Cause-related marketing strategies can actually be damaging to a company’s reputation, a group of corporate social responsibility practitioners has warned.
Conclusions from a dinner discussion group set up by the polling company Mori suggest there is concern among some CSR specialists that overtly linking a product with an environmental or social cause can easily be interpreted by the public as the cynical use of legitimate concerns to boost sales.
A report on the findings of the first of Mori’s ‘Focus for the future’ dinners says some of those attending voiced concerns that CRM was ‘a threat to a company’s public credibility as a responsible corporate citizen, since it exploits CSR principles for marketing gain.’
One of the seven unnamed participants is reported as saying: ‘If [CRM] is in any way tainted with the slightest whiff of being used as a marketing tool, it will be totally void. If something which should be good, something which should be embedded in the culture, is being used as a marketing tool, then it is discredited.’
The Mori report says there was a general view that CRM posed the greatest credibility problem when it was the mainstay of a company’s CSR programme. ‘If it is in the mix, fine, but for some people it seems they think that if they do CRM then they are doing [corporate citizenship], and they are not,’ said one participant.
The discussion group, held in January and led by Mori chairman Bob Worcester, brought together senior CSR managers from leading UK companies at the Reform Club in London. Another was held recently on brand and reputation, for which a report will be issued shortly.