28-06-2012, 03:16 PM
Ethical Brands: A comparative study of Unilever and Nestle in Nigeria: The difference between promises and reality: Do consumers really notice and buy?
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Background
“What’s a label worth?” A lot it would seem in the current market trends. What with companies striving to position their brand labelling as ethically produced or labelled (The Economist, 2008). Ethical brands are in a position where there is a paramount need to distinguish and differentiate from the pack while simultaneously striving to meet the functional desires of consumers as well as their psychological or representational needs (Doyle, P 1998).
Preliminary Review of the Literature
Interest in research into the area of business and marketing ethics has grown through the years but research in ethics and branding has not been extensive. There however has not been a lot of research on branding and ethical branding especially. Brands have been around for over a 1000 years and the impact of branding and its power over consumers in society today is phenomenal. Brands are prevalent in consumer’s everyday life; production and consumption, food and clothing, personality and style, and from pop to culture to politics (Yin Fan 2005).
Exploratory research in the concept of ethical brands is relatively novel in Nigeria but it is hoped will eventually become an important marketing concept and tool for indigenous companies and marketers of the 21st. The outcome of the research is aimed at giving an insight into the attitudes, perceptions of Nigerians to the concept of business ethics and ethical branding and the resultant motivations to purchase of these brands. The research aims at discovering what factors promote brand loyalty and re-purchase of products based on different variables such as culture, gender, age, education and income in the study.
Ethical branding and corporate reputation
Brands and branding has become a widely used term in the business world today with many people unable to agree on exactly what it means. It is defined by the American Marketing Association as: a name, term, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and differentiate them form those of their competitors. A brand is a differentiation device, the living memory and the future of its products (Kapferer, 1997). They represent not only the products or services provided by the company itself, the brand is the company and brands become a synonym of the company’s policy ( Goodyear, 1996; de Chernatony and MacDonald, 2003). No longer is the brand just an interface between the company, its customers; the general public but the face of the company.
Major brands like Coca cola, Nike and McDonalds have such a great brand power which is awesome. They evolved from the drive to create brands which began in the 1980s on the notion that standardising products all over the world would save costs and regular consumer communication. There has been back lash from interest groups in recent times in spite of this. Such negative feelings is most likely because such global brands are highly visible, dominant and therefore are easy targets for criticism and attack and the threat it represents to local markets and cultures.
What is ethical branding?
Extant literature review questions conventional branding practice and explores the links between ethical branding and corporate social responsibility. In marketing, the key function of branding involves more than naming a product. The question being asked here is “Should branding be ethical?” Most companies would be in agreement as to the need to be ethical but it has been found that it is indeed difficult to place a definition to the term ethical branding as argued by many researchers.