Edelman and StrategyOne (their research arm) did a finding in October 2007 about what consumers' views on good causes and what they thought about brands and social purposes.
The Study
Across nine countries (Brazil, US, India, China, Japan, Italy, UK, Canada, Germany), 5600 consumers revealed their attitudes about social purpose, the actions they take on their personal beliefs, and the role of brands
Findings
56% of consumers are involved in good causes.Clear momentum around social purpose.
One third of consumers are unaware of any brands involved in good causes.
1. Consumers are more involved than ever in social action.
88% of consumers surveyed feel it is their duty to contribute to a better society and environment, and 83% say they can personally make a difference.
78% of consumers like to buy brands that make a donation to worthy causes.
2. Consumers will pay more for and evangelise good cause brands
57% of consumers have no problem with brands that support good causes and make money too.
70% say they would be prepared to pay more for a brand that supports a good cause they believe in.
When choosing between 2 brands of same quality and price, a social purpose is what would most affect consumer decision (41%), ahead of design & innovation (32%) and brand loyalty (26%)
Over half of consumers (55%) would help a brand promote its products if there was a good cause behind it.
56% are more likely to recommend a brand that supports a good cause than one that does not.
Consumers want proof of causes and the positive effects - they want a ROI (return on involvement): they need to know a good cause is successful in bringing about real change!
3. Environmental marketing is the new bottom line; other social issues such as health equality are tracking very strongly with consumers as well.
Protecting the environment (92%) is the top cause that consumers personally care about. The rest are enabling everyone to live a healthy live (90%), reducing poverty (89%), and equal opportunity to education (89%).
4. Brands need to communicate their social purpose credentials more effectively.
Brands are not getting enough credit for the social causes that they are already doing.
Top 2 prompted brands in each country associated with a good cause: Body Shop, Dove, Coke, Nike. Note that these are all global brands, with promise of quality.
For unprompted responses: Brands tend to be more localised for eg in Germany, it's Krombacher beer and in UK, Tesco.
5. Word of mouth is the most credible communication on causes
The Internet is important in this aspect.
In many countries, consumers are sharing information on good causes at least once a week. That is a very high frequency!
6. Brands have the opportunity to involve consumers on a deeper level in social purpose by 'making it easier to do good'
The main barriers for brands to get consumers more involved in their cause is time and money.
Brands need to find easy solutions for these barriers.
Consumer support causes and brands that benefit their local community.
The real challenge for brands is to break the awareness and informed barrier, before action and loyalty of consumers take over to spread the word of good purpose!
A few good examples of brands using the knowledge of goodpurpose
Rama, a brand in the German market for over 80 years, which put social purpose at the heart of their brand. Ambition to support families not only with their products but with something that was very important to them in their daily lives. The lack of childcare was found to be a major issue among families with a research study done with mothers, experts and the media. Mums are not able to go back to work if kids are below 3 due to state provided childcare regulations.
Wasn't fast enough to type out everything, read this PDF file for more details!
http://www.goodpurposecommunity.com/pdf/goodpurpose_Rama%20In-Depth_Interview.pdf
Marks and Spencer's Look behind the Label Campaign
http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/node/n/43452031
The Body Shop
http://www.thebodyshopinternational.com/Values+and+Campaigns/
The People are Watching and Expectations are high.
Evolution isn't perfect, it stumbles forward.
Conclusion
85% of consumers willing to change brands/ consumptions habits to make tomorrow's world a better place.
Mutual Social Responsibility is next key step in connecting consumers with brands via social purpose.
Return on Involvement is new metric.
Brands need to create POWERFUL OWNABLE IDEAS out of a social purpose platform to differentiate and rise above the clutter (e.g. Dove Real Beauty + self esteem)
Word of mouth, social marketing and new non-traditional channels are key to bringing a social purpose concept to life in a world of attention deficit disorder and 24/7 communications.
Social areas to explore
1) Cross Cultural understanding
2) Education/Arts and Culture
3) Environment
4) Human Rights/Civil Rights
5) Personal and Public Health
6) Poverty and Hunger
7) Self Esteem/ Self worth
Purpose as the 6th P in the marketing mix
Purpose,People, Price, Promotion, Product, Place
My own personal take:
Indeed, mutual social responsibility is the next big thing in brand marketing. But how feasible is it here in Singapore? I think Singaporeans in general are brought up in such a way that they are more concerned about their own livelihood and chasing after their aspirations. Often, they do not pay too much attention into such social causes. So maybe, this initiative may not work too well in Singapore's context.
However, having said that, I believe brands can leverage upon their appeal to get some social initiatives going. Let's take recycling in Singapore for example. I believe the recycling initiative by the government has been going weak for many years now. You often see all those big recycling bins for plastic bottles, cans, paper around, but how effective are they? I really doubt it has done much in the recycling efforts of the nation.
Now, imagine a big brand comes along and take on this social purpose of recycling and saving the environment, I believe it will have a greater impact than the government-led ones.
Source: http://www.goodpurposecommunity.com/
Saturday, December 8, 2007
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