The effect of corporate social responsibility on corporate branding and brand loyalty

What is it about?

Corporate branding is a holistic brand management approach adopted by firms to construct a unique corporate identity. Corporate identity refers to the organisational characteristics that anchor an organisation in a given period. Therefore, corporate identity provides a foundation on which corporate brands are formed and closely linked with the organisation. Corporate Branding is defined as the process to develop the expressions and images of an organisation’s identity and for organisations, it is a mechanism which conveys the identity elements and builds the expectations of what the organisation promises to deliver for each stakeholder group. CSR has been considered as one of the important priority for many companies. CSR activities help to enhance the brand image of companies and adds an element of differentiation to their products and services. CSR has recently been acknowledged as one of the most important factors in the process of developing a corporate brand and brand loyalty.

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The strategic incorporation of CSR tools as an integral part of corporate branding strategy can help the managers in the banking industry to enhance their customers’ BL. Besides economic and legal responsibilities, managers need to give more emphasis on the ethical and philanthropic responsibilities as critical positioning tools to develop firm’s corporate brand followed by enhancing brand loyalty. The results of the study show that there is a significant impact of CSR components (economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic) on corporate branding to enhance customer brand loyalty. The study offers new insight into the relationship between CSR and brand loyalty by introducing corporate branding as the mediating factor. However, the relationship between “legal responsibility to corporate branding” and “philanthropy responsibility to brand loyalty” demonstrate a negative coefficient in the path analysis. Further, the result of the direct and indirect model path analysis confirms that customers’ brand loyalty can be enhanced more efficiently when CSR becomes an integral part of corporate branding.

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