Sustainable branding strategies for the digital age: insights from an ADO-TCM review

Sustainable branding has emerged as an essential strategy due to the demands of investors, regulators, and consumers for ethical and transparent business practices. This study presents a comprehensive literature analysis utilizing the ADO-TCM frameworks to examine 56 articles from ABDC (A&A*) journals. The ADO framework identifies essential antecedents, including brand trust, stakeholder engagement, organizational culture, and technological innovations that drive sustainable branding initiatives. It analyses strategic choices related to Co-creation, authentic communication, and mitigation of greenwashing threats, linking factors with results such as improved brand loyalty, resilience, and equity. The TCM framework maps prevailing theories such as social exchange, attribution theories, and various geographic contexts, evolving research methods, highlighting a shift from niche market to mainstream marketing focus driven by environmental concerns and digital transformation. The review identifies research gaps in technology adoption and emerging markets, emphasizing the necessity for methodological diversity and adaptive marketing strategies to sustain brand value amid a changing societal and technological landscape. The analysis reveals that effective sustainable branding increasingly relies on investments in digital skills, value communication, and the capacity to assess and report sustainability outcomes. This synthesis offers guidance for scholars and practitioners to enhance sustainable brand impact in a rapidly changing environment.