The power of branding
Over the years, the power of branding has increasingly been felt, existing in various domains of life, including fashion, food, politics, and music. Branding not only involves adding, but it stands for and brands, therefore, it becomes a kind of custom. The effect of branding is extended beyond advertising and marketing and can represent a social-economic construct. A brand may be defined as a symbol, name, sign, or a combination of these whose aim is to describe a product or a service of a company or business.
A brand may portray different meanings depending on the purpose for which it is intended or the personality it is related to. There raises the question of whether brands should be ethical or not. Ethics may be said to be a combination of moral rules or statutes of behavior for determining what is right or wrong. There rise challenges of defining these principles, and sometimes there is no clear distinction between ethics and legal issues.
Ethical values are complex and dynamic as they vary in various societies, companies, and individuals.
With the contemporary business environment being more diverse, formulating corporate brands remains a difficult task as organizations are expected to offer superior products and services as well as act ethically towards their consumers(Olin, 2014).
In the current world, organizations, consumers, and investors are of need of companies to be ethically responsible and therefore recognize when companies behave unethically. Therefore there is a need for companies to address such issues (Balmer, Powell & Greyser, 2011). Balmer et al., 2011 suggest that companies must moderate their need to make a profit and acting responsibility through ethical branding identity. The concept of moral brand identity is associated with corporate and social obligations and rights. The basic idea of ethical brand identity is that managers should realize that branding should be understood from the root of a company.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been a popular topic of focus in the recent past and is associated with customers loyally. The concept is multifaceted, and many scholars have concerned about cause-related marketing. Some researchers have attempted to find out the association between corporate social behavior and financial performance. CSR has also been studied in connection to socially-responsible marketing engagements like natural resource protection and social charities.
Studies on consumer-centered CSR have analyzed the effect of cause-related marketing activities.
CSR has been given great importance for many organizations, and studies have indicated that CSR influence consumer product responses. Social responsibility programs can offer many advantages for companies besides more significant royalty. (Marín et al., 2012). Consumer behavior towards a company is positively impacted by SCR activities, either directly or indirectly. CSR influence customer firm identifications, consumer attitudes as related to a product, and financial implications. When CSR has been viewed positively