Social Advertisements from a Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective: A Study of World Water Day Advertisements

Abstract

Purpose – Global warming and related climate changes have led to an increase in droughts and a decrease in water resources worldwide. These negativities have popularised corporate social responsibility activities to protect water. One of these is the corporate social responsibility activities carried out by the brands in the white goods sector. Brands in the white goods sector aim to create a social awareness and bring about a certain behavioural change in their target audiences by broadcasting their corporate social responsibility activities through social advertisements. In this context, the study aims to determine how the brands Arçelik and Vestel create awareness in order to protect water in their social advertisements published within the scope of '22 March World Water Day'.

Design/methodology/approach – In the study, the social advertisements of the brands were analysed by semiotic method. Accordingly, the 47 second advertisement of the brand Arçelik and the 2 minute 52 second advertisement of the brand Vestel were analysed.

Findings – When the findings obtained in the research are evaluated, it is concluded that the target audiences are encouraged and a social awareness is created by emphasising that every house has an important potential to conserve water in the published social advertisements. Another finding of the study was that important messages were given through the indicators used in the advertisements.

Discussion – In these days when the effects of global warming are felt severely, it is of great importance for all organisations to carry out corporate social responsibility campaigns on behalf of protecting water and to share these campaigns with their target audiences through social advertisements. In this study, the activities carried out by the brands in the white goods sector to protect water in line with their corporate social responsibility understanding were analysed through social advertisements. In other studies to be conducted on this subject, a sectoral comparative analysis can be made by addressing the corporate social responsibility activities and social advertisements of brands in different sectors.