Before starting a campaign, you go through a checklist to ensure nothing is missing and each prong is the best it can be. A CSR campaign is no different. However, are you sure your checklist has all the right focal points?

A recent publication by the Harvard Business Review scrutinizes the strategy of a CSR campaign down to its very core. The authors, Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, link competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. After all, business is survival of the fittest. So, even though a CSR campaign is clearly based on some form of social responsibility, your campaign is competing against the rest of your field. It’s ironic that a socially responsible initiative is also a bare-knuckle battle against your competitors.

Porter and Kramer make a solid point that should be the core of any CSR campaign:

“The essential test that should guide CSR is not whether a cause is worthy but whether it presents an opportunity to create shared value – that is, a meaningful benefit for society that is also valuable to the business.”

You need to stand out in the crowd or suffer blending in with every unimpressive, and unheard, campaign. Of course, it’s easier said than done. There are tools to increase awareness of your campaign but it can also end up highlighting its flaws. For example, social media is an effective tool to amplify the message and awareness of your campaign. Mark Schaefer, author of the blog Grow, explains how social media can help your campaign’s competitive edge.

“It’s important to focus on fundamental marketing imperatives like defining your points of differentiation. If corporations focused on intense attention to quality in a way that delighted customers, the marketshare and customer loyalty would follow.”

He explains that by focusing on what makes your campaign unique, you can spend less time worrying about the competition and redirect your efforts towards customers, clients, and maintaining quality. However, social media is a two-way street. While it can help, it can be equally detrimental. If your campaign has flaws or proves to a selfish endeavor, social media will eat it alive.

I’m not discouraging the use of social media with CSR, in fact, just the opposite. However, that checklist needs to be altered to work out every kink while maintaining its competitiveness.

Related articles

• Social Media Strategies: Is Social Media Adoption The New Quality Standard Of Successful Company? (smcitizens.com)
• The Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (prscoup.com)

Regardless of your political affiliation, with the up-coming mid-term elections approaching, it’s impossible to escape the mud-slinging. The advertisements are transmitted incessantly on every media channel and it has taken over the Government, since all of them are fighting to keep their position. When I say fighting, I mean FIGHTING.

How are we supposed to choose the best candidate when all the information they provide is smearing their opponents, instead of how they plan to solve our nation’s issues? What is their platform? What makes them qualified for this position?

What really bothers me, is the amount of money each candidate accrues for their campaign. Millions of dollars are raised to produce these personal attacks on the competition and call it a campaign. To me, this seems contradictory to every speech, action, and obligation these public servants (present and future) feign.

Political campaigns are essentially CSR campaigns, only the corporation is one person. However, they’re the type that create doubt about CSR. The motives of a political campaign are questionable, to say the least. They are certainly not transparent and, unfortunately, rarely end with a Win/Win outcome. Once the campaigns are over, there are no reports or published records. Could you imagine reading the report on one of these campaigns?

We raised millions of dollars that we claimed would go to fixing [enter social issue here], however, our campaign went slightly over budget.

Unfortunately, the money we promised would support [social issue] was spent on our trashy, unethical, and slanderous attacks on [random politician]. Not to mention, our personal slush funds set aside for paying to get what we want.

In fact, the issues are insignificant to our campaign. We used them to get elected, not because of genuine sentiment.

Of course, that’s just a rough draft. I’m sure there is some political jargon that can make it sound fancy.

What would business be like if CSR campaigns focused on defaming the competition, while hinting at supporting a local social issue? Don’t enough CSR campaigns turn out to be profit-increasing stunts? Aren’t there enough skeptics already? What would happen to all the quality CSR campaigns?

Related articles

• Barrick responds to ‘wakeup call’ on social responsibility (theglobeandmail.com)
• Making the Case for Corporate Social Human Resources: Are You Prepared for HR 3.0? (blogs.forbes.com)

Recently, the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become popular. So popular, in fact, that CSR is now almost standard protocol for most companies. For those unfamiliar with CSR, the gist is businesses would embrace responsibility for the impact of its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, and stakeholders. CSR-focused businesses proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public. Essentially, CSR is a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit.

Unlike foundations, companies aren’t legally required to disclose detailed information about their charitable giving. However, failing to maintain a good corporate image may not negatively impact a corporation’s bottom line in the long run, but it will certainly damage the firm’s reputation. The question at hand is: Why is CSR really becoming so popular?

1. Customers Are Fed Up – Large corporations have taken advantage of customers time and time again. Stories of greed, such as Bernie Madoff, are too common yet, in most instances, there are few consequences. The only way customers could be heard was to take their business away from morally corrupt companies and focus on socially responsible businesses. In an attempt to stay afloat, corporations had to listen to their customer’s sentiments or risk being ostracized. The Internet has provided customers with a window into the inner-workings, a voice, and more control. By using social media, the general public is essentially in charge of dictating a company’s giving.
2. The Domino Effect – If you can’t beat them, join them. As more companies adopt a CSR strategy, a company’s reputation could be damaged if they don’t have a similar strategy. In a peer-pressure-style environment, companies are backed into a corner and have no choice. However, it’s important to recognize that aren’t truly “victims” in this situation. There are plenty of benefits, financially and reputation-wise, that make CSR mutually beneficial for the company and the public.
3. It’s An Ethical Obligation – It’s possible that things have gotten so bad, genuine empathy is driving the CSR trend. Such a wide spectrum of people have been effected by an economic depression, natural disaster, or another event equally devastating. It’s possible the trend isn’t corporate, but personal. The senior executives see the despair and the lack of relief – or are experiencing it themselves – and decided to step up to plate. Of course, this probably isn’t the case but as younger generations become senior executives, it may not be that outrageous.

What do you think is creating this influx in corporate philanthropy?

Do you think it will last?

What’s next?

Related articles

• Making the Case for Corporate Social Human Resources: Are You Prepared for HR 3.0? (blogs.forbes.com)
• Corporate Altruism: The Blurring of the Lines Between CSR and Cause Marketing (bethkanter.org)
• Business approach to CSR: An interview with PwC’s Jeff Senne (triplepundit.com)

It doesn’t matter if Gen-Y is your target audience or the newest group of employees, it’s important to understand how they think and work. Eventually, you’ll engage with someone from Gen-Y so be prepared.

Mr. Youth and INTREPID surveyed a wide spectrum of this young generation, regarding their priorities as they lead the world through an innovative and ever-changing society. Change is only going to continue – in education, technology, business, communication – and to be successful, companies need to embrace and integrate the changes.

The survey, Millenial Inc.,  produced some unique trends within Gen-Y that will affect businesses everywhere.

• Millenials (Gen-Y) prefer to collaborate on decisions, responsibility, and even success – or failure

• “Millennials are not swayed by the “been there, done that” mantra intoned by previous generations, but are driven by ideas that move forward.” In other words, seniority is irrelevant and those whom excel in engaging and innovating will be rewarded

• Technology is vital to understanding consumers – creating customizable products and input directly from the consumer

• “Millennials are the savviest consumers ever…The truth doesn’t escape the Millennial. The only way to gain their trust is to deliver and do so consistently.”

• Social responsibility is important…but if it affects profit it’s seen as an inconvenience

• Two-way conversation and participation are invaluable

• Peer-to-peer communication, aka word-of-mouth, drives behavior as the #1 way to receive news and product evaluations

Clearly, Gen-Y does things differently than the current status-quo. However, their unique priorities and unorthodox methods have proven to be successful. For example, Facebook‘s CEO is 25 years old, yet the site has a population larger than the U.S. and is the most searched brand on the web. The key is utilizing the innovative ideas of Gen-Y and combining them with the experience of senior business execs. Use the best of both worlds.

Related articles

• Your Business Will be Run by Gen-Y – Get Over It (startupprofessionals.com)
• Entrepreneur Magazine’s Gen-Y columnist Scott Gerber Advises Unemployed Youth to Quit Job Search (prweb.com)
• Embrace the Gen-Y Stereotypes (itsjosipnotjoseph.com)

Related articles

• Social Media Management for the Enterprise: Spring Creek Group Partners with Spredfast (prweb.com)
• Popularity and influence – When numbers don’t necessarily mean the ability to change (ubervu.com)
• 50 billion reasons for marketing innovation (customerthink.com)