Exploring Sustainable and Ethical Marketing in the Age of Disruption: Evaluating Brand Credibility and Consumer Trust

The modern business landscape is marked by fast disruption, technological innovation, along with changing expectations among consumers, necessitating organizations to rethink their marketing approaches. The role of sustainable and ethical marketing models as enablers of credibility and trust in brands in the current disruptive business environment is based on theoretical formulation achieved by existing literature. This research explores the influence of sustainable and ethical marketing on developing brand credibility and consumer trust in the context of disruptive market settings. Based on stakeholder and brand relationship theories, the study utilized a standardized questionnaire on 420 consumers from varied demographics. The measurement model established reliability and validity with robust loadings of sustainable marketing (0.84–0.90), ethical marketing (0.82–0.85), brand credibility (0.72–0.87), and consumer trust (0.87–0.90). Structural equation modelling identified sustainable marketing to have a positive impact on brand credibility (β = 0.428), whereas ethical marketing directly impacted consumer trust (β = 0.387). Brand credibility was the most influential factor on consumer trust (β = 0.471), stressing its mediation. In addition, the conciliation of ethical and sustainable marketing practices was also a significant positive factor on consumer trust (β = 0.316), underlining the significance of integrated strategies. The results make a theoretical contribution in affirming the functions of sustainability and ethics in establishing credible and responsible brands, and in a practical sense, providing frameworks for organisations to integrate authenticity, transparency, and responsibility in marketing. The aim of this research study is to explore the relationship between mutually reinforcing marketing concepts such as sustainable marketing, ethical marketing and brand credibility and consumer trust in a market environment of disruption

Sustainable marketing, Ethical marketing, Brand credibility, Consumer trust, Disruptive environment

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