Why successfully communicating your Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability efforts is crucial to retaining and attracting new customers.
In the past, brands have done some good things outside of their sphere of business. They’ve organized seasonal beach cleanups and planted trees on Earth Day. But these types of one-and-done initiatives are not what customers expect from brands now. Doing good is no longer enough. In exchange for their brand loyalty, customers expect brands to not just do good, but be good. Because of this shift, brands have begun to transform themselves, instituting sweeping Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability changes throughout every aspect of their businesses.
These types of transformative shifts present their own special sets of challenges, however, especially in getting the message across to customers. If a one-and-done approach no longer works when it comes to being good, sending out a tweet and a post on social media to let customers know about your CSR efforts isn’t going to cut it either. A comprehensive, testable strategy needs to be developed. And HZ has deep experience helping brands and industries not only get their message across to their customers, but also using research to determine the effectiveness and resonance within the groups companies most want to reach.
One thing to understand about these communication efforts is that they are unlike other branding exercises. What needs to be communicated, and deeply felt, is a real purpose and authenticity on the part of the brand, that the CSR shift it is undergoing is serious and lasting because the brand is aligned with the values of its consumers. This requires a synthesis between branding and advertising, putting everything together brick by brick, so to speak. In our experience, pulling together all the components of strategy, branding, advertising, analytics, and PR is not uncommon. It’s an approach that leads to work and messaging that is structurally solid, purposeful, and impactful—work that delivers the authenticity consumers need to feel in order for these efforts to be successful.
But what exactly does “successful” mean? Well, it means being able to see what messaging works best on what platforms, and using that information to optimize which audiences see what content. At HZ we have a robust data and analytics division that provides key metrics to help adjust and fine tune messaging to always be at its most effective. This is incredibly crucial for any campaign, but especially so for CSR efforts, where more emotive or more informative elements can be dialed up or down depending on how audiences are responding.
Corporate Social Responsibility is something that brands need to take seriously. And HZ can help you every step of the way, ensuring your efforts are not only purposeful but authentic. This allows you to stay a part of the conversation that’s currently happening, as well as appealing to new generations and audiences in the future.
Reach out to newbiz@hzdg.com for more information about how HZ can help you with CSR and sustainability.
