Abstract
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.