Strategic CSR Initiative: Enhancing Christian Dior's Brand Image

This report addresses the challenge of Christian Dior's brand image being tarnished by the use of animal fur and proposes a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative to enhance its ethical standing. The initiative focuses on promoting the company's popular product, "One Essential," a skin-boosting serum made from natural extracts, to reinforce a commitment to natural and ethical products. The report discusses the importance of CSR compliance in the European market, potential challenges in attracting and retaining customers, and strategic directions for the initiative, including leveraging financial data for aggressive marketing. The goal is to regain customer trust and enhance the brand's image by emphasizing ethical practices and natural ingredients, aligning with consumer values and regulatory requirements. The report also highlights the importance of transparency and providing consumers with complete information about product ingredients to avoid potential backlash related to the use of animal products.

Running head: MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
Marketing and Management
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Use of fur and CSR issues:
Use of fur in cloth has caused huge uproar for number of different companies in cloth
manufacturing industry in different parts of the country. The concept of ethical fashion has
gained significant importance in recent times mainly due to the huge controversy of using fur in
cloth manufacturing.
The times have changed for all companies including companies operating in fashion industry.
Importance of complying with the Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) requirements have
increased multiple folds. In fact new provisions have been incorporated in corporation law and
acts to improve the compliance records of companies. Use of fur have number of implications for
different people. For religious people this process of manufacturing clothes by using animal furs
is absolutely unacceptable and unethical. On the other hand the sentiments and emotions of
animal lovers are equally hurt by the revelation about the use of animal fur by Christian Dior to
manufacture its clothes. In order to reassure the customers of the company about its products
including clothes the company must use following processes recognized as CSR practices in
business operations:
I. Designing of clothes and other products by use of natural products.
II. Improving manufacturing processes to use of reduce amount of natural materials.
III. Recycling of waste and other materials to make optimum use of resources.
IV. Reusing the discarded materials earlier in the manufacturing process.
V. Use of no harmful materials to manufacture clothes and other products of the company.

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One product that has been selected to enhance the brand image of Christian Dior is one of
most loved and popular products from the company, i.e. the skin boosting super serum known as
“One Essential.” The image of the product is provided below.
1. The product is very popular with the customers and used to detoxify the skin and work as
a booster for the skin. The product fits perfectly to the corporate social responsibility
initiatives of the company. Corporate social responsibility, here in after to be referred to

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as CSR only, is the requirements for an organization to discharge its responsibility as a
socially responsible legal person (Schwartz, 2017).
2. Being a European Luxury products company, Christian Dior is liable to fulfil the
corporate social responsibility requirements of European Union. Promoting
competitiveness and job creation by fair business practice is the basic premise of CSR
regulations for European business houses. An organization operating in Europe must
comply with the CSR requirements of European Union. One Essential, the skin detoxifier
and booster, is immensely popular product of the company. The product has nothing to
do with animal far or anything that can hurt the religious and emotional sentiments of
consumers. A product will end up losing lots of existing customers if the highest integrity
and confidentiality in respect of the product is not mentioned. Use of far in clothes and
other materials are though not banned as per the CSR regulations for organizations
carrying business operations in the Europe. However, the customers and consumers have
all the right to know about the ingredients of the products used by them. Getting to know
about presence of far can other such items could create a major issue for an organization
(Posner, Williams and Posner, 2015).
Extensive marketing about one of the most popular products, one essential,
manufacture from natural extracts and remedies available will enable the company to
enhance its brand image in the market.
3. The challenges include attracting new customers to the product of the company by
providing a complete detail about the product and its benefits to the customers. The
challenges will be to bring back the lost customers. Promotional activities and

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advertisement about the product and its benefits will be helpful in this regard (Stark,
2015).
4. The financial data about the company in the last three years shall be helpful in providing
a strategic direction to the company.
The growth in revenue certainly suggests that the unethical title due to the use of animal
far has not negatively influenced the financial performance of the company. It is
important to understand that with significant amount of profit the company has the option
of using aggressive marketing to enhance the brand image of the company (Miquel-
Romero, Caplliure-Giner and Adame-Sánchez, 2014).

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References:
Miquel-Romero, M.J., Caplliure-Giner, E.M. and Adame-Sánchez, C., 2014. Relationship
marketing management: Its importance in private label extension. Journal of Business
Research, 67(5), pp.667-672.
Posner, H., Williams, S. and Posner, H., 2015. Marketing fashion: strategy, branding and
promotion. Laurence King Publishing.
Schwartz, M.S., 2017. Corporate social responsibility. Routledge. Available at:
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351948418 [Accessed on 14 November 2018]
Stark, J., 2015. Product lifecycle management. In Product Lifecycle Management (Volume
1) (pp. 1-29). Springer, Cham.