Skip to main content

The People Who Communicate Corporate Social Responsibility Can't Make a Business Case For It

Been going through my voluminous electronic files of studies about cause marketing and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and I came across again a 2008 poll of corporate communicators that found they want their companies to engage in more CSR; they just can’t come up with a good business reason for doing so or decide who should drive it.

The poll, from Ragan Communications and Pollstream follows a 2008 study from IBM (covered in this space), that reported that corporate executives want to see more CSR, too, and were devoting resources to it.

The poll was part of a series from Ragan that regularly queries some 425+ corporate communicators in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

The communicators split almost evenly over the issue of who should run a company’s CSR efforts. Just about 50 percent said it should be a standalone department that reports directly to the CEO. The other 50 percent said CSR should fall under either media relations, internal communications or marketing.

It would be a measure of the esteem that CSR holds in a company if it operated independently and reported directly to the CEO. But I wouldn’t hold my breath that that will happen soon or (if it does) last long.

[Remember: when the discipline of marketing first emerged in the 1950s and 1960s that function reported to the CEO. Nowadays marketing is more likely to fall under operations and therefore the president or COO.]

If I was running a corporate CSR operation and my choice was to work under media relations, internal communications or marketing, I’d hold my nose and pick marketing. Corporate communications and PR staffs are like the athletes that finish sixth at the Olympic trials: nobody cares but their mothers.

Not that marketing is a perfect fit. Hardly. But corporate marketing operations have an actual budget, in sharp contrast with the alternatives.

It’s interesting to compare the why of CSR between the corporate communicators and their bosses. The Ragan poll turned up four reasons why the communicators would increase CSR:
  1. 50 percent said it would enhance PR and corporate image.
  2. 40 percent said it would improve employee engagement.
  3. 7 percent expect it would grow sales.
  4. 4 percent say it would attract new employees.
By contrast, the CEOs in the IBM study see CSR has a business opportunity, not a chance to issue a press release. As an electronics CEO was quoted in the IBM study of CEOs, “Corporate identity and CSR will play an important role in differentiating a company in the future… This will make a big difference in new markets such as Russia and other Eastern European markets.”

Now we know why a CEO is more likely to get her start in the company’s mailroom than in its corporate communications office; too few communicators think like business people!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Batting Your Eyelashes at Prescription Drug Cause Marketing

I’m a little chary about making sweeping pronouncements, but I believe I've just seen the first cause marketing promotion in the U.S. involving a prescription drug. The drug is from Allergan and it’s called Latisse , “the first and only FDA-approved prescription treatment for inadequate or not enough eyelashes.” The medical name for this condition is hypotrichosis. Latisse is lifestyle drug the way Viagra or Propecia are. That is, no one’s going to die (except, perhaps, of embarrassment) if their erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or thin eyelashes go untreated. Which means the positioning for a product like Latisse is a little tricky. Allergan could have gone with the sexy route as with Viagra or Cialis and showed lovely women batting their new longer, thicker, darker eyelashes. But I’ll bet that approach didn’t test well with women. (I’m reminded of a joke about the Cialis ads from a comedian whose name I can’t recall. He said, “Hey if my erection lasts longer than ...
4 comments
Read more

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 wi...
11 comments
Read more