Making the Planet More Habitable: Business Perspectives for Social Economy
Social Marketing Activities: Measuring Non-financial Disclosures
Recep PekdemirUndoubtedly, COVID-19 taught that all organizations worldwide should reconsider sustainability once more due to the many people that either died or became sick during the pandemic. The result was that everyone tried to make a world where people stayed safe and well during the unprecedented period. In addition, protecting the environment and contributing to communities have also gained significance. Thus, the most critical question that could be raised in this environment involves who is doing what to influence behavior-changing societal and financial gain. The question is customizable for industries and sectors, as well as specific companies and corporations. This chapter is inspired by the environment and has a threefold purpose: (1) to identify social marketing activities in general, (2) to develop a framework for measuring the financial and non-financial information about social marketing activities that might involve for-profit purpose entities, and (3) to examine the social marketing activities of a forprofit purpose entity (i.e., a private banking corporation in Turkey) as a pilot study using its annual reports or separate CSR reports. To achieve the above objectives, this chapter will (a) revisit the evolution and background of social marketing, (b) identify the social marketing activities that might involve for-profit purpose entities, (c) develop a framework for measuring information about reporting social marketing activities to use as a social marketing index, and (d) examine the social marketing activities of a private banking corporation in Turkey in order to test the proposed social marketing index. The pilot study’s application of the proposed index enabled the conclusion that a superficial level of social marketing activities exists. The proposed index has been tested over a year of data, is easy for researchers and professionals to use, and provides for understandable decision-making. As a suggestion for future studies, the proposed index can be applied to other industries.