Corporate PR and CSR Strategies to Build Brand Reputation

Corporate PR means the ways by which businesses seek to improve their ability to do business.

Corporate PR and Brand Identity

Building brand identities and corporate brands is the method and process of advocating a company's cause and credentials in the marketplace. The emphasis is on promoting a consistent and coherent corporate identity and image.

What Corporate PR Does

Corporate PR helps companies to shape and mould corporate presence, identity and reputation in the minds of customers, important stakeholders and other audiences.

It is important for an organization to invest in corporate PR initiatives to perpetuate its long-term corporate image and brand identity.

Effective corporate PR:

• Enhances a company's operations as well as increases its sales.
• Enables a business to better anticipate and adapt to societal demands and trends.
• It's a means by which businesses improve their operating environments, company's reputation, image, brand, identity and corporate culture.

Examples

Examples: hospitals, charities, educational institutions, not-for-profit organizations.

Corporate PR Functions

• i) Help to ensure that stakeholders' needs are understood and met.
• ii) Encourages consistency in delivering on promises (acting as the corporate conscience).
• iii) Coaches employees at all levels (but especially senior managers) in communicating effectively with stakeholders.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

CSR: the economic, legal, ethical and voluntary actions or expectations by corporations; ethical behaviour of a company towards society.

Definition: CSR

Alternative Terms for CSR

• Corporate citizenship
• Corporate responsibility
• Philanthropy

CSR is a way of showing the company's concern and commitment towards society's sustainability and development.

3 Ps are vital for all organizations. (People, Planet, Profit)

The Carroll Model (1991)

• Economic responsibility: Maximize the shareholders' value by delivering good returns.
• Legal responsibility: Abide by the laws of the land.
• Ethical responsibility: Follow moral and ethical values to deal with all stakeholders.
• Philanthropic requirements: Donation, gifts, helping the poor. It ensures goodwill and social welfare.