Brand Power and the Politics of the Seam: A Marketing and Public-Relations Analysis of Global Value-Chain Governance, Purchasing Practices, and Reputational Risk in Bangladesh's Ready-Made Garments Sector

Bangladesh's Ready-Made Garments (RMG) sector is conventionally analyzed as a problem of trade policy and labor economics. This paper argues that it is equally, and increasingly, a problem of marketing, advertising, and public relations. Global apparel value chains are buyer-driven: lead brands exercise structural power not through ownership of production but through control of design, orders, pricing, and, critically, the communication channels through which garments reach consumers. Using a qualitative, literature-based case-study method, this paper reframes the political economy of Bangladesh's RMG sector through five marketing-communication lenses: (1) purchasing practices as a failure of value-chain communication; (2) crisis communication and corporate reputation management following mass-casualty industrial disasters; (3) corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication, greenwashing, and the consumer authenticity gap; (4) country-of-origin branding of the "Made in Bangladesh" label; and (5) stakeholder activism and digital transparency movements. The analysis shows that the sector's low-wage "race to the bottom" is sustained not only by trade rules but by asymmetries in brand communication power, and that sustainable upgrading requires coordinated action in purchasing practice, crisis communication ethics, CSR message authenticity, and nation-brand strategy. The paper concludes with integrated marketing-communication and public-relations recommendations for brands, factory owners, the Bangladeshi state, and international buyers.

global value chains; purchasing practices; corporate social responsibility communication; crisis communication; greenwashing; country-of-origin branding;

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