Effect Customers Perception Brand Image Of Fmcg Companies Marketing Essay

Effect Customers light Brand Image Of Fmcg Companies Marketing EssayIn the midst of quick orbiculateisation and increasing access to information, companies are acknowledging the wideness of being genially responsible. somatic Social Responsibility (CSR) broadly includes social, ethical and environmental responsibilities towards the indian lodge (Polonsky and Jevons, 2009). It refers to the triple bottom line, referring to expanding the traditional meaning of organisational success to accommodate ecologic and social performance.Research shows pursuing a socially responsible brainpower leads to numerous benefits (Butler, 2006 Burke Logsdon, 1996). CSR also increasingly plays an important role in consumer attitudes towards the companionship and gull as a whole.The shop of a ships connection plays an essential role in building an identity, differentiating the shelter offering, and more importantly, draft a larger customer base. The scrape go through of a company refers to a customers cognizance of its sign in totality.In the past equate of years, social responsibility has been in inembodieddd with the entrepreneurial characteristics of an organisation, leading to the conceptualisation of a crude term called Corporate Social Entrepreneurship (CSE). It is a relatively new phenomenon related to integrating social considerations into a companys business operations. CSE is a act aimed at enabling business to develop more advanced and sizeable forms of CSR (Austin and Reficco, 2009). transnational Companies (MNCs) producing Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) start out been particularly active in displaying CSE in order to uplift the artless dents of the developing society.Being a relatively new concept, the specific impact of Corporate Social Entrepreneurship on the consumer outlook towards the corporate and product brand has yet to be look fored in detail. This look into attempts to explore this relationship and gain a better correspondence of CSE. Adapting the theoretical framework purposed by Poolthong and Mandhachitara (2009), explained under the literature re entire deal, a quantitative study leave alone be conducted to examine the substance of an MNCs CSE activities on its brand image.RESEARCH OBJECTIVESTo gain insight into the impact of CSE on customers scholarship of the companys brand and their brand associations, taking Multinational Companies (MNCs) in the FMCG sector as an example.LITERATURE REVIEWCorporate Social Responsibility (CSR)The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained a lot of importance among stakeholders and in the corporate world in the past few years. Modern literature on the concept give the axe be traced back to the 1950s (Bowen, 1953 Eells, 1956 Heald, 1957), while conventional descriptions came about from the 1970s (Johnson, 1971 Carroll, 1979 Epstein, 1987). The intimately touristy and widely accepted definition of CSR was given by Archie Carroll in 1979The so cial responsibility of business encompasses the economical, legal, ethical, and arbitrary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in cartridge clip (Carroll, 1979, p.500).From a business perspective, this definition forms the basis of CSR, termed as the Triple P Concept of People, Planet and Profit.In todays global nature of the corporate environment, sign of the zodiacs are increasingly recognising CSR more as a core activity kinda than a peripheral single. This growing importance of CSR can be attributed to ever-changing societal expectations, growing affluence of consumers and rapid globalisation (Werther Chandler, 2005).BRAND visualiseThe term brand can be delineate as a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them which is intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors (Kotler, 1991, p.442). Brand Image is considered to be an important aspect of mar keting and was the origin consumer brand perception recognise in marketing literature (Gardner Levy, 1955). It is defined as the perceptions about a brand as reflected by the brand associations held in consumer memory (Keller, 1993, p.3). These brand associations refer to perceptions of brand quality and attitudes. The brand image is considered independent of the utilitarian product offering it gives the product a human element.The Branding honor of CSRRecent literature identifies how a company can differentiate itself and can gain a competitive advantage by linking the brand to CSR (Brammer Millington, 2006 Du et al., 2007). The brand image of a company is greatly affected by the ground level of social responsibility it shows. CSR helps a company cause social legitimacy in the eyes of the customer. In their paper, Werther and Chandler explored strategic CSR as a centre of achieving global brand insurance. A CSR driven approach of a firm increases the brand-user bond and re duces the brands weakness to other organisational shortcomings (Werther Chandler, 2005). This relationship between the brand value of a firm and the importance on CSR to it can be stand for as The Branding Law of Corporate Social ResponsibilityThe importance of CSR to any organization is choosely related, and rises in proportion, to the value of the firms global brand (Werther Chandler, 2005, p.321).CORPORATE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP (CSE)Until recently, an organisations involvement in CSR was limited to being manifest by social and environmental standards, having a well-established community welfare create mentally and so on. However, increasing global awareness has led companies to take their social responsibility to the next level. Organisations provide have to explore the imagination and endeavour of individual employees and this had led to the emergence of a revolutionary concept that would change firms to accelerate and develop their CSR initiatives. This term is calle d Corporate Social Entrepreneurship (CSE). CSE draws from the key concepts of corporate entrepreneurship, and social entrepreneurship. Corporate entrepreneurship refers to identifying and utilizing new business opportunities through with(predicate) innovative use of resources and strategies. Simultaneously, social entrepreneurship was defined by J. Gregory Dees as an innovative activity with a social purpose in either the private or non-for-profit sector, or across both (Dees, 1998). However, unlike either of these terms, CSE involves mobilizing organizational resources as well as creating social and economic value. It can be defined asthe process of extending the firms domain of competence and corresponding opportunity behave through innovative leveraging of resources, both within and outside its look control, aimed at the simultaneous creation of economic and social value (Austin et al., 2005).The Multinational Companies are today recognizing the bottom of developing markets, termed as the base of the benefit as having a eminenter potentiality than the saturated developed markets through disruptive innovation (Hart Christensen, 2002). This forms the basis of CSE, aiming at targeting new sections of the market for economic benefit through social upliftment.Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Companies and CSEMultinational Companies (MNCs) in the FMCG Indus evaluate have been active in CSE initiatives in relation to the repose of the corporate world. Saroja Subrahmanyan and J. Tomas Gomez-Arias, in their paper in 2008, identify the efforts made by FMCG companies to target consumers at the bottom of the pyramid. Hindustan Unilever in India was one of the first companies to enfold products in smaller sizes to the rural section of the country. A network of women from rural backgrounds was formed and they were directed to sell Unilever products in sachets door-to-door. Also, Kissan, owned by Hindustan Unilever, buys erect produce as raw material for its p roducts. Danone, the French company partnered with a egress of Non Government Organisations (NGOs) to sell yogurt in Bangladesh and South Africa (Subrahmanyan Gomez-Arias, 2008).conceptual FRAMEWORKIn their paper in 2009, Yaowalak Poolthong and Rujirutana Mandhachitara studied the effect CSR activities had on perceived service quality and brand effect, and the role of trust in establishing a link between perceived service quality and brand effect in the Thai retail banking sector. Garcia de los Salmones et al. (2005) build a direct relationship between a companys CSR behavior and the customers perception of service quality. In turn, the study by Poolthong and Mandhachitara (2009) dis compete a positive relationship between perceived service quality and trust in the company, olibanum leading to a positive brand effect.Simultaneously, a considerable number of studies have found a direct relation between CSR and customers attitudes towards the company (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003 Br own and Dacin, 1997), thus representing a positive effect of CSR on brand effect.Based on this framework, the proposed research study get out attempt to gain an dateing of the effect of Corporate Social Entrepreneurship (CSE) on the brand image of an FMCG company (Figure 1). sufficient from Poolthong, Y., and Mandhachitara, R. (2009). Customer expectations of CSR, perceived service quality and brand effect in Thai retail banking. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 27 (6), 408-427. explicit from the corresponding literature, research exploring the concept of CSE is relatively new and has been gradually choice up pace. The specific effect of CSE on the company from the customers point of scan is yet to be looked into in detail and this study makes an effort to understand the same, giving valuable insight into using strategic CSR and CSE as a marketing tool. Using the framework given above, this study result try to answer the following research questionsDo CSE activities of a company have a positive relationship with the customers perception of company brand image?How significant is CSE to develop a favourable brand image for an FMCG company from the customers point of view?METHODOLOGYLuck and Rubin (1987) state that a good rule in all research is parsimony using however meaningful entropy. This study aims to explore and evaluate the effect CSE activities has on customers perception of brand image, taking the FMCG sector as an example.This research testament first use secondary sources of information to gain insight into role played by MNCs in the FMCG sector with respect to social responsibility. Secondary entropy plays an important role in establishing a background to primary research (Newson-Smith, 1988). Appropriate journals, articles and other publications will be use to understand anterior studies conducted analysing the relationship between social responsibility and brand associations made by consumers. Through this source, a pre-existing q uestionnaire will be adapted in order to gather primary data.Being a quantitative study, a survey method will be used by federal agency of a questionnaire. According to John Webb (2003), survey research is appropriate for company data on attitudes, opinions, respondent knowledge and awareness etc. afterward looking for an appropriate questionnaire linking CSR and brand image, it will be adapted to contemplate an appropriate questionnaire analysing customers attitude towards an FMCG companys CSE initiatives. The possible options available to use questionnaires are person-to-person interviews, telephone interviews, mail questionnaires, and e-questionnaires. Given the time and cost constraints, using an e-questionnaire is the most effective and appropriate method of data collection.Emailing questionnaires to respondents has become an increasingly popular method of data collection. In this proposed research study, questionnaires will be emailed to the smack population. Alternative ly, online survey software like www.kwiksurveys.com or www.freeonlinesurveys.com may be used to create convenient and hassle-free questionnaires. In this case, using an e-questionnaire is the most appropriate repayable to advantages of instantaneous delivery, quick responses and convenience for the respondent Kumar et al., 1999). Apart from this, increasing global access to the internet alters easy reach to the targeted respondents. However, using this method poses the bound of respondents interpreting questions differently along with a high risk of not responding.With regard to the sample size of the study, a total of at least(prenominal) 100 filled questionnaires is aimed at, to minimize the sampling error. Using a assessment sampling technique, consumers of FMCG products on a global level will be identified to fill the questionnaire. Additional respondents will be reached through the increase sampling, where one respondent may lead the researcher to other potential responde nts (Marshall, 1996). The reason behind selecting FMCG consumers for this study is simply based on the high degree of activity of FMCG companies with regard to CSE and the fact that a large number of common people use some variety of an FMCG. This is ensures ease in reaching these consumers, leading to more reliable results.Based on the data collected, the data analysis software called Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) will be used to organise and interpret the information. Factor Analysis will be used to reduce the number of variables to a few constructs. side by side(p) this, cluster analysis will be used to identify clusters of applicable scales for the proposed research. Regression analysis will then be used to establish the nature and strength of the relationship between CSE and brand image.Ethical considerations will be made in the process of gathering data. A section describing the key aspects and primary motivation to carry out the research will be put in befo re the questionnaire. Additionally, complete anonymity of the respondents will be maintained throughout this study.Supported by the framework proposed by Poolthong and Mandhachitara (2009) and related literature about CSE and brand image of a company, this research proposes to find a positive effect of a CSE mindset of a company on the customers perception of the brand in totality. It will enable researchers further explore the nature of Corporate Social Entrepreneurship from the point of view of a customer. Also, FMCG marketers will be able to evaluate the significance of CSE in marketing communications.GANTT CHARTThe following chart outlines the schedule of activities in conducting this know thesis. The address period begins in the month of June with the submission of the final dissertation on September 6th 2010.TASKBackground Reading breeding of Literature ReviewDesk ResearchCollecting DataAnalysing Data report Data AnalysisPreparing Background InformationWriting Research meth odologyWriting DiscussionWriting ConclusionRevision of ChaptersCompleting scratch line DraftFinal Changes and ImprovementsBindingWEEKS123456789101112JunJulAug