Introduction
Brands are used to distinguish a company’s products and services from those of another company. Marketers try to build a brand name in their marketing activities. Customers always identify themselves with a certain brand depending on that brand’s ability to satisfy their needs.
Consumers around the world are known to associate with brands that meet their needs, as well as those that promote social purpose. This essay discusses the roles that brands play in social and societal causes.
Roles of brands
The world’s largest companies are known to promote their products and services through societal causes. For instance, there are promotions that promise contingent donations. Such promotions are referred to as embedded premiums. Embedded premiums are known to be more effective compared to price promotions.
One of the reasons why these promotions are more effective is that they are cheap to deploy. At the same time, they increase brand preference among customers. Embedded premium promotions can operate in a multicategory context or in a single category (Henderson & Arora, 2010).
Consumers around the world are more likely to go for brands that engage with the society. An organization whose brand interacts with the society is seen to be socially responsible (Motzek, 2011). Customers buy from such brands more frequently compared to other brands. This is an indicator that brands have the ability to increase consumer loyalty to the organization, as well as to its products and services.
According to Lafferty (2009), Cause Brand Alliances have the ability to create a strong brand image. At the same time, such alliances enhance the brand’s sales.
It is, therefore, important that when an organization selects a brand partner, it should apply the right criteria to ensure that it selects a partner who will help it increase its sales. Customers prefer brands that are familiar to them. A brand should embrace social roles to familiarize itself with the society.
Cause related marketing has the ability to boost organizational sales. By promoting cause marketing, the organization displays its commitment to improving the quality of life of the society’s members. In addition, cause marketing improves the corporate image of the organization.
It is important to note that corporate social responsibility is increasingly becoming part of business marketing strategy (Demetriou, Papasolomou & Vrontis, 2010). CSR is known to give organizations competitive advantage. Cause marketing enhances the organization’s intent to execute corporate social responsibility. It, therefore, helps in increasing the organization’s sales and giving it competitive advantage.
In addition, corporate social marketing increases the brand equity. It helps in building brand awareness, enhancing brand image, creating brand credibility, building brand equity, as well as increasing brand feelings. Corporate social marketing is also known to create brand community sense and elicit brand engagement (Hoeffler & Keller, 2002).
The roles that brands play in the society are part of brand marketing since they are effective in increasing the level of brand sales in the society. However, this role also expresses the organization’s social responsibility.
Customers around the world are known to associate themselves with brands that play social roles. Customers will buy more of such brands. The roles that brands play in the society are, therefore, more of brand marketing activities.
Conclusion
Corporate social responsibility has become part of marketing activities over the recent past. In order to market themselves, brands carry out social and societal causes to affiliate themselves with members of the society. This is referred to as corporate societal marketing and is usually an effective strategy.
References
Demetriou, M., Papasolomou, I., & Vrontis, D. (2010). Cause-related marketing: Building the corporate image while supporting worthwhile causes. Journal of Brand Management, 17, 266-278
Henderson, T., & Arora, N. (2010). Promoting brands across categories with a social cause implementing effective embedded premium programs. Journal of Marketing, 74, 41-60
Hoeffler, S., & Keller, K. L. (2002). Building brand equity through corporate societal marketing. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 21(1), 78-89
Lafferty, B. A. (2009). Selecting the right cause partners for the right reasons: the role of importance and fit in cause–brand alliances. Psychology & Marketing, 26(4), 359–382
Motzek, R. (2011). Making a difference – The societal marketing concept supporting educational and cultural issues. Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag