Strategic and Operational Levels of CSR Marketing Communication for Sustainable Orientation of a Company: A Case Study from Bangladesh

Abstract

Companies’ increasing social awareness has led to the development of a corporate social responsibility orientation, whose implementation impacts on their overall marketing communication, both at its strategic and operational levels. The issue of integration of both levels is recognized as a research gap and is thus, the main interest of this article. A company’s CSR orientation depends on the context of social problems, specifically in our case, the need for women’s empowerment as well as the creation of sustainable (socially and environmentally) workplace conditions in Bangladesh. The aim of the paper is to investigate and propose ways of integrating strategic and operational levels of CSR marketing communication. We applied the case study research method and specifically with the use of exploratory and descriptive methods, which posits this study within the logic of abductive approach, representing a creative and pragmatic process. The results refer, on the one hand, to the proposition of CSR and sustainable orientation of the one-page strategic plan, but on the other to the merging of the commercial and non-commercial activities of Aarong, a Bangladesh based company. Relying on the one-page strategic plan (OPSP) as a tool of marketing communication at the strategic level, we demonstrated the process of creating a video script scenario as a useful tool at the operational level of marketing communication. The proposed approach to building marketing communication around CSR and sustainable orientation makes the marketing communication consistent and clearer to the audience.