Do You Stand For Something?

Rewarding Corporate Responsibility

The proof that corporate responsibility has a demonstrable return on investment continues to add up.  The Wall Street Journal released new research this week confirming consumers will pay a premium for products made with high ethical standards (defined as progressive stakeholder relations and environmental practices and demonstrated respect for human rights). 

Of a random survey of 97 adult coffee drinkers (admittedly, a small sample size), those who believed the coffee was produced ethically said they would pay $9.71 per pound, $1.40 more than the control group.  Perhaps more telling, consumers who were presented with information indicating the coffee was produced using unethical standards said they would pay only $5.89 a pound.  The moral of the story?  Consumers will not only reward responsible companies for their efforts, they will punish companies whose ethical standards are subpar.  This is sound support that a company’s responsible business practices can have a noted impact on sales, but the implications don’t stop there.  Cone’s own research has consistently found that, from brand loyalty to job loyalty to investments, Americans are likely to reward or punish companies for their corporate responsibility practices in a variety of ways.

This insights brief is part of Cone's weekly roundup of cause, corporate responsibility, philanthropy and volunteerism news.  To subscribe, please email skerkian@coneinc.com. 

Under Scrutiny

Some of the world’s most high-profile cause efforts are under the media microscope this week.  Ad Age discusses the scrutiny Unilever and P&G face as a result of their highly visible support of social and environmental issues.  The article notes, “No good deed goes entirely unpunished; high-profile stances on social causes can have unintended consequences; and the water is getting pretty murky as ‘ethical marketing’ encourages consumers and activists to delve into corporate policies in even-greater detail.” 

This is not news to Dove, who, in a startling account in another Ad Age story, is accused of professionally airbrushing the so-called “real” women in its Campaign for Real Beauty.  Unilever and the photographer deny this claim, but it is a blatant reminder that when you take a stand in a highly visible way, there is no room for error. 

The companies who are truly “walking the talk” will examine all of their business practices to ensure they are aligned with their values, and they understand that only through transparency and authentic engagement with even the most virulent stakeholders can they truly advance the social or environmental agenda.  Those whose practices are found to be inconsistent with their messages will answer to consumers in the court of public opinion.

This insights brief is part of Cone's weekly roundup of cause, corporate responsibility, philanthropy and volunteerism news.  To subscribe, please email skerkian@coneinc.com

Presenting Cause

This past week, I had the pleasure of spending three hours with the communications and marketing pros who make up a good portion of Lutheran Services in America. We spent time discussing the emergence of trends within, and the future of, cause branding and social marketing in corporate, nonprofit and individual contexts. Based on the terrific response that I recieved, I thought I might share it with you. It is a compilation of many of the presentations (all much less than three hours!) that I have given over the course of the last two years. Let me know what you think. Download LSA.pdf

- Kristian

Skills-Based Volunteering

Conferences, seminars and offsites have long been part of the corporate lexicon when it comes to professional development (to a tune of over $100 billion annually), but an increasingly powerful tool in the employee training arsenal is volunteerism.

Traditional employee volunteerism is alive and well, but some of today’s leading corporate programs are facilitating more strategic skills-based volunteerism in which specific business expertise (e.g., marketing, accounting) is applied to help nonprofits around the world solve complex problems and work more effectively.  By lending talented staff, the return on investment for business is a more content employee whose skills have been sharpened and whose professional perspective is enhanced.

Yet, as is often the case in such initiatives, there is a disconnect between rhetoric and reality.  According to Deloitte’s* fifth annual Volunteer IMPACT Survey, the vast majority (91 percent) of Fortune 500 HR managers believe skills-based volunteering adds value to training and development programs, but only a handful (16 percent) intentionally and regularly offer such opportunities to employees.

Companies should strive to minimize this gap because skills-based volunteerism is a thoughtful, cost-effective approach to advancing institutional knowledge and developing the next generation of corporate leaders. 

*Deloitte is a Cone client

Thie insights brief is part of Cone's weekly roundup of cause, corporate responsibility, philanthropy and volunteerism news.  To subscribe, please email skerkian@coneinc.com

PNC Grow Up Great

"How do you say 'couch' in Spanish?"

"Now it's time for the big reveal. I can't wait to hear what they say about this extreme room makeover."

"Eeew. I can't tell if that's jello or... something else."

These are just some of the sounds of volunteering. Or, I should say, of a team of enthusiastic Coneheads volunteering at our local Head Start. Yes, the very same Head Start that has been supported by our client, PNC Financial Services Group, as part of PNC Grow Up Great, a celebrated 10-year, $100 million investment in preparing young children for school and for life.

Grow Up Great, a benchmark public/private partnership, leverages PNC’s corporate and philanthropic assets to advocate for a poorly understood but critical economic issue: school readiness. Studies show a $7 - $16 return on every $1 invested in early education, with savings felt in welfare, special education, and the criminal justice system. Recognizing that learning in a child's early years is essential for long-term success, PNC provides leadership, advocacy, funding, tools, and volunteers to help educate parents, caregivers, and communities on preparing children to enter school ready to learn.

Knowledge Leadership Weekly Insights

Betting, clicking, searching, recycling.  A diverse set of actions, yes, but increasingly with one key thing in common:  they are each providing people with opportunities to make a difference.  In the news this week are a number of innovative, albeit small, ways in which individuals are employing everyday actions to support nonprofits and causes. 

From politics to pop culture, Bet2give lets users make a wager on anything (Clinton vs. Obama?  Brangelina’s impending demise?), but with one caveat- all winnings go to the user’s charity of choice.  A growing number of Web sites allow users to donate to charities simply by clicking on banner ads or performing everyday searches.  And, a group in Japan is demonstrating its philanthropic prowess in a rather unusual way- by recycling used dentures.  It turns out dentures are veritable treasure troves of precious metals (a typical set is about 30 percent gold, silver and palladium).  Since late 2006, the Japan Denture Recycling Association has recycled 30,000 dentures, generating more than $176,000 for charity.  More striking, though, is that the project leader estimates that if all 3.6 million dentures containing precious metals were reprocessed for their valuable parts, it would represent more than $68 million.

In today’s slowing economy, and as nonprofits struggle to meet the needs of their beneficiaries in the midst of increasing food and fuel costs, infusing diverse opportunities to give into everyday activities will help keep potential donors engaged and attuned to the issues around them.  Though they will never supplant more traditional, long-term fundraising approaches, these simple, yet savvy fundraising efforts may help generate buzz and engage new donors who are used to being courted by brands via sophisticated and innovative technologies.

Knowledge Leadership Weekly Insights

As Earth Day approaches, an occasion Ad Age has likened to Christmas due to its paradoxically commercial slant, it is critical for companies to communicate their environmental commitments accurately and responsibly. The FTC is taking notice of the abundance of environmental messages in the marketplace and is holding a second workshop in late April to reevaluate its Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims.

In light of these events, Cone, in collaboration with The Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, this week released the 2008 Green Gap Survey exploring Americans’ understanding of and attitudes toward environmental marketing claims, as well as their desire for oversight of such messages.

The findings revealed that although Americans are trusting of companies, there is a disconnect (the “Green Gap”) between the environmental claims they hear and what they conclude these messages to mean.  Almost half of the population (48 percent) erroneously believes common environmental terms such as “environmentally friendly” or “green” best describe products that have a positive (read: beneficial) impact on the environment.  In reality, these terms more accurately describe products that have either a lesser impact than previous iterations or than competitive products.  A majority of Americans also indicate they would welcome oversight of environmental marketing claims. 

The combination of these findings underscores the precarious nature of the environmental marketing landscape.  Currently operating under a “trust, but verify” assumption, American consumers risk disillusionment and possibly disaffection as they begin to realize that the environmental claims they hear are not necessarily what they may seem. 

For more on the research findings and some guidelines for companies, please visit our Web site. 

Eleven Ways to Reuse Your Target Bag

In the green-obsessed world of journalism, it's big news when a major retailer—or US city for that matter—decides to join in the effort to eradicate the plastic bag.  I’ve become quite accustomed to learning of the efforts of, say, IKEA’s anti-plastic-bag campaign while leafing through newspapers and magazines.  So, when I picked up my recent Newsweek, I fully expected to read about retail’s latest green initiative.

I just didn't expect to learn about it on the first page—on the inside cover to be exact.

Staring up at me right inside the April 14 issue was a proposal from Target.  Send them your used plastic Target bags, and they will send you a coupon for a free reusable tote.  They'll even pay the postage by turning the cover of Newsweek, which features a pre-paid business reply label, into an envelope.  How delightfully simple!  You can bet I tore through my collection of plastic shopping bags looking for those iconic red bull's-eyes.  Heck, I even considered running out and buying something at my local Target just to get the plastic bags so I could return them.

Target, which already prints 10 ways to reuse on the side of each plastic bag, partnered with TerraCycle, an eco-capitalism company, and Newsweek to turn plastic bags into reusable “Retotes.”  Not only do the totes help to minimize the environmental impact of shopping, they provide an added consumer touch point and act as a gentle reminder of all the ways Target works to better its community.

I've come across a lot of cause ads in my time at Cone, and it really encourages me to see companies addressing greater social and environmental needs.  But, never have I been so inspired to act as I was when I saw Target's spread.  Why can't all retailers make it this easy?  I have an entire kitchen cabinet dedicated to used plastic bags just waiting for an initiative like this.

So thank you Target for inspiring me, for reminding me that the smallest efforts can affect a greater change.  I can only hope that you inspired your retail brethren to do the same.

You should be receiving my plastic bags any day now.

-Andrea Larrumbide, Insights Associate

Knowledge Leadership Weekly Insights

Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” has helped define the landscape for modern cause movements, but as Dove announces its plans for a new online community for women, an April 10th advertising column in The Wall Street Journal questions the marketing impact of the campaign.  Suzanne Vranica writes, “…the marketing impact has been somewhat blunted by the fact that the social cause hasn’t been linked directly to specific Dove products.”  Yet this is precisely what makes the campaign so powerful and so appealing to millions of women.  Rather than a targeted cause marketing program that benefits a particular product, Dove has infused its entire brand with a sense of doing good. 

Early on, some critics assailed the campaign for touting a cellulite cream in its ads.  How can you campaign for “real beauty” they would argue, while hawking a cellulite minimizing product?  Although there are still incidental product ties, today it seems that connection has largely dissipated, and the campaign has discovered its real roots as a self-empowerment movement for women that crosses generational, ethnic and socioeconomic lines.  (Incidentally, according to Dove, sales did increase for products featured in campaign ads, by an astounding 600 percent in the first two months.  The company also saw a 20 percent increase in overall sales across the entire brand in 2005.)   

Product lines come and go and their appeal is limited to target audiences, but a movement that speaks to women on a deep emotional level has staying power.  By avoiding overtly promotional connections to products in this campaign, Dove has built a legacy brand.

For more on this issue, please see Cone’s recent article in the Jan-Feb issue of Contribute magazine (under "Cone Research and News" at right). 

Knowledge Leadership Weekly Insights

It seems there are few areas of our society that have not been permeated by reality television, and this holds true for philanthropy and cause awareness.  “American Idol” gave back; even Oprah’s giving big in primetime.  And though the debate over whether so-called “philanthro-tainment” helps or hinders the field, the latest example is giving us a headache.  While these efforts may be effective in bringing social issues and the notion of philanthropy to mainstream America, in certain instances we can’t help but question their approach and substance.  If there is any doubt that reality television has, at the very least, a questionable role in the world of cause awareness and philanthropy, this recent promotion should put that to rest.

Last weekend, Reality Cares, an organization founded and supported by representatives of the reality television industry to raise funds and awareness for an array of issues, partnered with SUNSTYLE tanning studio in West Hollywood to host its “Tan for a Cause” event.  Leading reality stars from shows like “American Idol,” “Project Runway” and “The Amazing Race” “[got their] tan on” to raise awareness for a nonprofit that mentors at-risk youth through extreme sports.

In the nearly six minutes of red carpet coverage on Access Hollywood’s site, we caught only a single mention of the nonprofit organization, Stoked Mentoring, by name, and never did the attendees or the host explain how, or whether, any funds were being raised for the cause.  We talk a lot about authenticity here at Cone.  When a cause-related event centers on an arguably dangerous practice and is more about pseudo-celebs strutting their stuff on the red carpet than raising awareness for the cause, we say it’s time for a reality check. 

*This insights brief is part of Cone's weekly cause and corporate responsibility newsletter.  If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, please email skerkian@coneinc.com.