A recent Mediacom survey has highlighted how value matching is a key factor in deciding on a B2C purchase. Customers (especially young people) having a wide decision-making capacity, try to reconcile their ethical choices with those of companies. It is shown that having a serious Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) heavily influences sales.
The survey showed that, among other things:
- 80% of teens consider the values of the company as one of the most important factors for deciding on a purchase (for comparison, they only cited more quality, with 81%);
- 57% of teens (and 49% of adults) would pay more for brands that support organizations or causes that are important to them.
So here the loyalty of a company to its ethics comes into play.
How to use CSR for Marketing
The initiative, of course, is free and:
- It should be commensurate with the size and influence of the business. Proclamations can be made for initiatives that are far beyond their reach. But does it make sense? We can even see local business (eg funeral wards) that are lined up in ethical battles of national importance. They certainly grind thousands of likes and shares on social media, but how many of them become customers? Of course, maybe I share the battle, but I won’t go to a local shop 50 km away just for that. And even if the local clientele might increase, what impact can they have on their cause? Appreciable, no doubt, but also limited.
- It should be aligned with the ideals and concerns of customers. This is more evident in the opposite, when associations criticize companies. When Greenpeace attacks a company (see the hashtags #PlasticMonster and #BreakFreeFromPlastic), the company should respond with due consistency. For example, knowing his customers concerns, Starbucks has banished plastic straws with extensive proclamations. (just to replace them with plastic lids, which they say are better, but business is business).
What to do?
The initiatives are the most diverse. They could be as simple as writing “without palm oil” on their food packaging (NB, which has nothing to do with any eating disorders related to the consumption of palm oil. Instead, it means that the company fight deforestation due to oil palm plantations). But they can also be massive initiatives that involve the whole company and arouse the interest of countries. Just think of Deloitte’s Corporate Volunteering initiatives (which provided 340,000 volunteer hours from 2013 to 2017). Or the initiative to protect the maternity and paternity of Spotify (which brought parental leave to 6 months, with 100% of the payroll).
Just let your imagination wander, and be wise.
