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Introduction
The increasing importance of business-supported social initiatives continues to fuel the growth of cause-related marketing (CrM). This trend seems likely to continue in the future (Rozensher, 2013; Soni and Soni, 2014; Pracejus et al., 2020). Unlike typical marketing campaigns, CrM campaigns do not occur only as an interaction between a brand and its potential buyers/consumers; social causes play a very important role (Lafferty and Edmondson, 2009; Grau and Folse, 2007; Sheikh and Beise-Zee, 2011; Human and Terblanche, 2012; Lafferty et al., 2016; Huertas-Garcia et al., 2017; Patel et al., 2017). Therefore, contemporary CrM researchers and practitioners are keen on finding a successful combination of the interactions between the factors present in regular marketing and those triggered by a cause (Zdravkovic et al., 2010; Huertas-Garcia et al., 2017).
In general, there is a near consensus that the success of a CrM campaign is largely dependent on the relevant fit between a brand and a cause (Gupta and Pirsch, 2006; Bigné-Alcañiz et al., 2012; Chéron et al., 2012; Samu and Wymer, 2009; Ferraris et al., 2019). However, the operationalization of the concept of the brand–cause fit is still the subject of ongoing discussions among researchers (Pracejus et al., 2020). The key considerations vary from the attempts to find some generalisations of the fit to the search for specific dimensions of brand–cause fit (Fleck and Quester, 2007).
The exploration of brand–cause fit dimensions began with the suggestion that the fit between a brand and a cause can be measured by the similarity between the brand and charity organisation's images and their performed functions (Gwinner, 1997; Gwinner and Eaton, 1999). Initially, researchers focussed on the ideas that fit can come from similar attributes (McDaniel, 1999), common goals and objectives (Basil and Basil, 2003), common positioning and objectives (Hamlin and Wilson, 2004) or that fit can come from any common association – mission, product, market, technology, image, etc. (Simmons and Becker-Olsen, 2006). Later, to clarify which exact dimensions of fit were recognised and understood by consumers, Zdravkovic et al. (2010) identified the two groups of brand and cause “macro” sub-dimensions of fit – prominence and marketing strategy – which influenced the consumer when evaluating the fit between a...