Deep Dive: How brands are building stronger equity the CSR way – Part 2

Brands’ CSR turn in their campaigns take the communication several notches higher. The ‘halo-effect’ has a positive rub-off on the brand, while bringing to the forefront socially-relevant issues and getting people to come out in support or at least start a conversation. 

In the first part of this Deep Dive feature report Adgully had covered areas like putting a social cause at the centre of a campaign, building an emotional connect with the audience, storytelling & strategy for future growth, role of digital in social-centric ads, as well as meeting revenue targets. 

Deep Dive: How brands are building stronger equity the CSR way – Part 1

Carrying the conversation further, Part 2 of this report concentrates on the factors to be kept in mind while creating cause-related campaigns, how to keep the storytelling authentic and relevant, steering away from exploitative campaigns and much more. 

Challenges while conceptualising ads highlighting a social cause 

Tarvinderjit Singh
Tarvinderjit Singh
Tarvinderjit Singh, ECD, Cheil India, feels that basically there are no challenges, but certain guidelines that agencies need to focus on. According to him, one cannot make an unauthentic, over-dramatised or fictionalised campaigns, films or ads about a cause which is real and emotional, because people are living that problem. So, one needs to stay true to the cause. Secondly, it should not be an exploitative campaign. Sometimes, in their bid to make the message more hard-hitting, marketers end up making it exploitative. “Apart from this, the work needs to be thought provoking to elicit the desired responses, grab people’s attention, while staying within the planned budget. But we also need to have our hearts in the right place,” Singh added. 

Looking back at history, Snehasis Bose, Senior Vice President – Planning, Law & Kenneth Saatchi & Saatchi, observed that till about the early to mid-90’s, advertising overall had more belief and saw more traction with consumers. There were marketing charlatans then as well, but fewer in numbers and thus peripheral. As marketers went mainstream with shallow with product claims and overt duplicity became an accepted way of advertising, consumer cynicism followed. “Similarly, in the earlier days of cause marketing, people saw the communication and thought that the brand was truly trying to make a difference. As more brands got on to the bandwagon and sought to live in the ‘holy by association’ aura, belief has become a premium emotion,” Bose noted. 

Along with these, Bose felt that decreasing attention spans have led to a situation where the lines between using-the-cause and being-true-to-the-cause have got muddied. 

Subhash Kamath
Subhash Kamath
According to Subhash Kamath, CEO & Managing Partner, BBH India, there are primarily two types of ads that are created for causes. “First, where you are working directly for the cause itself, for example, the work that we do for C.R.Y as a client. Secondly, when one of the brands you handle wants to connect with a cause or a social message. The challenges are different for both,” he said. 

Kamath elucidated, “When you’re working directly for a cause, the biggest challenge is in deciding what outcome you want out of the campaign. Is it mere awareness you’re gunning for, or is it donations coming in from potential donors, or is it signatures you seek for a pledge? What specific action or behaviour change do you want as a result of your campaign, is often the most important thing to decide. Because everything – your messaging, the imagery, the storytelling – will have to be crafted to lead to that one outcome. I’m personally very wary of advertising for causes or NGOs where I don’t see a clear line of action. It’s usually a waste of money or some scam done purely for awards.” 

He also noted that for brands connecting themselves to social causes, the big challenge is always how to marry the cause message to the brand’s business objectives. “We’ve been doing this consistently for our brand Nihar Shanti Amla hair oil, where part of the proceeds goes towards the education of underprivileged children. It’s not an easy task and needs careful calibration of message. More importantly, you have to commit to such an initiative and be consistent with it for a number of years,” Kamath noted. 

The storytelling factor in cause-related campaigns 

Snehasis Bose
Snehasis Bose
 Law & Kenneth Saatchi & Saatchi’s Bose firmly believes that storytelling always has been and will continue to be the most effective way of sharing any message – be it pure product efficacy or larger human emotions. In the context of cause marketing, where typically attention is drawn to something that the consumer has latent knowledge of, it becomes all the more critical. “To draw attention, increase interest and then move to action, all this while ensuring that the brand does not get misappropriated,” he advised. 

Kamath of BBH India remarked that while it depended from brand to brand, it should not come off as a gimmick. He added, “You have to be honest and true to the message. Today’s consumers are very intelligent and can quickly make out the difference between something that’s authentic and something that’s not. Pepsi learnt that lesson recently, I’m sure.” 

Cheil India’s Singh pointed out that the mistake that people make for cause marketing is that they just look it through the CSR lens, but they also say that the brand cares. Citing some examples, he said, “Samsung’s campaigns for its technical schools and its craft smart films are not about respecting girls or for rural kids’ education, this is all how our brand feels about the issues, which is where the authentic peg comes in. If Samsung doesn’t care for these issues, then there is no sense of making ads on that. When you say cause marketing, it is actually not diverted from brand marketing, because if it’s an authentic honest brand who will actually support causes that it believes in and the brand values are aligned to the cause. So, they will not produce difficulties in developing a stories campaigns or thoughts because these two would be interchangeable.” 

Difference in storytelling for cause marketing focused communication & product ads 

For Kamath, the principles of storytelling remain the same. Brands still need to make their memorable and emotionally touching. At the same time, he added that cause related storytelling would place a higher premium on authenticity and honesty. “You can’t just get away with cracking a silly joke or having a celebrity front it for you,” he noted. 

Looking at a broader level, Singh opined that one needs these campaigns to work, want people to pay attention, generate empathy and initiate actions, but sometimes due to lower budget than the average marketing campaigns, one needs to be best at their creatives with limited resources. Secondly, at the granular level a few important things need to be kept in mind, such as sensationalism, not exploiting and being humane and authentic. “When you are doing product advertisement, you can push the boundaries of it, you can dramatise things, but here you have to keep a few humanitarian guardians,” he pointed out. 

According to Bose, while consumers see ads fully in the knowledge that it’s a message from someone seeking to increase business, cause marketing purports to be larger than the sell need of the brand. Thus, in this case artfully crafting the brand truth into the story is what makes the difference between a wannabe and a master. 

He further said, “Better cause-related ads take you to a deeper place and, while you are smarting at the message, drops the mic on the brand association, attacking the viewer when he/she is most vulnerable.” 

Key components for tailoring communication for cause-related campaigns 

Singh feels that a brand needs to believe in the cause to be authentic about the same. “You cannot just pick a cause because it’s fashionable or it will tick with your target audiences. It may or may not be connected to your products. For instance, if Samsung makes money by selling mobiles, TV and refrigerator and not by sending kids to technical schools , it’s not connected to a product but to a cause that we believe in – that we want Indian children to get the best of education. So, the brand needs to be authentic about this and that is the most important point one should keep foremost in mind.” He advised, “Do something that you genuinely believe in at the core of your company, and not because it’s fashionable to do it.” 

Bose’s 3-point checklist:

Proof of intent: It’s nice to know the brand cares, but what is the brand really doing about it? How deep is the action element of the care? What is the scale of it (if relevant)? What is really changing in the world thanks to the cause? 

Integration: Does the consumer really associate that emotion with the brand. Can the communication accrue it seamlessly? 

Freshness: As true as it is for any advertising. 

Kamath’s to-do list for brands:

Be clear on your desired outcome: What do you want the viewer or reader to specifically do once he has consumed your message. Don’t let it pass by like a ship in the night. Don’t let your communication be something that’s only ‘good to hear’. It must have a clearly defined impact. 

Be very clear on who exactly you are talking to and why he/ she should react to your message. 

Be authentic and honest: No hollow promises or gimmicks. 

Does it really touch the heart or just sounds smart? In most cause-related cases, you have to appeal to the heart. That’s when you get results. You can do something really clever or something that looks really good, but you may still not move the consumer.

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