Research Article
The Effect of Corporate Mecenat Activities on Product Advertising and Price Premium
Published: January 2011 · Vol. 40 No. 6 · pp. 1455-1479
Full Text
Abstract
Interest in cultural marketing from both corporations and consumers has been increasing from the perspectives of corporate social responsibility fulfillment and corporate performance. Mecenat began as a form of pure corporate philanthropy without expectation of return, but its importance has been growing recently as mecenat has come to be recognized as a strategic corporate communication tool. Based on this reality, this study aims to identify and verify the influence of evaluations of mecenat activities on corporations, specifically from the perspectives of consumer expectations toward companies engaging in mecenat activities and advertising attitudes. The research results showed the following: First, consumer awareness of a company's mecenat activities had a positive relationship with the level of expectations toward the company. Second, consumer expectations toward a company had a positive effect on quality perception—that is, consumers positively evaluated the quality of products manufactured by companies engaged in mecenat activities. Third, quality perception had a positive effect on price premium, meaning that consumers who rated quality highly were willing to purchase the company's products even at a financial premium compared to other brands. Fourth, consumer expectations toward the company resulting from mecenat awareness did not have a significant effect on direct corporate advertising evaluation. This can be interpreted as evidence that mecenat is not yet recognized as a strategic-level integrated marketing communications (IMC) tool and that communication media across consumer touchpoints are not being managed in an integrated manner in terms of content.
