Has CSR fallen off marketers’ radar?

In September 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered that Volkswagen (VW) cars sold in US had a software programmed to activate emission controls of its diesel engines during an audit.

From 2009 to 2015, VW sold about eleven million cars worldwide installed with the software. During those years, it launched many high-profile marketing campaigns promoting the small emissions of their diesel cars. It also won several environmental awards, including Green Car of the Year awarded to the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta. Its Corporate Social Responsibility policy claimed: “As far as Volkswagen Group is concerned, bearing its social responsibility has long been at the heart of our corporate culture.”

Despite it being just two and half years since the scandal broke out, if you search for articles about corporate social responsibility (CSR) among traditional marketing sources, you get results that date back between 3-5 years.

So why has CSR fallen off marketers’ radar?

Some would say CSR never managed to convince Chief Executives of the value it can bring to the business. Despite numerous attempts by researchers to show that CSR has a clear and direct impact on consumers’ choice, there were always echoes of organisations saying it’s nothing more than a luxury, which is too costly when people’s jobs are at stake and it’s a gimmick with no real substance behind it.

With CSR, there have always been struggles to convince the customers that what your company is doing is genuine. In 2013, Unilever’s chief marketing officer, Keith Weed slammed “posturing” brands that develop CSR initiatives simply to sell more products and services”. Similarly, in 2016 Pernord Ricard CEO, Alexandre Ricard warned companies that consumers can sense when CSR claims are “bullshit”. It has been a recurring theme throughout and a problem that was addressed by the Harvard Business Review in their article “The truth about CSR“. The authors argue that companies should instead refocus their initiatives and “align company’s social and environmental activities with its business purpose and values”. Deloitte’s Head of Corporate Responsibility, Bob Thust, had similar thoughts: “When woven into the fabric of an organisation, CSR can be a powerful force in winning customer trust and building a stronger brand and business”. Yet companies continue to launch marketing campaigns that claim to be on a mission to save the world, when all they’re doing is selling coffee.

It could also be argued that CSR has become deeply embedded into company culture and there is less of a novelty or need to boast about its initiatives. 10 years ago there was a need for articles like this to convince brands of the importance of CSR. 5 years ago, Sainsbury’s was given a lot of praise for being the first FTSE 100 company to place the same importance of its CSR committee as all other plc board committees.

However, later studies have shown that consumers, especially millennials, take large corporations being involved in good corporate citizenship for granted. It has become common practice that most large organisation should have CSR programmes in place and have webpages or resources dedicated to its commitments (the question whether they fulfil everything they claim to is a different story).

Lastly, it is evident from news sources of your choice that marketers have been overwhelmed with other priorities recently. I am referring to the digital world, especially media agencies and their murky practices that I’ve touched upon in my last piece here. Over the course of 14 months, we had 2 CMOs from the largest advertisers – P&G and Unilever – make 3 speeches about media landscape and the need for transparency. It is no surprise that CSR has moved down the list of priorities.

Despite its potential to influence consumers’ choice, CSR continues to be pushed down the list of priorities – partly because companies do not believe its return on investment and partly because consumers (righteously) have stopped believing in what companies are saying. Unless organisations take a step back and align their initiatives with business purpose, we should not expect CSR to make a comeback anytime soon.