To what extent might AP's focus on corporate social responsibility be the most important factor for the success of the proposed new marketing strategy for international markets?

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Feb/Mar 2018). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. Corporate social responsibility includes attitudes and activities undertaken by AP to show their company in a positive light in terms of contributions to society.
2. A marketing strategy includes objectives, marketing budget, USP, marketing mix.
3. Issues of cost and competitiveness
4. AP's commitment to girls' education in Africa. Ethical trading includes paying fair prices for raw materials, not testing on animals and no exploitation of child or other very low cost labour.
5. (NB allow comments about well known businesses who market themselves in this way, such as the Body Shop and candidates' local examples.)
6. Marketing strategy in this case the objective is to increase sales in Asia and USA.
7. Could media reports of worker exploitation in Africa work against AP's declared belief in CSR?
8. Ways in which CSR may be used as part of strategy and increase sales, e.g. to 'ethical' consumers. May enable slightly higher prices to be set.
9. Ways in which this could also increase costs – pressure on price for cost reasons, e.g. paying higher prices to suppliers.
10. Do customers really care? May not influence consumers to buy over cheaper supermarket 'own brand'.
11. Judgement on importance
12. Other aspects of the marketing strategy that may be more important e.g. need to ensure that all parts of the company are run responsibly
13. How do these aspects fit in with all aspects of the marketing strategy, for example to what extent does the company have a USP
14. Issues of consumer attitude - to what extent do these aspects 'sell' products? Might consumers in some countries be more aware than in others? Cynically, do consumers actually care?