5 Tips to Design Highly-Effective Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaigns are on the rise as brands explore how they can stand out in a crowded, noisy marketplace, position themselves apart from their competition and make a statement with consumers. In fact, Fortune Global 500 firms spend $20 billion a year on CSR activities. The most successful CSR initiatives are authentic, engaging and further the brand’s mission. But to accomplish this, brands need to objectively look at the competitive landscape and identify the unique story they can tell.

Imagine you’re walking into your local shopping mall and you have the choice of going through two doors. One has a sign above it that says “Beautiful” and the other door says “Average.” Which do you choose? The beauty brand Dove and its agency, Ogilvy & Mather Chicago, executed this challenge as part of its “Choose Beautiful” campaign in six countries, asking women to make this decision. Dove’s video shows a surprising number of women entering through the “Average” door. It also depicts friends walking through the “Beautiful” door together and a mom pulling her teen daughter towards the “Beautiful” door. The video, and accompanying survey of 6,400 women about how they perceive beauty in themselves, received national media coverage from Fortune to Time magazine and sparked a conversation about what beauty means.

When done well, CSR campaigns like Dove’s can result in earned media, goodwill and even a measurable increase in sales. But, given all of the noise your brand is competing with, how can you set up your campaigns and partnerships for success? Here are five tips to help you create a successful, and highly-effective, CSR campaign.

1. Embrace Authenticity

Before you start your first brainstorm session around a potential CSR platform, take a moment and reflect on why CSR is needed. Is it because your competitors are launching their own CSR missions and are seeing success? Is it because bad press, litigation or even a recall has hurt your brand reputation and you want an opportunity to elevate your brand into a new light? If you’re exploring a partnership or CSR campaign based on what your competitors are doing, your campaign is set up to fail from the beginning.

Exhibit A: Never before have so many LGBTQ+ rainbows appeared on products and storefronts than Pride 2019. If a brand is jumping on the bandwagon to simply be part of the LGBTQ+ conversation, customers will see through the façade and you can get ready for the backlash against “pinkwashing.” Pride-themed rainbows were everywhere, including on Listerine bottles, Budweiser cups and YouTube’s home page. But what these brands failed to remember is that a CSR program isn’t about them. It’s about the difference your company makes in taking an issue to the next level. So you’re donating $1 for each product sold to support a non-profit? Awesome! But don’t commercialize your goodwill. It ends up cheapening the efforts that you’ve made.

Target, on the other hand, made news in 2016 when the Minneapolis-based retailer released a controversial transgender bathroom policy that said guests could use the bathroom that they most identified with – male or female. The Target team was hit hard with backlash about their policy from American Family Association and on social media.  Fast forward a few years and now Target’s #TakePride campaign was featured on billboards, across their website and with retail items. Regardless of whether you were in favor or against Target’s bathroom policy, Target has done a great job of furthering its CSR commitment and finding common cause with progressive consumers who care about LGBTQ causes.

2. Be Consistent, Long-Term Timing

The “one and done” mentality rarely works in business and that rings especially true with a CSR campaign. Your campaign should be ongoing, consistent and grow and expand over time. If you don’t touch your CSR program after it launches, until the next year the national celebration comes around, you’re missing an opportunity to drive your campaign. Many CMOs are charged with obtaining immediate results. But if your CSR efforts only take into account short-term results, you’ll be stuck in an endless cycle of reinventing where your company stands. Long-term cause marketing goals need to be included from the very beginning, propelling a campaign forward and helping to overcome any missteps along the way.

Cargill created its Cargill Cares program, supporting more than 350 employee-led councils worldwide, including local charitable and civic organizations. The program can be found on the company website, but Cargill took it one step further and created a Facebook presence, garnering nearly 20,000 followers for Cargill Cares and sharing the positive impact that its employees make throughout the year.

3. Make It An Experience

Effective CSR campaigns go much deeper than having your company write a check each year. Sure, charitable donations make a difference. They equip non-profits with the financial backing they need to further their mission. But a CSR campaign is a marketing strategy that prepares a brand to align its values with action for the greater good. A charitable donation might be part of that strategy, but it can’t be the strategy by itself.

It’s crucial to have a powerful, human experience at the forefront of your CSR efforts, creating authentic and meaningful engagements. Consumers want to interact with your brand values. In a world that’s too consumed with negative media stories, consumers want to see the light and be part of it. While Dove was successful in drawing in consumers who related to the campaign, the brand did not respond back to its consumers on social media. The Dove team missed the opportunity to continue the conversation that it started. Failure to respond to customers makes the passion that your brand has portrayed come off as dismissive.