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Is CSR being used as a marketing tool?

There is a new trend in the marketing that has revolutionized the business world. Today businesses are adopting corporate social responsibility to gain attraction and have competitive advantage because they are targeting some of the main social and environmental concerns. Social corporate responsibility is management process where companies integrate environmental and social concerns within their business policies in a way that it benefits them economically too. It includes involving your stakeholders and shareholders and informing them about your strategies. This enhance company’s reputation and strengthen its brand image. CSR is promoted in such a way that it does not have an adverse effect on the economy of the company. It is a great competitive advantage which increases the sustainability of one’s company (Nations, 6 July, 2007). Apart from management, companies adopt this method to have an intense marketing campaign. What is the point of doing CSR if your customers do not know about it? Using CSR can help one engage with their customers in new ways. Since the message conveyed is for a better cause so it get easy to gain customers’ attention (Epstein-Reeves, FEB 21, 2012).

This method is being adopted by companies throughout the world. For example, Walmart is a leader in environmental efforts. It has established itself on the top in environmentalism. In 2008, it ran an ad campaign to raise awareness about the environment as well as informing consumers about the products they can choose to use (Epstein-Reeves, FEB 21, 2012). Businesses have started seeing where and how key stakeholders react to a firm’s corporate responsibility initiatives. They’re using focus groups and different marketing techniques to know the psychological needs that CSR can fulfill its stakeholders for example pride and self-esteem. With this kind of knowledge, companies can gauge the demands of their target audience. For example recently, Procter and Gamble, Timberland, and General Mills carried a research study and revealed that many of their stakeholders do not have any idea about the companies’ CSR activities or do not find them relevant. These companies are now able to build strong relations with their customers by adopting stakeholders-centric approach which has increased their customers as well as employees’ loyalty (Bhattacharya, 11/20/2009).

One of the biggest examples of using CSR as marketing and for social benefit is of Cola companies. Both Coca Cola and Pepsi are doing their best to improve their brand image from one another. Coca Cola’s support My School initiative in India is one of the biggest CSR campaigns in India which has made a lot of fanfare. Today CSR marketing is a new sub science in the marketing world at large. It is the best thing to do when you’re a big brand and have a consumption around the world. Brands for example Coca Cola, Marlboro, Dettol and others are touching billions of consumers across the world using CSR as a marketing approach (BIJOOR, November 26, 2012).

CSR is used by companies as a marketing strategy to improve brand image. Studies have shown that consumers are more likely to buy products from those brands that have good reputation. It provides businesses with the opportunity to identify the weak parts of the society that they are part of. For CSR to be effective, it should be implemented in sync with the companies’ brand building strategies, which can be done by doing selective approach. Mostly this kind of strategy is most suitable for companies with multiple brands and products. These businesses tie their specific products with certain CSR strategies. For example, Knorr (a Unilever brand) is promoting healthy cooking to address malnutrition in people of Nigeria, whereas Signal toothpaste (another brand of Unilever) has targeted oral health with their brush Day and Night campaign (Trott, 04/06/2017).

A study was carried out and for people, their first thought to work for corporation working good is none other than Google. It has made multiple moves to adopt CSR and every single one of them is paying off. One of its major examples, Google Green is a corporate effort to use renewable power and other resources efficiently in an environment friendly way. This includes, recycling and turning off lights which has not only improved their brand image further but also lowered down the costs. Google has seen an overall drop of power requirements for about 50 percent. These savings can be used to other departments of business or for investments (MORENO, FEBRUARY 10, 2015).

CSR can be applied to Google sized companies as well as small organizations. They can apply these techniques at their own scale. They can adopt kind of strategies that would benefit them and make their brand image positive in the eyes of the consumers and employees.

References

Bhattacharya, C. B. (11/20/2009). Corporate Social Responsibility: It's All About Marketing. Forbes.

BIJOOR, H. (November 26, 2012). CSR: A marketing tool? Business Standard.

Epstein-Reeves, J. (FEB 21, 2012). Six Reasons Companies Should Embrace CSR. Forbes.

MORENO, C. (FEBRUARY 10, 2015). Doing Their Part: 3 Excellent Examples of Corporate Social Responsibility. RedShift.

Nations, U. (6 July, 2007). What is CSR? Retrieved from United Nations Industrial Development Organization: http://www.unido.org/csr/o72054.html

Trott, H. (04/06/2017). How To Use Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) As A Marketing Tool. Idea Cafe.