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Under blood pressure – differentiated versus undifferentiated marketing to increase blood donations

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International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Despite strong evidence in current marketing theory and practice that a differentiated marketing approach increases recruitment success, blood services worldwide often use undifferentiated marketing strategies to address new blood donors. Relying on the assumption that differentiated marketing is highly promising; the authors developed an online experiment among 838 participants who had not donated blood during the past 10 years. The experiment tested the effects of a differentiated in comparison to an undifferentiated marketing campaign on three marketing outcomes: (1) awareness, (2) intention, and (3) behavioral enactment. Surprisingly and in contrast with most marketing studies in the for-profit context, the results of the blood donation experiment suggest that differentiated marketing is not more effective than undifferentiated marketing. This finding has important implications for marketing strategies and actions of blood services.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the German Red Cross Blood Services North-East for their support in developing the marketing campaigns and for their valuable feedback during the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, P.O. Box 707, CH-8037, Zurich, Switzerland

    Larissa M. Sundermann

  2. German Red Cross Blood Service North-East Research Cooperation, Hamburg, Germany

    Larissa M. Sundermann

  3. University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 9, D-20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Silke Boenigk & Jurgen Willems

Authors
  1. Larissa M. Sundermann
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  2. Silke Boenigk
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  3. Jurgen Willems
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Larissa M. Sundermann.

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This study did not receive any funding.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Table 3 Measurement
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Sundermann, L.M., Boenigk, S. & Willems, J. Under blood pressure – differentiated versus undifferentiated marketing to increase blood donations. Int Rev Public Nonprofit Mark 14, 321–340 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12208-017-0174-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12208-017-0174-2

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