Cause Marketers, You Got Some 'Splainin' to Do

A new survey of corporate communicators finds that most companies spend no more than 10 percent of their communications budget telling the world about their CSR efforts, and fifty percent of their communications outreach is media relations and internal audiences like employees.

The survey comes from London-headquartered Grayling, the world’s second largest independent PR agency with annual billings of $148 million.

Among other findings:

Just 12 percent of companies use social media to talk about CSR/sustainability efforts.

Only 52 of companies believe that the media is interested in covering CSR issues.

Thirty percent believe that impact of their CSR is to their corporate reputation; just 6 percent think that it positively affects sales.

Companies say the main drivers for CSR/sustainability are a genuine sense of responsibility (31 percent); staff morale (16.6 percent); government regulation (12.4 percent).

The top three areas of focus for CSR/sustainability are CSR (16.4 percent); waste and recycling (12.7 percent); philanthropy and volunteering (10.9 percent).

Less than a third of companies with a CSR strategy have it integrated into their corporate communications strategy.

Plainly cause marketers and CSR practitioners got some ‘splainin’ to do to the corporate communications staff.

Comments

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