KUALA LUMPUR: Consumers believe that corporate citizenship activities are genuinely beneficial and expect corporations to actively contribute to society’s well-being.
These are the findings from a recent study from nine countries across the Southeast Asia and Oceania region, conducted by Kadence Singapore and commissioned by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
The research also revealed positive attitudes around corporate community engagement as well as consumer opinions on citizenship initiatives.
Data was gathered from 1,916 consumer online interviews in nine countries across Southeast Asia and Oceania.
They are Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand
The study found that the majority (73 per cent) of respondents believe that community engagement activities are genuinely beneficial to the community.
More than six in 10 respondents (65 per cent) believe that large corporations have a responsibility to help the community.
Along with the expectation for corporations to lead community engagement efforts, consumers are taking it upon themselves to find out and be aware of these efforts.
Consumers across the region (72 per cent) indicated that it is important for them to be engaged with a corporation’s citizenship efforts, and this was especially so for Indonesia (90 per cent) and the Philippines (88 per cent).
Testament to its strong citizenship efforts, Samsung led both spontaneous and prompted association for brands involved in CSR activities.
Close to three in 10 respondents (29 per cent) spontaneously named Samsung as a brand actively involved in CSR, a significant two-fold lead over the next brand (a consumer technology brand).
Among a list of technology and non-technology brands, Samsung also led prompted association (45 per cent).
Brand perception was also found to be elevated upon knowledge of a brand’s community engagement efforts.
Four in five respondents (80 per cent) indicated that being aware of Samsung’s corporate citizenship programs would lead to a significantly more positive impression of the brand.
“While it has long been acknowledged that community outreach has an impact on brand awareness and perception, our study reaffirms that consumers still view these activities as integral elements towards a responsible corporate citizen,” said Samsung Electronics Southeast Asia and Oceania vice president of corporate marketing Irene Ng.
“It is heartening to know that consumers recognise the genuine benefit these programs have on communities and we look forward to improving the quality of life through our scalable and sustainable citizenship programs across the region,” she added.
Respondents of the survey also shared areas in which they hoped to see Samsung involvement in, with the categories of “Community Development”, “Education” and “Volunteering” emerging as the top three themes.