Integrating Internal and External Marketing for Sustainable Brand Culture: A Human-Centered Perspective in Industry 5.0

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-624-1_41How to use a DOI?

Keywords

internal marketing; employee engagement; brand advocacy; sustainable brand culture; human-centered digital transformation

Abstract

In the era of booming sustainable digital transformation, organizations’ approach must bridge the gap between internal and external marketing to drive sustainable brand development. This study adopts a human-centered perspective to analyze how internal marketing (IM) practices enhance employee engagement (EE) within an organization, which then drives brand advocacy (BA) and contributes to a more sustainable brand culture (SBC), serving as a critical external marketing factor amid the digital shift. Using Social Exchange Theory (SET) as the conceptual foundation, the suggested model was tested using the data from a 97-employee survey of a garment enterprise that has nurtured a human-intensive approach and is undergoing digital transformation in Vietnam. This is validated using the crucial role of employees as assets in aligning internal values with external brand articulation. Contrary to traditional theories, the results reveal that EE does not significantly drive BA in this blue-collar context (β = 0.119, p > .05). On the contrary, BA appeared to be the dominant and positive mediator (β = 0.832, p < .001), which then serves as the primary driver of SBC (R² = 0.756). These findings challenge the assumption that psychological engagement is a prerequisite for advocacy, showing that tangible organizational support is the primary trigger for brand-supportive behaviors among production-line workers. The study provides actionable insights for Industry 5.0 organizations whose mottos are to build humanized, resilient, value-driven brand cultures by prioritizing livelihood security and behavioral advocacy.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Nguyen Thu Huyen
AU  - Nguyen Phu Dai
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/04/06
TI  - Integrating Internal and External Marketing for Sustainable Brand Culture: A Human-Centered Perspective in Industry 5.0
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Sustainable Economics and Finance in the Digital Business Transformation (INCOSEF 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 560
EP  - 572
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-624-1_41
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-624-1_41
ID  - Huyen2026
ER  -