Your CSR is Boring — You Are Picking the Wrong Fights

Your CSR activ­it­ies are boring.

Zzz. Wait, what? Did any­one say “cor­por­ate social responsibility”?

CSR is when brands con­trib­ute to the great­er good of soci­ety — even though they tech­nic­ally don’t have to do it. 

Typical examples could be:

Planting rain­forest in the Amazon.
Drilling for fresh water in Africa.
Donating funds to dis­aster relief.

All good causes, for sure. 

But, as PR pro­fes­sion­als, we know this too well: get­ting pub­lic recog­ni­tion for CSR activ­it­ies is challenging. 

Where’s all that sweet goodwill?

When 1,000 People Agree With You

As a com­pany serving the great­er good through vari­ous CSR activ­it­ies, in the­ory, you should be reap­ing at least some busi­ness rewards for doing good.

A glob­al brand could alloc­ate mil­lions of dol­lars for good causes without earn­ing so much as a headline. 

But pub­li­city is one thing. What about goodwill?

Most people find CSR activ­it­ies to be both import­ant and noble. Commendable, even. 

But inter­est­ing? Not so much.

Imagine going out on a busy street to ask 1,000 by-pass­ers what they think about sav­ing the rain­forest. It’s not unthink­able that you would col­lect 1,000 “yes, that’s import­ant” answers.

In short: People favour your CSR endeav­our, which makes it unin­ter­est­ing from a media perspective.

It’s coun­ter­in­tu­it­ive, but people engage less with major­ity positions.

Enter: The Conversion Theory

In sci­entif­ic lit­er­at­ure, less engage­ment for major­ity pos­i­tions is known as the Conversion Theory. 

The social psy­cho­lo­gist Serge Moscovici found that we become more engaged if we belong to a mis­rep­res­en­ted minor­ity.

If 99,9% of your peers think that the rain­forest is worth sav­ing and you agree, you don’t feel you belong to a wronged minor­ity and are less likely to engage.

But most CSR issues tend to be backed by “mor­al” majorities.

Planting rain­forest in the Amazon.
Drilling for fresh water in Africa.
Donating funds to dis­aster relief.

Sorry. People engage with less intens­ity in major­ity positions.

Regarding the PR effect, the con­ver­sion the­ory is why CSR activ­it­ies work best when a brand finds an intel­li­gent minor­ity to liaise with — against a stu­pid majority. 

How To Make Your CSR Less Boring

Brands are gen­er­ally per­ceived as both power­ful and wealthy.

To be accep­ted as the under­dog, the brand must be vul­ner­able to deserve pub­lic acknowledgement.

1. There must be a clearly defined enemy; the more potent the enemy, the more inter­est­ing the story.

If you want people to side with your brand act­ively, they need to know who and what you’re up against — and that the brand is put­ting itself at risk by tak­ing this position.

From a PR per­spect­ive, com­pan­ies cut­ting down rain­forests are weak. And tak­ing a stand on behalf of the rain­forest is risk-free for the brand.

Is there a clearly defined enemy backed by a stu­pid major­ity?
Does a smart minor­ity back you in tak­ing down this enemy?

2. There must be obstacles and stakes to keep the brand account­able and the audi­ence engaged.

CSR, too, obeys the fun­da­ment­al laws of storytelling; you need a strong enemy and must also accept a hero’s journey. 

You can’t expect people to trust or respect you if you don’t harm your brand for what it believes in. 

There must be some­thing “at risk,” some­thing tan­gible for the brand’s bot­tom line. The brand must make enemies.

What’s at stake for your com­pany?
In what way is the out­come for your busi­ness uncertain?

PR Resource: The Stupid Majority