Why supporting charity may not be the answer for brands who want to engage consumer communities

It seems an obvious strategy; give money to charity and people will think you are a caring, sharing brand and therefore consumers will want to shop more in your store.

Corporate purpose delivered – tick box.

It’s a logical thought but flawed as it’s based on an assumption, and one that can be wrong, that consumers actually care what brands give to charities.

Rather than simply throwing money at charities, brands need to engage and partner with charities to deliver authentic actions as part of their corporate purpose. The walk not the talk.

Consumers are very savvy these days and can spot a marketing ploy a mile off. They know the difference between genuine, fake and spin (or green or ethical wash as it is also called).

While many marketing and CSR directors are ingenuous about social engagement techniques, consumers aren’t.

In a recent survey, conducted in a wealthy area of North London, about how brands engage with communities, 77% of locals felt that big brands had an obligation to support charities, seeing it as a kind of ‘social tax’. But it didn’t buy any good will, but failing to give does create bad will.

“They take enough money off us, it’s the least than can do to support charities and put something back.”

“I think all big brands give to charities. But I don’t think it’s because they actually care but because they can reclaim it off their tax.”

 “I wouldn’t be more likely to shop at a store just because they support charity, I’d expect that and most do anyway. I would if they did something positive within the community though.”

Just a few of the comments that were added by people responding to the question, ‘If a retail brand supports charities, would it make you more inclined to shop there?’

The initial conclusion is that, far from the hope that many brands have that supporting charity makes a positive impression, in fact consumers expected it, seeing it as a social responsibility that big brands are expected to undertake.

What ‘consumer communities’ want to see are brands supporting community projects, and for the long term - not short term donations.

A good example is Tesco, who have donated over 5 million meals, through the Community Food Connection, to more than 3,500 charities in communities across the UK, redistributing surplus store food that would have otherwise gone to waste.

Sainsbury’s has donated over ￡30m to Comic Relief and over ￡100m through their Active Kids programme, and they too donate millions of items of food, mainly via FareShare and the Salvation Army.

All good stuff but how many people know about these examples?

Not many it seems when we asked people. Why?

Brands are scared to market this information, because of a massive assumption – if I tell people it will discredit me. Untrue.

It’s not WHAT you say but HOW you communicate it. There’s an art to this from of communication.

The secret is to get the community to spread the word, and we aren’t talking about just social media (which is often too forced) but real world word of mouth (which is 100x more influential).

The problem in the past has been marketing and PR departments adopting brash ‘push’ methodologies that are too aggressive.

Using ‘pull’ rather than ‘push’ is the key difference – it’s not what you say but what others say about you.

THE MOTHER TERESA SYNDROME

“We are not a charity, we are a supermarket. We aren’t about saving society but about feeding it to make a profit,” were the words of one VP of an American supermarket chain, after reviewing how much money it was donating to charity.

Some brands make the big mistake of trying to act like a charity (The Mother Teresa syndrome). They are not charities. They do not have the experience and network. And they will fail if they think they can.

The truth is, if you want to engage communities, trying to act like a charity isn’t likely to do it.

I was recently asked go feedback on a CSR proposal for a well-known high street brand. My main comment was, “you sell clothes, you aren’t a charity.”

They would be the first to question a charity trying to be a fashion retailer, the same can be said of a brand trying to act like a charity.

The better option is to act as a social enabler and partnership with charities and your customer – a ‘tri-community’ approach - and let the charity and people be the real heroes.

ENGAGING LOCAL COMMUNITIES

There are over 20 different definitions of community, from common cause to common interest to local. For retailers, local is the top of their list but few, if any, really manage to win hearts and minds.

While Mothercare and IKEA empower their managers to take their own initiatives – which without real experience can be poorly handled – most managers have no power or budget.

Despite Co-op’s 1% back to community programme, Tesco’s donating the money from bags to local projects or Waitrose’s green coin scheme, it was Oddbin’s who came top for community engagement in this survey.

Their approach delivered a positive brand gain too. And it wasn’t because they plied alcohol on everyone.

By allowing local people to run events and exhibitions in their large store, and by supporting the local community arts festival, locals felt Oddbins was acting outside the usual formulaic approach consumers have come to expect, and actually cared about the local community.

The staff were also very genuine.

The idea wasn’t dreamt up by a marketing or PR exec, or someone in CSR, in fact it was down to the local manager who simply responded to a request from a local artists to exhibit some pictures. This was followed by a number of innovative music and poetry events. Head office wasn’t even consulted.

No surprise, Oddbin’s got loads of organic social media coverage and positive word of mouth. And increased sales.

THE SECRET TO GETTING IT RIGHT

It’s simple – relevance and authenticity. But you do need to do your research first to know when it’s right – don’t guess or assume.

CSR for years has based its actions upon assumptions rather than insight research, assuming people cared about environment only to discover other factors were more relevant to them.

When SKY invested heavily in eco set top boxes they were surprised to be bottom of the Ethical Brand Index. Why? Because consumer hated the fact that they bought up programmes that they previously got for nothing and made them pay for it (especially sports). Environmentalism was not high on their customers’ agenda.

We advised one high street coffee chain that targeting their community budget at a group of people their consumers wouldn’t relate to (NEETs) was a waste of money. Harsh I know, but this group was already well supported by government and council grants anyway. It was the classic ill thought out, unresearched strategy.

We suggested they support middle class kids, a far more relevant audience, to help them do community based projects, because their relatives and friends, who were their customers, would get that. It was advice well taken and the outcome was very successful.

It’s easy to get it wrong. Logic and assumptions makes us believe that any act of charity must surely result in consumers feeling good towards our brand. Wrong. Unless they relate to it, or feel it’s genuine, they’ll probably ignore it.

￡100 given to a local community centre to feed the homeless can buy way more good will than a ￡1000 cheque to a top charity.

If brands actually research what their customer thought about what they supported, the truth might be an eye opener. But too few do.

We all know that ‘doing good is good for business,’ but what aspects of dong good is good? And what is achieving nothing? It’s the old 80:20 rule – 20% of what you do is making 80% of the difference.

[READ: WHY DOING GOOD IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS. The power of ethics - the best thoughts and factual data on the subject. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/why-doing-good-business-embracing-purpose-key-engaging-arnold/?published=t&fbclid=IwAR1hLE8eKv9PH1fbFzUUaaZ-AUQcWFYa6TB7tvYkLBOB_a5L45S_OST8dFQ ]

Convincing the customer that your caring, sharing actions are a product of a caring, sharing ethos – Corporate Purpose - and not just another marketing spin, is equally a challenge.

The old adage, “what you do say’s far more about you than what you say” is a great philosophy to adopt.

In fact don’t say a thing, let the community do the talking. It’s all about hearts and minds - win over both and they’ll direct their good feelings towards you and towards others.

Word of Mouth is by far the most powerful form of marketing, and 100x more powerful than social media. If you get community engagement right (which is the big challenge) the community will love you.

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Chris Arnold is a Dr of Business and co-founder of the UK’s leading business to community specialists, CONNECT 2. He is also founder of the ethical marketing + advertising agency Creative Orchestra and the agile innovation consultancy The Garage. Previously he’s been a board director of Saatchi & Saatchi.

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