Gender Differences In The Effect On Brand Attitude Toward Cause-related Marketing By The Order Of Informational Messages

With the continuous development of cause-related marketing,research of this field is growing stronger.However,the existing research mostly focuses on three aspects——product/brand of cause-related marketing,cause and consumers.Especially in recent years,the majority of research concentrated on studying the effect of one variable-fit/congruence,or the interaction between fit/congruence and other variables on the consumers.But only few scholars focused on cause-related marketing from the perspective of communication,such as the content or forms of cause-related communication and how to improve consumers' attitude toward the brand further.This study explores the way to successful and effective marketing communication.Based on the existing research literature,the study finds out two new antecedent variables that influence the effect of effective marketing communication-the order of different types of information(informational messages and buy messages)and the gender.At the same time,the study further researches under what circumstances the effectiveness of effective communication can enhance,which leads to positive response of consumers.Because of the features of different types of information——informational messages emphasis on "why" to carry out cause-related marketing,while buy messages emphasis on "how" to carry out cause-related marketing,which corresponds to construal level.Therefore,this study introduces a new variable-construal level.The informational messages is high construal level,while buy messages is low construal level.So another hypothesis is put forward that high construal can enhance the brand attitude of different genders,who are presented to different orders of informational messages during the dissemination of cause-related marketing.Thus,this expands the application of construal level theory to the field of communication.Through literature and experimental research(study 1 and study 2),this paper draws a conclusion that informational messages placed last can arouse more positive attitude to the brand than first for males but vice versa for females.In addition,for the above two circumstances that can form a better brand attitude,the research further studies how to strengthen consumers' favor.For females(males),by manipulation of the construal level in study 3,it's proved that high construal level lead to better attitude to brand.These conclusions are of guiding significance for enterprises to carry out cause-related marketing communication effectively.