Fearless Predictions on the Future of Cause-Related Marketing

I have a spotty record predicting the future.

I bought a Zip drive about a week before the first USB drive came out. And then, admiring the portability of said USB drives I bought 2 of them with 56K of memory for about $50 a pop. I have two sets of the 1987 Topps baseball cards (which includes the rookie cards for Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire) still in the original shrink-wrap. They’re worth almost exactly what I paid for them. Or rather less, considering the ravages of inflation.

(I also have a first edition of Hayduke Lives by Edward Abbey that has doubled in value. So, I’m not always dead wrong.)

So imagine my surprise to get a short missive from Bay-area fundraising consultant Gayle Roberts asking me to weigh in on the topic of “Predicting the Future of Fundraising” for the September Giving Carnival.

But like all pundits, I’ve got an opinion no matter my history of accuracy!

That said, to paraphrase Abbey’s ‘warning’ at the front of Hayduke “Anyone who takes these predictions seriously will be shot. Anyone who does not take them seriously will be buried by a Mitsubishi bulldozer.”

Here then are my bold predictions on the future of cause-related marketing.

I predict that cause-related marketing will continue to grow in North America, if modestly. How’s that for wild-eyed caution? According to IEG cause-related marketing has hovered around 10 percent of the total of all sponsorship for the last decade. I don’t see anything in the near term that leads me to believe the practice is going to significantly break out of that range.

I predict eco cause marketing will become commonplace. There’s already some going on in North America. But cause-related marketing with an environmental theme remains more common in Europe than in Canada and the United States. That’s because the Europeans are about 18 months ahead of us on the issue. That said, most of the environmental cause-related marketing I see right now is complicated. Silk Soy recently used an old-school turn in a cap campaign. But instead of generating money, each cap represented wind power offsets. It took their whole website to explain it. Eco cause marketing will need to get simpler in order for it to really grow. Either that or main-street Americans are going to have to acquire a more sophisticated understanding of the ends and outs of carbon credits. I know which eventuality I’m betting on.

I predict North Americans will increasingly respond to cause-related marketing campaigns for foreign causes, especially in the Third World. Ten years ago a colleague and I were in the Washington D.C. office of a prominent international relief organization and we got absolutely abused by the head program officer over all the money we were raising with cause marketing for ‘fat cat’ children’s hospitals. “Why couldn’t cause marketing fund efforts in third world countries?” she asked us. Back then the answer was that she was too emotionally invested in her cause to see that Americans weren’t ready to redistribute their wealth through cause-related marketing. Now they are.

I predict that cause-related marketing will grow fastest in places like India. That’s because every week someone searches my blog using terms like “cause marketing, India,” or “cause-related marketing programmes in South Africa.”

I predict more local market CRM. It’s easy to look at the mega-campaigns from national brands… both for-profit and non-profit… and conclude that that’s where all the action is. But just as cause-related marketing can scale up, it can also scale down, thank you very much. Local causes that generate affinity and can make a compelling (and brief!) case for the need, can be successful. I see plenty of these local efforts all the time and expect to see more.

I predict that for the foreseeable future CRM will continue to trail the giants of sponsorship like the NFL. That’s because too many cause marketers still think it’s all about tears when in fact it’s all about eyeballs. The big guys understand that and NASCAR and its peers are much better at delivering eyeballs than their charity cousins.

Mostly, though I predict that cause-related marketing will continue as a viable tactic and in some cases a strategy for both companies and nonprofits. That’s because for all the naysayers and bad press in the last six months, cause-related marketing works.

• It generates unrestricted money, which is highly coveted in nonprofit fundraising.



• It deepens relationships with supporters.



• It engenders loyalty in a company’s customers.



• It builds brands, both for-profit and nonprofit.

More to the point, cause-related marketing works best with women in general, who control 80 percent of all household spending in the United States and Gen Y in particular, who on the balance seem to appreciate the practice.

Cause-Related Marketing with Customer Receipts

Walgreens and JDRF

Right now at Walgreens…the giant pharmacy and retail store chain with more than 5,800 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico… they’re selling $1 paper icons for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).
This is an annual campaign and I bought one to gauge how it’s changed over the years. (Short list… they don’t do the shoe as a die cut anymore; the paper icon is now an 8¾ x 4¼ rectangle. Another interesting change; one side is now in Spanish).

The icon has a bar code and Jacob, the clerk, scanned it and handed me a receipt as we finished the transaction. At the bottom was an 800-number keyed to a customer satisfaction survey. Dial the number, answer some questions and you’re entered into a drawing for $10,000 between now and the end of September 2007.

I don’t know what their response rate is, but the $10,000 amount suggests that it’s pretty low. Taco Bell’s survey gives out $1,000 per week. At a regional seafood restaurant they give me a code that garners a free dessert when you complete their survey. Finish Home Depot’s survey and you’re entered to win a $5,000 gift card good at the retailer.

As I left the store I thought, ‘they know I just bought a JDRF paper icon. Instead of offering me the chance to win $10,000, why wouldn’t they offer to donate $5 (or more!) to JDRF when I complete their survey?’

If that seems like a stretch, take a step back. Encouraging certain human behaviors in exchange for making a donation of some kind to a charity is a defining factor in most cause-related marketing.

My purchase of the JDRF paper icon demonstrates that I have some affinity for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. It’s not a big sweaty ordeal to write a couple of lines of code in order to change the pitch at the bottom of the receipt when I've purchased a JDRF icon. Heck they could even get JDRF’s logo on it, too.

Time is off the essence with these surveys. But since (according to the Cellular Telecommunications International Association) some 233 million Americans are wireless subscribers, Walgreens could even offer some sort of sliding scale whereby the sooner you call, the greater the donation, e.g.:

• Answer the survey within 24 hours and the donation is $10.


• Answer the survey within 48 hours and the donation is $7.


• Answer the survey within 72 hours and the donation is $5, etc.

Maybe the only real challenge would be explaining it simply enough in 30 words or less.

Most of these surveys can also be completed online, too. That represents another chance to do some cause-related marketing and some marketing for JDRF. For people who choose the JDRF donation option, when the survey ends they could be linked to the JDRF site or maybe some interim microsite that would offer thanks and reinforce their core message. The microsite could also offer subscriptions to one or more of JDRF’s e-newsletters.

I think it's worth considering.

Chili’s and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

I was in Chili’s today and I ordered their “Triple-Dipper,” a three appetizer combo. While I waited for the food, I noticed another kind of combo. Chili’s is doing a full-featured cause-related marketing campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

There was a four-sided laminated table tent outlining the campaign on the table. When the waitress brought the drinks she slapped down Chili’s trademark square paper beverage coasters and on them was a call to action for an element of the campaign called ‘Create-A-Pepper,’ a kind of paper icon campaign. The wait staff was all attired in black shirts co-branded with Chili’s and St. Jude.

The Create-A-Pepper paper icon could be found in a stack behind the hostess area. The Peppers are outlines of Chili’s iconic logo meant to be colored. I paid $1 for mine, but they would have taken $5, $10, or more. The crayons, too, were co-branded with the ‘Create-A-Pepper’ and St. Jude’s logos.

There’s also creatapepper.com, a microsite, but again with a lot of features.

• You can browse a list of celebrity-created peppers from the likes of Cindy Crawford, Reese Witherspoon, Jay Leno, Steve Carrell, Kurt Russell, and others.
• There’s a cool online version of Create-A-Pepper where I made an awful mess.
• There's a sweepstakes element for the best Create-A-Pepper coloring sheet.
• A merchandise section sells dog tags and the T-shirt the Chili’s staff was wearing.
• And, of course, a donate now button.

Like Steve Martin said, “all I can say is wow.”

Even though I was wowed I came away with a few questions.

• I’m not a fan of paper icons shaped like an element from the sponsor’s product line or their logo. It brands the sponsor, sure. But isn’t it better for the sponsor to wrap itself in the charity rather than the other way around?
• In the Chili’s where I ate, I had to ask the hostess for the icons on my way out. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for her to mention ‘Create-A-Pepper’ as I came in, thereby giving me time to color it while I waited for my meal? If she doesn’t know how to do that she needs a script that tells her how.
• I wondered about the cost. A note on the Create-A-Pepper says that “100% of the purchase price of this coloring sheet will go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.” That’s reassuring. But who paid for the paper coasters, the staff’s T-shirts, the table tent, the crayons?

Don’t misunderstand. I like these well-coordinated, completely integrated campaigns. But every charity fights the perception problem that goes something like this; “that’s some awful nice paper that they printed this annual report on. And look at all these colored pictures. They must not need my money very much!”

Worse, there’s a kind of Catch-22 in effect. Even if Chili’s covered all those costs, there are still a substantial (if minority) audience of critics who would say, “why didn’t Chili’s just give St. Jude all the money rather than buy a bunch of fancy T-shirts and crayons?”

Is that fair? Probably not. But that’s the way people think.

I left Chili’s quite full. The Triple-Dipper is a lot of food. Likewise, the Create-A-Pepper is a lot of campaign. A few tweaks and it could be a great campaign.

Open Source Cause-Related Marketing

Excuse me while I coin a phrase; “open source cause-related marketing.”

In effect General Mills has turned its Box Tops for Education campaign into an open source cause marketing campaign. I realized this as I walked into Sam’s Club the other day and was handed the handbill above. On the front it details a small promotion for earning bonus Box Tops.

On the backside it lists 33 items available in Sam’s Club that participate in Boxtops for Education. But here’s the kicker, they’re not all General Mills products. As I noted in my April 3, 2007 posting, General Mills opened up Box Tops to other non-competing brands in 2006.

What wasn’t apparent to me then was the degree to which General Mills has pulled its own branding from the Box Tops campaign. Notice that General Mills name and logo are conspicuously absent from the Box Tops logo. If you go to the Box Tops for Education website you’ll find General Mills in the fact sheet. But otherwise its presence is largely confined to a small copyright notice at the bottom of each page.

In effect, General Mills has opened up its “source code” to non-competing brands, including Scott paper towels, Huggies baby wipes, Hefty disposable plates, plus retailers including J.C. Penney, Land’s End, and, to a degree, Sam’s Club.

Why would General Mills do this?

• In software coding you do it for several reasons none the least of which is that many hands make light work.
• Certainly the change has boosted the campaign. According to their website, by 2004 Box Tops had generated $100 million for America’s schools. General Mills got there by adding the lion’s share of their own brands to Box Tops. In 2006 they opened up the program to non-General Mills brands. Now in the eighth month of 2007, they’ve already crossed the $200 million mark.
• Relatedly, after all their brands were in the program, General Mills had only two ways to grow the campaign: organically or by bringing in other outside brands.
• General Mills probably gets some sort of fee from the other participants for administering the campaign.
• Plus, there’s broader competitive reasons. Retailers including Target, Wal-Mart, Kroger and others all sell house brands that compete with General Mills, Kimberly-Clark, Ziploc and others. Oftentimes those house brands represent a retailer’s richest profit margins. Consumers are buying more and more of these of these house brands. Box Tops for Education represents a way for manufacturers to stem that tide.

Call me a geek, but I’m anxious to watch and see how open source cause-related marketing develops.

Punk Cause Marketing

How do you make it in the music business?

• Use to be you were an ‘overnight success’ discovered in the clubs by an A&R guy from the record company after living in your van for 12 years. The record companies would promote you and if you sold millions, you got rich and died drunk in a tragic airplane accident.


• In the last few years, you could try out for American Idol (or its many extensions worldwide) and be humiliated by Simon Cowell on national TV.


• Now, you can open a Myspace page for free. Shoot your own bare bones music video for maybe $10 and post it on YouTube for free. And if it’s authentic and unique and it somehow speaks to an audience, you get millions of downloads and appear on national TV!

That’s what happened to Tay Zonday, erstwhile PhD student and Internet impresario, who’s hit it big with ‘Chocolate Rain.’ Zonday… a stage name for Adam Bahner… looks like Urkel and sounds like Barry White. And the lyrics make just enough sense that they pass for profundity. The video quality is so poor that when you see it for the first thought you wonder if it’s even real.

But it’s been downloaded nearly 6 million times! And last week Tay Zonday made his national TV debut on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live.’ He’s started performing for paying audiences, too.

Here’s the biggest head-scratcher of all. Zonday posted Chocolate Rain on YouTube back in January 2007 but it didn’t become a hit until unrelated people started making parodies of it! One of them was by Green Day’s Tre Cool, a mainstream recording artist of the type listed above.

If you’re a marketer [cause or otherwise] how do you make sense of this? Tay Zonday never bought any television, radio, or newspaper ads. Nobody paid Tre Cool to make his parody.

It’s a wacky, weird, scary new world where everything marketers used to know has been turned on its head.

Fortunately a small chorus of voices has have stepped in to help, including the always insightful Seth Godin, and Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons, authors of the intriguing book Punk Marketing.

Laermer and Simmons list 14 manifestos for these upside-down times:

Avoid Risk and Die
In times of change the greatest risk is to take none at all.

Why Not Ask ‘Why Not?’
Assumptions are just that. Anything you assume is usually a half-truth or generalizations that once served a useful purpose but now hinders truly creative solutions.

Take a Strong Stand
Trying to be all things to everyone on the planet inevitably results in meaning little of interest to just about anybody.

Don’t Pander
Customers are important but they are not necessarily right.

Give Up Control
Consumers now control brands. Smart marketers recognize this and embrace it rather than fight the powerful truth.

Expose Yourself
A relationship of trust between brand and consumer, like that between two people, is built upon honesty.

Make Enemies
All brands need to position themselves against an alternative.

Leave Them Wanting More
Avoid the temptation to reveal all of your assets at once. Or as the masters have said: You don’t teach them everything you know. You teach them everything they
know.

Outthink the Competition
Think smarter than the other dude. Do not be led into temptation by the fast buck and don’t try and outspend them.

Don’t Be Seduced By Technology
The media is not the message anymore. The message is the message is the message.

Know Who You Are
If you don’t understand what it is that you are good at you might be tempted to try and be something you are not.

No More Marketing Bull****
Get to the point. Express it clearly and simply. Einstein said — we believe he meant marketers: “Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.”

Don’t Let Others Set Your Standards
Sorry to tell you this but good no longer means anything while mediocre does more harm than doing nothing.

Use the Tools Of The Revolution
Nothing that captivates should be excluded.

What does this mean for cause marketers? Well, at the core of Punk Marketing is the concept of ‘authenticity.’ That’s a fancy way of saying don’t lie. It also means to be true to what you are.

Keep that in mind as you post videos from your cause-related marketing campaigns on YouTube or invite people to join your cause at MySpace.

Apple Vacations and Susan G. Komen

Bring on Cause-Related Marketing 2.0

Like a kiwi fruit, the Internet looks different from the outside than what it tastes like. It’s easy to look at the Internet and see a computer-driven media. But for marketers it tastes like direct mail, newspapers, radio, and TV.

Like never before cause marketers are utilizing the Internet to drive their campaigns. Illustrated above is an example from Apple Vacations benefiting Susan G. Komen which came to me in an email.

Here’s the offer, Apple Vacations, which bills itself as “America’s Vacation Company,” will donate $50 to Susan G. Komen every time someone books a qualifying “travel pink, travel Oahu” vacation to Hawaii through October 15.

When I look at this email I see something that's just about half-baked.

• It starts with the inelegant pink lei in the shape of breast cancer’s iconic pink ribbon.
• The pink and blue graphic is kinda blah.
• The headline is barely serviceable.
• There’s no logo from Komen, suggesting that Apple Vacations is not an official sponsor. [Indeed, Komen’s website doesn’t list Apple Vacations as a sponsor.]
• There are no links to Komen or to a microsite to explain the campaign in greater depth. The October 15 deadline…two full months… seems too long.
• Where’s the web 2.0 elements like a blog, vlog, podcast, picture blog or community site which would be especially well-suited for a campaign like this?
• Most of all, where’s the emotion?

But that’s just me.

Apple Vacations could easily test every single one of those suggestions and get a real strong read about what people do and do not respond to. Indeed, they may be doing just that.

That’s the beauty of the Internet…the ability to quickly and cheaply discover the campaign that works best.

If your company or nonprofit has been using A-B tests or its kin in a campaign like this I'd love to hear what you learned. Email me at aldenkeeneatgmaildotcom.

The Power of a Single Picture in Cause-Related Marketing

Best Buy and Fisher House

Early in my career a grizzled old veteran of marketing and communications for nonprofits said in a meeting “it’s all about the T-shirts.”

He meant that when it came to marketing and communications campaigns the biggest battles were often over the smallest things, like the T-shirt. Because when it comes to marketing and communications even if few people know the marcom concepts of ‘return of customer investment’ or, ‘share of requirement’ everybody from the CEO to the janitor understands T-shirts.

I’m now a grizzled old veteran and I beg to differ. Everybody seems to want input on T-shirts, that’s true enough. But it’s not all about the T-shirt.

No, in cause-related marketing campaigns one of the details you should obsess over is the picture… or pictures… that illustrates the cause.

Among other talents, these days an effective cause marketer better be a very good photo editor.

The classic example is Special Olympics. As soon as you see the kids racing in a pool, getting a medal, or reaching out to hug a volunteer, you know everything you need to know. The picture tells more than all the words that follow ever could.

A kid in a wheelchair in a hot air balloon tells almost the whole story for Make-A-Wish. Likewise, a woman wearing racing shorts, a pink logo T-shirt with a bandanna tied over a bald head sums up Susan G. Komen’s story with just one photo.

To a degree you can do the same with hospitalized kids. But it’s trickier. At Children’s Miracle Network… which raises money for 170 children’s hospitals in North America… we would never showcase a kid who subsequently died. It was considered to be exploitive and it cut against the cultural grain. Nor did we often use pictures of a child in a hospital bed with 20 tubes and hoses going into the child, although that image conveys plenty of information, too.

Other charities don’t have it so easy.

It would take a very talented photographer indeed to tell the whole story for the Children’s Organ Transplant Association with just one photo, for instance.

So imagine the challenge facing the Fisher House Foundation. Fisher House provides comfort housing for the families of military veterans receiving medical treatment at 33 locations across the United States, frequently near VA and other military hospitals and at low cost. It was founded in 1990 by Zachary Fisher, a New York City developer, philanthropist and patron of military veterans and causes.

In short, it’s the Ronald McDonald House for the families of injured military veterans.

But how do you illustrate that mission and purpose with one photo?

The image above from a sales flyer for Best Buy, shows us how. First of all we see the soldier in uniform, even if he isn’t wearing any insignia or rank. The uniformed services, including firefighters and police officers, of course have the advantage of well-recognized uniforms.

The photo also depicts the soldier sitting. It’s a little hard to make out, but the soldier is in fact an amputee. They could have depicted him standing and leaning on crutches but that’s potentially exploitive.

They also show him getting support from his smiling wife and baby daughter. While our heart goes out to him for the terrific sacrifice he’s made, this isn’t just about the soldier. The family also pays a price. And when you support the family you support the soldier, too.

The American flag background is expected, even if people outside the States might find it over the top. Americans come out of the womb as flag-wavers.

No photographer who considers himself or herself an artist would put this photo in their portfolio. It ain’t exactly art. But a self-respecting cause marketer could proudly put the photo in their portfolio. Because with just one image it goes a long way in describing the work of the Fisher House.

Exclusivity and Cause-Related Marketing

On the Horns of a Dilemma

The August issue of Costco’s member magazine, “The Costco Connection,” features a short story about the retailer’s longstanding commitment to children’s hospitals, with a special emphasis on Seattle Children’s Hospital and Medical Center.

Since 1989, the article points out, Costco has raised more than $30 million for Seattle Children’s and an unstated amount for 24 other children’s hospitals in North America.

Now for the rest of the story.

Seattle Children’s Hospital is part of Children’s Miracle Network (CMN), which raises more than $225 million a year on behalf of its 170 affiliated hospitals in the United States and Canada. As CMN proudly points out, most of the best children’s hospitals in North America’s are affiliated with CMN.

One of the things CMN asks of its participating hospitals is that when they land a sponsor which could become a regional or national sponsor that they share. A goodly number of CMN’s largest national sponsors were brought on in exactly that way. And indeed the staff that runs the CMN program for Seattle Children’s Hospital did just that.

But there was snafu. Not long before, Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock had brought Wal-Mart to CMN. Costco is perhaps the only mass merchant retailer that Wal-Mart has never beaten in the United States and Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club unit is a fierce (albeit smaller) rival of Costco.

CMN offers sponsors category exclusivity and with both retailers in the same grouping something had to give. The national office of CMN was on the horns of a dilemma. While Costco was an effective fundraiser in Seattle, Costco stores at that time were heavily weighted in the Western U.S. Both retailers were giants, but Wal-Mart was already truly national.

Ultimately CMN went with the bigger giant. It was the right decision in terms of money. Wal-Mart raises roughly $30 million a year for CMN, more than it gives to United Way or anyone else. Wal-Mart is CMN’s largest sponsor by a factor of 4 or 5.

Meanwhile, instead of feeling rebuffed, Costco went right on fundraising for Seattle Children’s and eventually 24 other children’s hospitals in North America, all of which are affiliated with Children’s Miracle Network. I don’t know the exact number, but I estimate that those 24 other children’s hospitals split something north of $5 million a year and perhaps as much as $8 million or more a year.

In other words, Costco is almost certainly among CMN’s top five largest sponsors. It may even be number two!

The result has been some awkward situations. Like perpetually running into the person you seriously dated before you married someone else.

1. Neither CMN’s U.S. website or press materials list Costco as a sponsor. CMN’s Canadian website lists Costco as a sponsor, but snubs ‘em by not including a link to Costco’s website, a courtesy it extends to every other sponsor.


2. At CMN’s annual meetings for its affiliated hospitals they conduct fundraising sessions for each sponsor except Costco. The 25 hospitals instead get together independently of Children’s Miracle Network during the annual meeting to share ideas and best practices.


3. Likewise, during CMN’s annual television show Celebration, Costco is not recognized on the national show. But it is recognized in local markets by the 25 children’s hospitals.

Meanwhile Costco's website says “the United Way and Children’s Miracle Network are important to our charitable giving.”

So if CMN somehow manages to pull in multi-millions from two competitors, why raise the issue?

I raise it because there’s not many Costco’s in this world. CMN is fortunate… lucky even… that Costco does as much as they do for relatively little in return.

More to the point, if you’re just starting to sell sponsorships you need to think very hard about offering exclusivity. The advantage of exclusivity for a nonprofit is that it gives a sponsor assurances that your charity will not approach competitors. The advantage to nonprofits is that you can ask for more money in return.

But use it judiciously.

The fellow in the picture above escaped with a few scrapes and bruises. But exclusivity in cause-related marketing can be like running with the bulls at Pamplona; exciting, thrilling, and life-affirming.

But it can also get gory in a hurry.

Just What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

Exercising Self-Interest

It’s gotten mighty hard to nail down just exactly what people mean these days when they speak of corporate social responsibility.

Does it mean extracting sea turtles out of fishing nets or not eating monoculture salmon? Does it mean not out-sourcing jobs to cheaper foreign lands even if it raises the standard of living in those places? What if the outsourced jobs go to foreign union members? Is it better to build a new LEED certified building or to make due with the old building that’s sturdy if not entirely energy efficient? Is it more socially responsible for a company to donate to an AIDS orphan cause in Africa than to a ballet company in Africa? What if the ballet company employs AIDS victims?

I’m not an ethicist and some of these questions are ethical questions. But for the rest of us how are we supposed to navigate the thicket of sometimes competing and oftentimes perplexing conundrums framed as issues of corporate social responsibility?

This was all so much easier when “the business of America [was still] business,” to paraphrase the famously-taciturn former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge (seen above on the right).

I am, however, a marketer. And in marketing one way to know where you stand with stakeholders who are important to you is to ask them. It won’t necessarily yield perfect moral clarity, but it can suggest pathways.

Fleishman-Hillard, a public relations firm and division of Omnicom, in conjunction with the National Consumers League has now conducted three studies on the subject of corporate social responsibility; in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

I read the executive summary for the 2007 study and if you can get past the laughably inaccurate renderings of the bar charts and the occasional editorializing in the summary... which has been no small hurdle for me... there may be something here for cause marketers.

What does “corporate social responsibility” mean? Fleishman-Hillard asked consumers just that as an open-ended, unprompted question. A truncated list of responses from the 2007 survey released in May included the following:

Commitment to communities—23 percent
Commitment to employees—17 percent
Responsibility to the environment—11 percent
Provide quality products—10 percent
More charitable donations—1 percent
Don’t know—9 percent

What contributions do consumers expect from companies? Again, the truncated list included:

Non-financial contributions—29 percent
No expectations—13 percent
Treating employees well—11 percent
Fixing problems created by company—11 percent
Doing a good job—11 percent
Environmentally-friendly practices—10 percent
Financial contributions—10 percent

What to make of these low numbers when it comes to corporate charitable donations? The authors of the study’s executive summary surmise that:

“…the consistent findings across both the 2006 and 2007 CSR surveys, when it comes to defining the meaning and expectations surrounding CSR, suggest that companies’ charitable and philanthropic giving is no longer enough to impress consumers. Perhaps it is now viewed as a standard expectation that consumers
have — a bare minimum requirement — to even be considered as a socially responsible company.”

They’re suggesting that there’s a kind of market price for corporate social responsibility and that consumers have already factored into that price corporate generosity to charity.

According to the Fleishman-Hillard study, what is likely to move the needle for consumers when it comes to corporate social responsibility? As it turns out, it’s self interest.

When asked what is most important to consumers with regard to corporate social responsibility the top vote getter with 29 percent was ‘treats/pays employee well.’ If England is a nation of shopkeepers then the U.S. is a nation of employees. And the survey's respondees are internalizing the question and answering it as employees.

And yet, unemployment is 4.5 percent right now in the United States... quite low... which has driven real wages up. So while the newspaper headlines here are filled with stories of jobs being exported to India and China, the fact is that the American worker is in pretty good shape overall; the glass is half-full. But the perception is that the American worker is endangered... that the glass is half-empty. The Fleishman-Hillard study bears that out.

Changing that perception is in no small way a public relations challenge.

Call Fleishman-Hillard. I'm sure they'd be glad to help.