Corporate social investment and branding in the new South Africa
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RON IRWIN American Ron Irwin is an adjunct lecturer in the University of Cape Town’s Department of Commerce. Based in Cape Town, he has contributed to numerous brand journals on the subject of South African branding strategies, most notable the online magazine, ‘Brandchannel’, (www.brandchannel.com). He has also worked as a brand consultant for Johannesburg-based Ochre Media (www.ochre.co.za).
Abstract South African brand managers are discovering that the savvy use of corporate social investment (CSI) policies is making them more competitive and giving their brands high local profile. Savvy CSI programmes on the part of banks, game lodges, small businesses and even multi-nationals like Anglo American and De Beers have already proven to be an excellent means of promoting brand loyalty in a country where increasingly more consumers are looking to businesses to help solve the myriad economic and social inequalities the country has been bequeathed by the previous government. The author contends that businesses that hope to flourish in South Africa have learned that it is in their interests for their brands to stand for these values and beliefs with regard to society’s transformation and to embrace a policy of transparency in their corporate dealings and social upliftment programmes. Brands that have successfully melded corporate social responsiblity (CSR) initiatives with traditional brand management have created what the author refers to as a policy of values-led branding that is catching on across the country and becoming de rigueur for modern South African brand management. The initiatives that South African companies have promoted in this politically and culturally hypersensitive microcosm of first and third world branding concerns may became emblematic for companies across the world which hope to utilise CSI and CSR programmes to build their brand image against powerful competitors struggling against the brunt of global activism.
INTRODUCTION
Ron Irwin 10 Fairfield Square, Morgenrood Road, Kenilworth, Cape Town 7708, South Africa Tel/Fax: ⫹27 21 797 2974 E-mail: [email protected]
Companies that have embraced corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social investment (CSI) initiatives have managed to differentiate their brands in an increasingly competitive marketplace where the consumer is becoming more acutely sensitive to companies’ social roles and, thanks to the Internet, more likely to research deeply the human rights history of their favourite brands. Consumers have become more and more involved with the brands they buy, and
more sophisticated in tracking what the brands’ values are, and whether their track records mirror consumers’ own beliefs. Initiatives led in recent years against ‘superbrands’ like Nike, Shell, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Pepsi by activists in the USA and Europe have made companies concerned about promoting a positive corporate image to the world, and made them rethink the values their brands represent to an online public that is becoming more and more likely to boycot
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