Marketing, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Digitalization in a Post-Pandemic World

Aim(s) of the module

The main aim(s) of the module are:

• To develop your understanding of contemporary marketing in an environment of digitalised communications serving a customer-brand-relationship.
• To equip you with the ability to make strategic decisions in market segmentation, targeting and positioning, brand and corporate reputation management, market offerings, and marketing programme/mix.
• To offer you insight into future marketing challenges: society, technology, and ethics; the role of corporations in our society; accountability and responsibility in the corporate environment.
• To develop your understanding of corporate social responsibility; and the most relevant mandatory corporate social responsibility interventions, to make responsible business and market decisions.

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

1.Develop a critical understanding of major concepts, frameworks, and methods in marketing and corporate social responsibility, and assess their application in the business environment, including brand value.

2.Examine the role digital marketing and media play in contemporary marketing and business practice, and the social impact of these practices.

3.Identify key issues and problems related to the lack of responsibility in the approach to corporate business operations, and the risk that unethical corporate conducts pose for our society.

Thinking skills

4.Critically evaluate marketing strategies, including digital marketing solutions - in different business contexts, and address their implications including ethical issues, and reflect on the significance of key historical events.

Subject-based practical skills

5.Make strategic marketing decisions based on facts and market research; and to commission marketing communication campaigns, including digital marketing solutions.

6.Critically assess currently implemented corporate social responsibility solutions and recognise the links between the adoption of certain solutions and the performance of business operations.

Skills for life and work (general skills)

7.Adopt a persuasive argumentation, and present it in verbal or written communication.

8.Collect, analyse and synthesise data; and take a problem-solving approach to strategic thinking, and creativity.

The application of CSR communication as a key part of strategic corporate marketing communication allows organisations to meet their goals, and to take advantage of the opportunities introduced by digitalisation rather than being restricted by technological challenges and unethical practices, such as sharing fake and misleading information via social media.

Cause-related marketing has been used regularly to encourage positive change in the public behaviours like anti-smoking, anti-drink-driving, and other healthy lifestyle campaigns.

Covid-19 pandemic created a challenging situation where the public and government bodies had to change their behaviours and many aspects of their operating systems. Such change in behaviours needed intensive communication campaigns many of which utilized digital and social media platforms.

Task

1.Identify briefly the challenges the UK government faced in their campaign to change peoples’ behaviours during the Covid-19 pandemic (e.g., social distancing, self-isolation, and waring face-cover) and to enhance people trust in the vaccine. (500 words)

2.Evaluate the effectiveness of the British government’s digital, cause-related marketing, communications strategy regarding Covid-19 and the vaccine. You may conduct a comparison with another country’s Covid-19 digital communications strategy of your choice (to do so, identify the comparison criteria and conduct your systematic comparison based on these criteria). Make sure that you highlight which strategy or parts of it were more effective and why. (1200 words, you can use tables or graphs)

3.Offer recommendations for digital marketing communications strategy to promote a potential third booster dose of the vaccine in the UK.

4.Covid-19 created a great business opportunity for mega MNCs in the pharmaceutical industry such as Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. Select one of these corporations and examine how, if at all, Covid-19 informed/changed the corporation’s CSR policy, practice and communications since February 2020.  (1300words)

Write a report (10±) responding to the above discussion points.

Your answers should be supported by evidence from the data you collect through your research. Your answers should also show how you analysed the data you collected using the marketing theories and concepts, and corporate social responsibility concepts you are learning in this module.

Recommended report structure:

-Title page with student number and module code, plus word count

-Each point followed by the relevant response. You may have sub-sections in each response.

Report’s Presentation instructions

Your work should be word-processed as per the following:

• Font style, Calibri, font size 12
• 1.5 line spacing
• The page orientation should be ‘portrait’
• Margins on both sides of the page should be no less than 2.5 cm
• Pages should be numbered
• Your name should not appear on the script
• Your student number should be included on every page

 

Exceeding the word count may result in a penalty of 5% of your mark. If your work is significantly shorter, then you probably did not provide the level of detail required.

The formative individual presentation (Not assessed)

This is an invaluable opportunity for you to get feedback from your tutor that will be exceptionally helpful when you are writing your individual report, so don’t miss it.

Read the case study. Conduct market and company research and analysis. Answer the case study questions. Prepare a few slides to present to the class and be ready to engage in a discussion and question and answer activity. Remember that “none of us is as smart as all of us”, so learn from each other, before you go and write your report. All of you will be winners here as each of you will write better after studying and discussing the case in class.

-Simply try to have a slide or two for each question/point. The first slide will have your name, and the last one will have your references.

-Presentation time is 10 minutes followed by 5 minutes discussion and tutor feedback, which will be invaluable for your individual report

Slides Presentation instructions (text should be presented in a legible format) Your work should be word-processed as per the following:

• Font style, Calibri, font size not less than 24
• 1.5 line spacing
• Margins on both sides of the slide should be no less than 2 cm
• Slides should be numbered
• Your name and ID number should appear on your slides and the front slide