The Effect of Ethical Marketing on Brand Image through the Mediation of Social Responsibility

One of the most important factors that increasingly shapes the thoughts and behavior of buyers is the observance of ethical marketing in today's businesses. Maintaining a relationship with the consumer and building brand loyalty are the main challenges in the current marketing environment. Creating a good brand image in the customer's mind is essential for companies to survive and gain a competitive advantage in today's turbulent market. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of ethical marketing on brand image through social responsibility mediation in Ardabil food industry. The type of research was applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlational in terms of the nature of the method. The statistical population of the present study includes consumers of products of Ardabil food industry companies, from which 384 people were selected based on Morgan table and by available sampling method to answer the questionnaire. To measure the ethical marketing variable, Safari et al. (2017), brand image, Bravo et al. (2010) and social responsibility, Mubarak et al. (2018) were used. The results of structural equation modeling test using PLS software showed that ethical marketing has a positive and significant effect on social responsibility and brand image and social responsibility plays a mediating role between ethical marketing and brand image between ethical marketing and brand image. The findings of this study can be effective in moving companies to pay more attention to the brand image.