M.A. / The shift from the Old to the New Economy has developed due to four key trends, namely globalisation, consumerism, environmentalism and corporate governance. Globalisation and the Internet has resulted in consumers being able to track the behaviour of corporations (Vise, 2006:119) and consequently, a New Consumer has emerged, where emphasis on corporate transparency and the environment has become a key concern for these New Consumers, as New Consumes are characterised by Lewis and Bridger (2000:21) as independent, sophisticated, involved and well informed about the production of goods and services, where these New Consumers are feeling the pressure to confront and act upon the fact that unbridled production and consumption, which was proliferate in the Old Economy, comes with escalating pollution at a significant human/animal/earth cost (Trendwatching, 2007). Moreover, in the world of globalisation and information overload, Salzer-Mörling and Strannegård (2004:224) argue that the proliferation of brands as well as a cluttered marketplace has meant that corporations now need to not only be differentiated in the marketplace, but also be distinct and one of the ways which corporations in the New Economy are achieving this is by focusing on the corporate brand as the point of differentiation. Hence, by ensuring that the corporate brand is socially responsible, companies are able to use this to stand out from the competition. However, in order to truly become distinct within the marketplace, companies are using a strategy of corporate social responsibility referred to as Cause Related Marketing, which Business in the Community (2004:2) defines as a commercial activity by which businesses and charities or causes form a partnership with each other to market an image, product or service for mutual benefit. Cause Related Marketing thus has the added benefit of creating a win-win-win situation, implying a win for the business, a win for the cause and a win for the consumer (Adkins, 2005:6,101). In addition, the context of symbolic interactionism has been selected as a theoretical base of communication for the process of Cause Related Marketing, whereupon symbolic interactionism relates to the shift from the old to the New Consumer and the resultant implications of the New Economy, as Mead (1962:168) notes that as a rule people assume that the general voice of the community is identical with the larger community of the past and the future and society assumes that an organised custom represents morality, so that the things people cannot do are those that everybody would condemn, which correlates with corporations not being able to pollute the environment and behave in an unethical manner. Consequently, so as to ensure that the corporation creates a successful Cause Related Marketing partnership, it is important that the process of Cause Related Marketing is implemented appropriately. The three key constructs of the process of Cause Related Marketing that have been identified include finding a strategic fit, communicating the partnership and properly assessing the Cause Related Marketing campaign. One company that has created a successful Cause Related Marketing partnership is Nedbank, a South African bank that launched the Green Affinity programme, in partnership with WWF-SA, almost 20 years ago, long before environmentalism, transparency and Cause Related Marketing became corporate buzzwords. Hence, Nedbank has been utilised as an intrinsic case study in order to determine how the process of Cause Related Marketing is utilised by Nedbank’s Green Affinity programme according to a selected group of employees at Nedbank’s Group Marketing department in Sandton. Keywords: New Economy, New Consumer, environmentalism, globalisation, transparency, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, distinction, Cause Related Marketing, process, symbolic interactionism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:2100 |
| Date | 28 February 2012 |
| Creators | E'Silva, Bronwyn |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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