Corporate social responsibility & the advertising strategic planning process: a literature review & research agenda

Abstract

Global consumers are increasingly expecting brands to strive to positively impact the communities and societies in which they exist. Marketers are taking heed, looking to balance social good against commercial profits in their decision making. Historically the purview of management, business ethics, and public relations research, advertising research has, until lately, largely ignored CSR and the critical role advertising communication and practice play in it. With CSR advertising scholarship on the rise, this article seeks to provide focus to the area by placing extant and future research in the context of the advertising strategic planning process (SPP) in order to holistically understand CSR’s impact and gaps in knowledge. This study represents a systematic review of advertising CSR research in Social Science Citation Index advertising journals within the Web of Science database. Forty-three relevant articles were reviewed to identify relevance and situatedness within the SPP. Based on these findings, a research agenda addressing gaps in each of the stages of the SPP is proposed.

Keywords:

• Corporate social responsibility
• advertising
• strategic planning process
• CSR
• systematic review

Data availability

The data analyzed in this article was collected via a search of Social Science Citation Index advertising journals via the Web of Science database. For access to data, feel free to contact Dr. Jameson Hayes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This project was not supported by any funding source.

Notes on contributors

Jameson L. Hayes

Jameson Hayes (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising + Public Relations and Director of the Public Opinion Lab at the University of Alabama.

Steven Holiday

Steven Holiday (Ph.D., Texas Tech University) is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Advertising + Public Relations at the University of Alabama.

Haseon Park

Haseon Park (M.A., University of North Dakota) is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Advertising + Public Relations at the University of Alabama.