BizSugar.com › News › Cause-Related Ads Get More Attention, May Increase Sales up to 74%

Cause-related marketing can increase sales as much as 74% in certain consumer-goods categories, and consumers spend twice as long looking at cause-related ads than generic corporate ones, according to a study by Cone and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

After participants were exposed to either a cause-related or a generic corporate ad for one of four focus brands, they entered a mock convenience store with nearly 150 SKUs and were given real money to purchase a product of each type.

Shopping behavior revealed higher sales in two of the four categories, and modest increases in the other two categories because of the cause-related ads.