How Brands Communicate Sustainability Messages in Emerging Markets: a Content Analysis Based on Corporate Websites and Social Media

Abstract

Sustainability is becoming a key concept of competitiveness for brands around the globe. Brands incorporate sustainability into their strategic plans and communicate messages with an aim to attract consumers. In this context, Web and social media are important communication platforms to access to a large number of target consumers. It is now considered to be critical to understand the extent to which brands use such platforms to communicate their sustainability messages, especially in emerging markets where world trade is expanding towards. In this chapter, sustainability-focused communication strategies and messages of the top 100 Turkish and 100 global brands on websites and social media platforms, namely Facebook and Twitter accounts in Turkish language, are examined by content analysis. Their approaches in delivering messages and publicizing practices about different sustainability dimensions in different platforms are also compared. The results indicate important implications for brands to highlight their sustainability messages online.