What Do Consumers Know about Corporate Responsible Management? A Case Study of Eight World-Leading Brands and Their Branding Strategy

Mary B Frambo,Hans Kok,Bruno Fon

doi:10.4236/jhrss.2022.101007

Abstract

The background for the present investigation is testing the notion that the positive effect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on company performance can, at least partly, be explained by the reported synergy between CSR and branding. For CSR to have a positive effect on branding companies’ CSR efforts need to be efficiently communicated to potential customers and potential customers need to be aware of CSR activities of companies or associate specific brands with CSR. We investigated recent video advertisements of globally leading brands for mention of CSR-related themes. Secondly, in a survey, we investigated how far consumers are aware of differences in CSR efforts of these globally leading brands. Our results show that consumers have little idea of the CSR efforts of world-leading brands. Furthermore, the attention to CSR-related themes in recent video advertisements is generally not high and very low for some of the companies.

Highlights

Corporate social responsible management (CSR) is defined by the UN Global Compact as corporate measures that “align strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption and take actions that advance societal goals” (United Nations, n.d.-a)
There is a lot of support for the notion that company Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts, certainly when they are effectively communicated, will increase brand reputation and purchase intention (e.g. Abu Zayyad et al, 2020; Han et al, 2020; Wang et al, 2021)
A basic requirement for CSR to be able to influence consumer behavior is that consumers must know the CSR efforts of companies

Summary

Introduction

Corporate social responsible management (CSR) is defined by the UN Global Compact as corporate measures that “align strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption and take actions that advance societal goals” (United Nations, n.d.-a). These societal goals are summarized in the 17 UN Social Development Goals (SDGs), covering. The European Commission (2001) defines CSR as “a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis”. Vishwanathan et al (2020) list four mechanisms: 1) enhancing firm reputation, 2) increasing stakeholder reciprocation, 3) mitigating firm risk, and 4) strengthening innovation capacity

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion