The social impact of active cause marketing

![CDATA[This paper reports the early stages of research investigating the social impact of ‘active’ cause marketing campaigns and the participation it engenders. Conceptual understanding and measurement of social impact in this context is important for a variety of reasons: 1) to understand the value created, i.e. how these campaigns affect individuals, and in a broader sense, society, 2) to enable companies to compare social returns of different marketing activities, 3) to contribute to government social policy. This study extends the work of Lee, Cornwell et al. (2012) which proposed five dimensions to measure the social impact of sport. We discuss the value that participation in organised sports activities provides and consider the extent to which these insights apply to an active cause marketing initiative. There is similarity in that both require consumers’ active participation. The framework is extended via insights from Social Marketing, Sponsorship, Health, Non-profit and Voluntary Sector literature.]]