Abstract
Recent opinion polls suggest consumers favor organizations that support worthy causes; these findings have encouraged adoption of cause-related marketing (CRM) as an agent for social change and have led to a rapid growth in CRM activities. Although some researchers suggest CRM generates better returns if the beneficiary has a logical link to the sponsoring brand, others have questioned this assumption. Research testing brand-cause relationships has typically explored cognitive rather than behavioral responses, and the extent to which brand-cause congruence affects consumers' behavior remains largely unexplored. This study explored whether congruent and incongruent causes differentially affected choice behavior. Neither cause had a material effect; nor was consumers' past responsiveness to CRM related to their choice behavior. These findings lend support to earlier findings that suggest consumers may not use cognitive pathways to process CRM and highlight the need for more behavioral research into CRM's effects.