Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the new mantra in the corporate world, has now become the recipe for the advertisements. Companies are realizing that as corporate citizens they are responsible for highlighting the values and morals that are important for the formation of a good society and are therefore keen on including a social tinge in their ads. Campaigns designed around societal issues help companies to differentiate their brands from the competition, attracts investors and creates a favorable impression about the company in the markets. These kinds of ads have become more receptive nowadays as public sensitivity and awareness towards building a better nation have heightened. This article examines the emergence of this trend and cites examples of companies which are using various promotional tools to highlight social issues.

Corporate India has always been innovating ideas to capture the minds of the customers. With the competition getting tougher, the ideas need to be improved to capture the customer's attention. Studying the present trends, it appears that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the focal theme that is used extensively by ad sponsors to sway the consumers in their favor. This new genre of ads helps to spread high morals and ethical values and also generates social awareness of several pressing and critical issues. Brands are now representing themselves in a broader way and are moving towards creating a mood of social consciousness.

Many advertisements are promoting ideas than sales. In the modern era of marketing, advertisements have become a tool of communicating and creating an image in the consumer's mind rather than just making sales. The essence of advertising is to relate the customers with the ideas that fascinate them.

The best example of a socially responsible brand is Idea Cellular. Idea's campaign featuring Abishek Bachchan, the popular film actor, with the tag line "What an Idea SirJi" is quite popular among the rural as well as the urban India. Idea made its curtain raiser with an ad which had the theme as "What if there are no castes?"

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