Profit with a purpose: The new CSR
- Tue, May 24 2011
- Filed under: Cause-related marketing
Marketers spend billions of dollars each year trying to understand consumers all over the world. They then spend over a trillion dollars trying to influence these same consumers through the various tools in the marketing arsenal.
Unfortunately for marketers, it’s harder and harder to do both.
Few consumers want to take the time to take a research survey; many skip the ads on their DVR or are distracted with multi-tasking. They are increasingly resistant to the interruption of conventional marketing, and they are adept at filtering the messages they receive. Marketers are being ignored.
“The people formerly known as the audience,” as Jay Rosen calls them, are not passive consumers awaiting messages; they are often participants in the message, and the rise of social media provides them growing control in the marketplace.
So what is a commercial marketer to do to forge connections in this inhospitable environment? Cause-related marketing is often the answer. When I started out in my work at Network for Good six years ago, the only people at companies who would talk to me were the corporate responsibility folks. Now it’s always the marketing departments.
So how do companies engage with nonprofits in a constructive way that produces not only profit but a true win-win for both parties?
Today, I’m giving a talk at the American Marketing Association of Washington, DC, on this very topic.
Here are the slides, which feature great data and insights from firms like BBMG and Network for Good’s own experience, as well as that of Zoetica.
The key points?
1. Marketing is being turned on its head. Old school broadcast messaging is dead.
2. A growing number of conscious consumers want participation with their brands and the causes - to produce benefit for themselves but also to their communities.
3. Companies and nonprofits need to partner in an authentic way to produce an ROI for the brand AND a positive social impact. Tips for doing so are in the presentation.
Want more? Check out my colleague Kate Olsen’s blog, Companies for Good.
Comments
Hi Katya, wish I could be there today. When I see “CSR” I see “customer service rep.” I think it can never be said enough that when ultimately the people who answer the phone or the door act like they’d *really* rather be somewhere else and/or don’t know what they’re doing, you’ve really wasted a lot of time and money!
Katya, I wish I could see your presentation in person, because I may be interpreting one of your key points incorrectly…because I take issue with your statement that “old school broadcast messaging is dead.”
Being a product of that “old school,” I would rather say that broadcast messaging is evolving…or needs to evolve. By saying it is DEAD, you imply that there is no value at all to broadcast advertising/marketing/promotion. I’d rather think that smart broadcasters are taking a look at how to best use their medium, especially as it relates to adding things like social media to the mix.
Yes, old-school marketng is being turned on its head but it’s still a fine line betwen marketing and using the guise of a good cause just to sell more products. The KFC and Komen Foundation partnership come to mind here. I’m all for doing good with your marketing but don’t treat the consumer like an idiot. We know the difference between a good match and one that makes no sense at all.