ABSTRACT
Many social services exist to address the prevalent social issues being faced by their stakeholders, yet the processes which social services employ need to be crystallized. If the process of social services becomes specifiable, it may help social services become a social brand. In this regard, social marketing is inherently considered as a strategic tool which ensures the sustainability of business only not for profit based organizations but also for nonprofit organizations. Marketing scholars thus urge to refine the application of social marketing particularly with reference to the process in order for social problems to be addressed cogently. This study posits that the process which social marketing entails should be contextualized as value co-creation. An empirical research was conducted using grounded theory as a research approach to explore the phenomenon of value co-creation. Grounded theory has been employed with a view to provide theoretical underpinning to the concept of social branding. A social service was considered to be a research unit of analysis. Focus group discussions were conducted followed by comparative contrast analysis. The findings reveal that collective participation, mutual interaction, and reciprocal engagement of the stakeholders of social services are the baseline of social marketing. The thematic analysis of focus group discussion resulted in eight key factors to be considered as constituents of the social marketing process. Thus, these factors are considered as part of value co-creation and instrumental for social services’ branding.