Marketing Communication Language and Consumer Behavior in CRM

Cause-related marketing (CRM) is a marketing strategy that ties fundraising for a cause to purchases of a firm’s products. It can benefit the causes, the firms, and consumers. However, consumers often approach CRM with skepticism and scrutiny, which stem from their perceptions of impure altruism (i.e., egoistic, firm-serving motives seemingly infiltrates the altruistic, cause-serving motives for CRM campaigns). To alleviate the unfavorable perceptions of impure altruism, we propose a theoretically grounded, managerially practical strategy: Present CRM messages to target audiences in their second (vs. native) languages. Second language (L2) use can prompt positivity biases and leave people more tolerant of moral wrongdoing than native language (L1), as established by behavioral and neuroscience research. Accordingly, we hypothesize and found that marketing messages in L2 facilitates higher purchase intention toward CRM campaigns, and the effect is mediated by consumers’ perceptions of impure altruism and moderated by company-offer fit. This study can contribute to the research on cause-related marketing and marketing communication language.