Commitment for Consistency

Floods and landslides are common natural calamities in my country. Last year, many people got displaced by floods, so my social organization, Index Nepal, decided to help flood victims by raising funds. We asked people to voluntarily donate money and used clothes. Everyone was aware of the situation of flood victims, so people were willing to contribute in whatever way they could. The results were overwhelming. We were able to raise about 25,000 rupees and many used clothes. Again, this year, many places of Nepal were hit by flooding. We first approached to our previous donors and this time we got even bigger support. Their only concern was whether their support reached the intended people or not. This result can be explained by commitment consistency theory, which says people’s likeliness to comply with larger requests increases with the compliance of smaller requests. Also, the consistency of donors’ behaviors can be attributed to their commitment to involve in philanthropic activities. People generally throw their used clothes, so asking people to donate used clothes do not add cost to them.

In marketing, commitment consistency theory can be applied in ‘donate for cause’ campaign. However, research has shown that consumers are not willing to pay extra for the cause and the company should manage it from its generated revenue. The success of this technique depends on how companies persuade customers to use their products and change their behavior so that substantial revenue is generated to donate for cause.

With the growing competition, it is very difficult to persuade consumers for buying products. Persuasion, in marketing, can be defined as the process of making consumers buy something by explaining them clear reasons such as benefits of the product and satisfaction achieved by using that product. It is very important that successful marketers not only clearly explain the reasons behind persuasion but also make his/her followers committed to the goal, such as environment protection, so that favorable behavioral changes result.

References:

Vaidyanathan, R. & Aggarwal, P. (2005). Using commitments to drive consistency: Enhancing the effectiveness of cause-related marketing communications. Journal of Marketing Communications, 11(4), 231-246.