1 can be used in the consecutive analysis. Despite the fact that the eigenvalues indicate to extract only four factors from the data, the screeplot provides enough evidence to infer that the 5-factor solution could be also taken into consideration. When the extraction of the 5 factors is set in the SPSS, five distinct constructs are separated. These factors are in accordance with the constructs presented in Table 1. Table 2 presents all the factor loadings and the internal consistency of each specific construct obtained through Cronbach’s alpha.
Table 2. Factor loadings and internal consistency of constructs
Factors Construct/Items 1 2 3 4 5 Cronbach’s Alpha 1. Campaign evaluations CE1 CE2 CE3 CE4 .691 .752 .726 .804 .833 2. Purchase intentions PI1 PI2 PI3 .856 .887 .725 .881 3. Skepticism towards the
campaign S1 S2 S3 S4 .515 .870 .857 .832 .844
28 4.3. Manipulation check
The manipulation of the brand familiarity was checked by means of independent sample t-test. The results show that the manipulation of the brand familiarity across the 8 scenarios used in this study was successful. The difference of means of the measures used for evaluating brand familiarity (see Table 1) between the two groups that were targeted with a questionnaire about two different brands producing instant coffee: Nescafé and Dao is highly significant [t(354,307) = 42.353, p < .0001)]. Dao coffee turned out to be highly unfamiliar for the respondents (M = 1.49, SD = 1.23), while Nescafé was recognized by most of them without problems (M = 8.19, SD = 1.58).
4.4. H1: Effect of degree of co-creation on campaign evaluations
The results of the ANOVA conducted on campaign evaluations among four groups of customers that received 4 different scenarios describing the cause-related campaign with manipulated degree of co-creation (see Appendix 1) for brand Nescafé indicated that the customer’s campaign evaluations improve significantly with the increasing degree of co-creation [F(3,160) = 2,900, p = .037]. However, post-hoc Bonferroni analysis showed that the campaign evaluations are not significantly enhanced when higher degree of customer co-creation is applied in the cause-based campaign (see Table 3). Thus, it could be inferred that the campaign evaluations could significantly increase when any of the three co-creation strategies researched in the current study is implemented.
ANOVA conducted on campaign evaluations among four groups of respondents assigned to different campaign descriptions in which the degree of co-creation was manipulated for brand Dao proved that the campaign evaluations do not improve significantly with higher degree of co-creation for an unfamiliar brand [F(3,151) = .876, p = .455]. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is partially supported for the familiar brand – Nescafé.
Table 3. Effects of degree of co-creation on campaign evaluations for Nescafé Nescafé
29
Table 4. Effects of degree of co-creation on campaign evaluations for Dao coffee Dao coffee
Type of the campaign Number of respondents Means ANOVA
Sig
Basic campaign 37 5.25
Campaign with 1st degree
of co-creation 38 5.39
Campaign with 2nd degree
of co-creation 42 5.20
Campaign with 3rd degree
of co-creation 38 5.49
.455
4.5. H6a: Moderating effect of brand familiarity on the relationship between the degree of co-creation and campaign evaluations
The moderating effect of brand familiarity on the relationship between the degree of co-creation of cause-related marketing campaign and the campaign evaluations as proposed in hypothesis 6a was not confirmed, as the campaign evaluations do not improve significantly for the unfamiliar brand when the degree of co-creation increases (see Table 4). The degree of co-creation enhances the campaign evaluations only for the familiar brand. Thus, hypothesis 6a is rejected. As degree of co-creation improves campaign evaluations merely for the familiar brands and this positive effect disappears when the brand engaging in co-created cause-related campaigns is unfamiliar for the customers, the moderating effect opposite to the one hypothesized before has been found.
4.6. H2: Effect of degree of co-creation on purchase intentions
30
Table 5. Effects of degree of co-creation on purchase intentions for Nescafé and Dao coffee
Nescafé Dao coffee
Type of the campaign Number of
respondents Means
ANOVA
Sig Type of the campaign
Number of
respondents Means
ANOVA Sig
Basic campaign 45 4.14 Basic campaign 37 3.86
Campaign with 1st degree of co-creation 37 4.38 Campaign with 1st degree of co-creation 38 4.04 Campaign with 2nd degree of co-creation 41 4.43 Campaign with 2 nd degree of co-creation 42 3.77 Campaign with 3rd degree of co-creation 41 4.43 .791 Campaign with 3rd degree of co-creation 38 4.05 .776
4.7. H6b: Moderating effect of brand familiarity on the relationship between the degree of co-creation and purchase intentions
Due to the fact that degree of co-creation of cause-related marketing campaigns was found not to enhance significantly the purchase intentions of the customers for both familiar and unfamiliar brand, the moderating effect of brand familiarity has not been confirmed. Therefore, hypothesis 6b has to be rejected.
31
Table 6. Effects of degree of co-creation on skepticism towards the campaign for Nescafé and Dao coffee
Nescafé Dao coffee
Type of the campaign Number of
respondents Means
ANOVA
Sig Type of the campaign
Number of
respondents Means
ANOVA Sig
Basic campaign 45 5.24 Basic campaign 37 5.33
Campaign with 1st degree of co-creation 37 5.10 Campaign with 1st degree of co-creation 38 4.85 Campaign with 2nd degree of co-creation 41 4.98 Campaign with 2 nd degree of co-creation 42 4.82 Campaign with 3rd degree of co-creation 41 5.36 .462 Campaign with 3rd degree of co-creation 38 5.13 .192
4.9. H6c: Moderating effect of brand familiarity on the relationship between the degree of co-creation and skepticism towards cause-related campaign
Since the skepticism towards cause-based campaign does not decrease significantly with higher degree of co-creation for both familiar and unfamiliar brand, the moderating effect of brand familiarity cannot also be confirmed. Consequently, hypothesis 6c has to be rejected.
4.10. H4: Effect of degree of co-creation on WOM and advocacy behaviors
For familiar brands basing the cause-related campaign on one of the co-creation strategies researched in this study, involving customers in the process of campaign execution seems to generate benefits in the form of WOM and advocacy behaviors of customers. ANOVA test conducted on averaged scales measuring the willingness to engage in WOM and advocacy behaviors among groups of respondents assigned to four conditions characterized by different degree of co-creation is significant at 5% level [F(3,160)=3,443, p = .018]. However, the results of the Bonferroni post-hoc analysis are similar as in the case of effects of co-created cause-related marketing campaigns on campaign evaluations (see subchapter 4.4) – letting people to co-create the campaign just partially results in similar benefits in the form of WOM and advocacy behaviors as relying in the process of campaign execution on customers’ ideas and decisions to a high extent.
32
Table 7. Effects of degree of co-creation on WOM and advocacy behaviors for Nescafé Nescafé
Bonferroni post-hoc analysis Type of the campaign Number of respondents Means ANOVA Sig Basic campaign Campaign with 1st degree of co-creation Campaign with 2nd degree of co-creation Campaign with 3rd degree of co-creation Basic campaign 45 4.11 X .083 .040 .086 Campaign with 1st degree of co-creation 37 4.80 X 1 1 Campaign with 2nd degree of co-creation 41 4.85 X 1 Campaign with 3rd degree of co-creation 41 4.78 .018 X
Table 8. Effects of degree of co-creation on WOM and advocacy behaviors for Dao Dao coffee
Type of the campaign Number of respondents Means ANOVA
Sig
Basic campaign 37 4.00
Campaign with 1st degree
of co-creation 38 3.83
Campaign with 2nd degree
of co-creation 42 3.52
Campaign with 3rd degree
of co-creation 38 3.97
.339
4.11. Moderating effect of brand familiarity on the relationship between the degree of co-creation and WOM and advocacy behaviors
Involving customers in co-creation of the cause-related campaigns seems to be beneficial in the form of WOM and advocacy behaviors only for the familiar brand, therefore hypothesis 6d has to be rejected. Nevertheless, the way co-created cause-based campaigns affect customers’ willingness to spread positive WOM turns out to be still moderated by brand familiarity but in a different direction that was proposed beforehand.
4.12. H5: Effect of degree of co-creation on willingness-to-pay.
4.12.1. Willingness-to-pay for a product associated with a certain co-created cause-related campaign – Polish market
33 (.082) and Nagelkerke R Square (.121) are quite low which can be an evidence of the fact that there are more attributes describing the instant coffee products that affect the customers choice. Moreover, the customers were forced to make their choices within only one product type (instant coffee) and as the preferences of people regarding coffee products are heterogeneous (Cichecka, 2008), this forced choice could have had a negative effect on the explanatory power of the choice model. The reference product that was used in this analysis was a jar of instant coffee (200g) produced by Dao, priced at 19,99 zł and associated with a cause-related campaign with no co-creation of the customers (60 groszy per product sold were said to be donated to a given charity – Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity, an organization providing emotional and practical support to families that have a child with a life threatening or terminal illness).
Table 9. Results of conjoint analysis
Attribute Level Utility Significance Relative Importance
Dao -.269 Brand Nescafé .269 .000 15.44% 19,99 zł .699 21,99 zł .142 .012 Price 23,99 zł -.841 .000 44.20% Basic campaign -.497 Campaign with 1st degree of co-creation .044 .547 Campaign with 2nd degree of co-creation .208 .001 Cause-related campaign Campaign with 3rd degree of co-creation .245 .000 21.30% None-option -.664 .000 19.06%
