Ucb and Csr

Egle Mockeviciute

Student nr.: 403150

Supervisor: Trine M. Østergaard

Aarhus School of Business

Aarhus University

2012

Bachelor Thesis, 2012 May

UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON

Engaging in CSR with its UNHATE Foundation

BA in Marketing and Management Communication

Abstract

In recent years expectations of consumers has increased and it has become evident that businesses need to find new ways to differentiate themselves from competitors in order to reach consumers. For this reason, corporate social responsibility has become a great tool which helps to strengthen the relationship between companies and consumers. Therefore, United Colors of Benetton in 2011 presented the UNHATE Foundation, new worldwide communication campaign which seeks to contribute to the creation of a new culture against hate. Due to the motivation of choosing this company and the topic of corporate social responsibility, this thesis aims to investigate how United Colors of Benetton uses corporate social responsibility tools and persuasive tactics when communicating to their global consumers through its UNHATE Foundation and how this affects the organization’s identity.

In order to have a methodological foundation as a basis for this analysis, the methodological hermeneutics is employed. This scientific method helps to answer the problem statement of this thesis and because of the hermeneutical approach, the communication is analysed from a company’s perspective. The second part of this thesis provides a theoretical framework for analysis. Therefore, in order to answer the problem statement, the concept of corporate social responsibility is taken into consideration and applied to the UNHATE Foundation. First of all, it can be claimed that the campaign is founded with ethical purposes, which according to Mark S. Schwartz and Archie B. Carroll, means that United Colors of Benetton does not seek to gain anything back and activities promoted by the UNHATE Foundation are promoted only...