The role of PR in CSR activities
By Ganapathy Viswanathan on Nov 3, 2008 in CSR
The cause related marketing or CSR activities is being deployed by many corporates and companies to strengthen their presence in the media on an ongoing basis. While some companies have been working on CSR responsibility with lot of focus and energy there are others who have not diverted completely towards this. One company that comes top of mind that has been practicing CSR for quite some time has been Godfrey Philips for their RED & WHITE brand in promoting bravery excellence.
The company has been doing this on a national level but unfortunately they are also promoting tobacco. But let’s not take away the credit from them as year after year they have been awarding people for excellence in bravery from all walks of life.
To me CSR has to come from the bottom of the heart if one is keen in promoting it. There are quite a few liquor brands in view of restriction in advertising has been using CSR as surrogate way of communicating their products. This according to me will never fall under CSR as the primary objective is to get the brand visible and not promote the CSR initiative.
Brand fit very important:
Identifying a cause or supporting any CSR responsibility must focus on issues that relate to the business the company is into. If the brand fit is relevant consumers will also appreciate the efforts as it is important that the CSR activity is also meaningful to them in their walk of life. Hence it is important for companies to check the relevance of the CSR activity so that companies don’t support unrelated cause which at times the consumers may feel that the business simply is trying to benefit from the not for profit ‘s reputation.
Many a times this may lead to consumer to stop buying the company products. Hence it is very critical for companies to maintain good brand fit when they venture into CSR activities so that consumers also connect well with the company and also see there is an effort being displayed by the company to promote CSR with more purpose.
Role of Public Relations in CSR:
A few years back a very interesting CSR effort was undertaken by a reputed finance brand SUNDARAM FINANCE in Chennai. I am sharing this example to illustrate as how this CSR effort was initiated and how successful was it. Sundaram Finance as a brand has been a very trusted and dependable brand in the finance space. The brand is almost present amongst most families mind , residing in the south. The brand over a period of time as been part of many families in south by truly demonstrating to its customers its correct brand values corporate vision. The company hardly advertises and it has entered the consumers mind mainly through strong word of mouth marketing and well networked distribution of their products with strong focus on service across South India.
As a part of their CSR push the company along with Ogilvy PR came out with the novel idea of promoting carnatic music among kids in Chennai. This move was initiated, as it was found more kids in that part of the world were getting hooked to computers, chats and TV shows and little recognition was given to the classical carnatic music. The company saw a great opportunity here and branded this CSR program as SUNDARAM FINANCE SUNDAY KUTCHERI ( Music concert ).The program was held in a park and the concept was developed to provide young kids aged under 15 to showcase their music talent .The idea was more to give a little back to the society as a CSR effort. High on recall. Low on cost was the motive on this CSR effort. The audience for this program was the young and aspiring musical talent, music connoisseurs and morning walkers in the park.
How did this CSR Program work?
* The program was held every first Sunday between 6.30 and 7.30am
* Kids were selected through audition tests
* Kids with good flair in music with basics were given opportunity
* Group of kids display their musical talent at the park with great ambience
* After the first half a dozen Kutcheri the concept caught on
* News papers and channels came forward to cover it
So what was unique about this CSR?
* One of its kind showcasing musical talent
* Age was the only criteria ( kids under 15)
* Open environment ,perfect and colorful settings
* No microphones. No loudspeakers
* Kids were the stars. No chief guests.
* Minimum branding from the company
The End Result:
* Zero advertising for the event. PR got the registrations.
* Entries came from neighboring cities also.
* Vast coverage on the event. Pre and Post.
* More audience participated
* Pressure was mounted to increase the frequency
* More parks wanted to hold the musical concert
* Boosted the confidence of the kids to perform
* Parents were thrilled and devoted more time on music with their kids.
* Finally the brand fit was also perfect as it connected well with the event.
Popularity: 16% [?]
On Nov 3, 2008, kapadiia himanshu said:
i liked the part where you said kids were stars and no celebrities were part of the function and also that the client interaction and branding was minimal… sometimes a csr activity becomes a tool to come into media for all the wrong reasons. I get sad when a company donates some money for floods, earthquakes etc and wants prominent coverage.
On Nov 3, 2008, B V Ramana Murty, ITM. said:
Brilliant piece of cross functional approach.
On Nov 5, 2008, meenakshi said:
sometime back there was an article in ET on charity…hope you folks find it interesting…
Charity begins with Research
By Shreya Biswas , The Economic Times
20-May-2008
BACK in 2006, an international funding agency was shocked when it found out that the $100,000 it paid to an NGO’s handicraft project for providing employment to under-privileged women was not used for the intended purpose. On the face of it there was nothing suspicious about the project—delivery system, quantification of benefit, business plan…everything looked perfect on the paper. But somewhere, somebody sounded the alarm and the donors roped in management consultants Ernst & Young to dig out the truth from the interiors of Haryana, where the project was being executed. The E&Y investigation revealed that no project was taken up and whenever a team from the donor agency came for inspection, the NGO just created a perfect dummy set-up to avoid any suspicion.
Since then the business of ‘charity research’ has steadily gained ground in India. Today, consultants like E&Y, KPMG and Copal Partners help international and domestic donors audit NGO credentials, right from background checks, legal presence & compliance, bandwidth to handle projects and credibility with money and communities they supposedly intend to serve.
India is still far from the rest of the world in policing the mushrooming charity organisations (12 lakh and counting) across the country. India does not have an NGO-rating system and lacks charity-profiling agencies like Intelligent Giving in the UK and Charity Navigator in the US. But the growing number of donors have started looking for results. “Companies and individuals want to be very sure before they put in their money,” says KPMG executive director, India business, Vikas Vasal who also looks after the international aid and development services. “That’s why we carry out a full fledged check right from legal presence to compliance to an NGOs capability of carrying out projects,” he adds.
With the market for charity already over $1 billion and the rush amongst businesses to present a corporate social responsibility (CSR) compliant image, the market for offering charity research is opening up in India, chiefly because of demand from international donors.
For instance, in January, Gurgaon-based Copal Partners, an offshore global financial analytics and KPO company, entered into a joint charity research partnership with UK charity organisation National Philanthropy Capital (NPC) to provide information and advice on charities in developing countries. “As of now there are few organisations in India offering such advisory services but the demand is growing very fast. Those who do quality work will be able to tap this market well,” says Copal Partners CEO Rishi Khosla. Copal Partners already has 10 clients.
E&Y India partner, fraud investigation & dispute services, Navita Srikant, however, feels the donors are not as proactive as they should be: “People wait till they get into trouble. They don’t need to wait for incidents to happen to correct things. Its imperative for organisations and companies to know what they are getting into.” E&Y is adding about eight clients every year for its forensic funding business.
ART OF GIVING
Consultants like E&Y, KPMG, Copal Partners help donors audit NGO credentials, right from background checks, legal presence & compliance, bandwidth to handle projects and credibility.
Charity research is opening up chiefly because of demand from global donors, who find it difficult to establish identity of social organisation that are remotely located here .
India does not have a NGO-rating system and lacks charity profiling agencies.
On Nov 9, 2008, Vijay Kapur said:
Being a CSR specialist from University of Nottingham, I take this on my part to clarify certain misconceptions that people in general have about CSR. CSR has never been cause related marketing.
This article talks about “benevolent philanthrophy” and not CSR. It lacks synergistic use of organizational core competencies and resources to address key stakeholder’s interest.
I fail to realize how is carnatic music related to finance and what benefit it would bring to the end stakeholders and address public accountability of the company. At the most it can be attributed to ‘corporate giving’ to ward off some negative externality created by the company.
My request to PR professionals is that they should kindly refrain from using CSR as a tool to gain only positive media mileage but to help the client to perceive a strategic role of CSR in building the core competency of the company.
On Nov 13, 2008, Buzzword Artist said:
Hogwash! That’s what CSR is.
How about ‘corporate responsibility’ before corporate ’social’ responsibility?
That would take care of image, reputation and all the rest of the stuff being hustled.
On Nov 14, 2008, Vijay Kapur said:
Corporate social responsibility and corporate responsibility mean the same thing. CSR means ‘Good Management’ It should be embedded in the company, and the organization should be sincere towards it. CSR does help in Reputation, there are research findings on it. One has to study and understand the subject before commenting whether it is hogwash or not
On Nov 17, 2008, Ruchita Puri said:
PR is a very important tool and costs less. As mentioned, no advertising was required.
Advertisers hate to hear this, however in this time of cost cuts, PR is the most handy tool to initiate to build or maintain the awareness of issues, brand equity/goodwill and consumer outreach.
On Nov 24, 2008, Saurabh Saggi said:
nice article..
On Nov 28, 2008, Manisha Verma said:
Most corporates do dwell on public relations as a strategy for implementing CSR. By doing so, the concept has had a tinch of glamour and hype. When the things turn ugly, the spinning doctor is called in for help!
The article is a good attempt. However as Mr. Kapur has commented how is carnatic music related to finance? we were talking of brand fit I suppose?
On Dec 23, 2008, PressReleasePoint said:
No one seems to have clarity about CSR. Do you think CSR and philanthropy are one and the same?
On Dec 30, 2008, Suresh Mangaladurai. said:
I agree with Vijay Kapur that CSR must not just be “benevolent philanthrophy” and must be in tune with the core competencies of the organisation. CSR must be launched only after a thorough study to avoid using CSR as a tool to merely gain media space. It is the duty of the PR practitioner to also educate the client and make them understand the role of CSR in building the core competency of their outfit. Unfortunately, I don’t see anyone doing much of this in India. The Indian client and agency are only bothered about coverage, coverage and more coverage. Unless the mindsets of both the PR professionals and their clients is drastically altered PR will continue to remain a parasite living off the media rather than contribute to the society of which it is a part. PR professionals need to look at the big picture.
On Nov 9, 2009, Tanuja said:
Out of 186 million children in the age group of 5-14, 100 million are not in school. Of the rest 86 million, out of every 10 children who start in grade 1, only 4 reach grade 8. Illiteracy is a self fulfilling curse that perpetuates the change of poverty, degradation and child labour. Unless we act soon, many more in our country will never discover the true meaning of Independence ‘the freedom to hold your head high’.
An organisation in India, working solely for this cause like Round Table India. It believes in “Freedom through Education”. Round Table India is an organization of non-political and non-sectarian young men between the age group of 18 and 40. Its aim is to promote service, fellowship and goodwill in National and International affairs.
Round Table India, the association, was formed on November 14, 1962 with just a membership of 100. It has, over the last 4 decades, grown to become a 2500 member strong association today. Round Table India has around 200 Tables located in 72 cities and towns, comprising of businessmen, entrepreneurs, technocrats and professionals.