By Katarzyna Zaremba, CEO at The Legend Group, part of Worldwide Partners Inc.
The involvement of business in social responsibility issues has become a sign of our times. Apart from altruism, it is clear that a consumer, when choosing similar brands, will take a more “balanced” view.
It is quite a simple concept as socially responsible brands are ultimately seen as more trustworthy and fair - even if the actual enterprise of the company is dangerous for the environment.
Without CSR strategy, companies may find it difficult to create emotional relationship with their brands. However, it is worth noticing, that’s very tempting to create only “green” brand – with no integrated CSR strategy, which is called “greenwashing”.
Such problem is being faced by BP at the moment. Many of the media and internet community groups complain about focusing their effort much more on "green" advertising and "green" branding, rather than taking appropriate action to address the negative consequences of their business to the environment.
To make the matter worse, it was revealed that BP made big savings on securing the drilling area, which could prevent a catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
It should be acknowledged that after the incident, BP seriously approached the problem - the company quickly claimed their responsibility, took care about the ecological crisis, and offered help to those who suffered from the disaster. All the news about it maybe found on the perfectly positioned site for the phrase "BP leakage“.
But that’s all, unfortunately. The company did not establish a consistent presence in the media, didn’t use social media to communicate a crisis. As a consequence of not creating online communities (which could be used as information center), BP can now observe spontaneous "avoid BP."-like news groups.
The company behaved liken unprepared student making a mess. Even many years of building a "green" brand didn’t help. Now BP is seen as a pretender.
Looking at this company, we realize that only a “green” logo or “green” campaigns cannot replace long-term plan of corporate social responsibility. Managing brands, deciding to incorporate socially responsible business activities, should start answering some questions: What is our value?b For whom do we create values?
How is value created? What should be the value of business in society? When answers come, they must be more integrated into daily practice and business strategy. Thinking about promotion of the brand as socially responsible, you should approach this holistically. And remember cohesion: image = action. This is a basic condition under which a company is not considered a "green washer”.
This also allows to attract loyal customers, that can be easily converted to pro-sumers. Previously mentioned social media may be very helpful here. We can say that companies can no longer afford to absence of social media and avoid the discussion.
The old concept of CSR (CSR1.0) assumed that brands helped to build relationships with communities and supplied the tools for taking socially involved actions. Today, thanks to the enormous popularity of social media, we can talk about something more – about CSR 2.0. CSR
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