Building Social Brand in FMCGs: Corporate Social Responsibility Approach

Abstract

Although most of the scholars witnessed the significance of CSR in corporate brand building process, there has been little research on how a responsible brand is developed in practice. Some research has investigated CSR in marketing and presented characteristics of a responsible brand, but they failed to address how the process of brand building will be changed when profitability is replaced with CSR in the context. This paper studies how the corporate social responsibility affects brand building process. It aims at understanding what dimensions should marketers consider building a FMCG responsible brand by proposing a multilevel model and how these interactions can assist in building a CSR-based brand. The study presents an ISM-based model for FMCG brand building in which all the variables are CSR-extracted through meta-synthesis and content analysis. Developed model consisting of 18 variables and 5 levels, reveals the priority of corporate stakeholders in brand building process. It also illustrates that five external drivers including cultural requirements, ethical requirements, stakeholders' expectations, legal requirements and competitive environment lead to organizational development and innovation, increase in brand value and sustainable development through the other stakeholders and tools. The study provides researchers as well as practitioners with new insight pertaining to ethical branding and sustainable profitability through building socially responsible brands.