We hear a lot about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and much is talked about and discussed when it comes to defining it and differentiating it from classic marketing and PR activity. Today, CSR is much more beyond what used to be considered as your good old PR or a window dressing for community relations. It lies at the heart of corporate strategy, identity and branding where companies are better off being prepared to know exactly: What do they stand for? What are their real values? And what is the best way they can contribute and give back?
If one looks in any media source for the definition of CSR, it will most probably define it as a concept whereby organizations consider the interests of society and take responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, communities and other stakeholders as well as the environment. Such obligation is usually voluntarily taken with the ultimate objective of improving the quality of life for the local community and society at large.
Yes, in absolute terms this definition could be true, yet it stands as very generic. Some may argue that brands and corporations need only to promote their services and products and deal with consumers in order to maximize financial profit for their shareholders. I tend to simplify the above definition to: Brands and corporations behave exactly like humans do. If we start to think of organizations, corporations and brands like we think of humans, our neighbors and any other citizen in our community, the whole concept of CSR starts to make sense. Why? Because it is really being part of making profit and sharing it back in some form in the community.
Brands are like humans: Why complicate lives? If we think of brands as if they were like humans, the framework becomes much more simplified. It’s a two way street and ‘give and take’ principle.
The corporate life cycle
Brands have their own life cycles: they have a birth date, place; they belong and have an identity. They dress themselves in colors, shapes logos, slogans, etc., yet they don’t exist in vacuum. They enter markets, they grow, and get more established and achieve success at some point — it is exactly like the human life cycle. They mature but also they get wealthy as a result of their market standing in the marketplace or, to put in human terms, in their own community. Humans do care about their reputation and so do brands and corporations. CSR activity, if fulfilled in line with the brand’s overall corporate strategy with a consistent vision of giving back to the community, will prove worthiness in enhancing the company’s reputation as well as ensuring respect among the public at large.
Think of a brand as a member of a family or a tribe or a small community or even a nation. Brands have relations with their environment and hence in business terms they have direct relationship with their consumers. These consumers happen to be fathers, mothers, kids, girls, boys, students — they are human.
CSR is a basic human-to-human relationship that naturally gets established when brands exist in a marketplace. Humans have values and so do brands. Brands often define a list of values for themselves yet forget one single important value, which is generosity.
With CSR, brand differentiation is important. In crowded marketplaces, companies strive for a unique selling proposition that in the minds of consumers can separate them from the competition. CSR can play a role in building customer loyalty based on distinctive ethical values. Several major brands, e.g. the Body Shop, are built on ethical values. Business service organizations can benefit as well from building a reputation for integrity and best practice. Companies have their own ideas about CSR and how much of a commitment they make to it. It can range from a morning tea to supporting orphans, choosing a cause such as environment, to supporting human rights. As much as it is important to jump into owning a certain cause or activity, it is equally important how relevant that contribution is to the community.
Brand integrity and belief in CSR by being true to yourself and others: no matter what organizations do, they must act on the single belief that it is part of their business mission to make the world a better place. There are many ways and platforms to do it: ideally the CSR action that a brand makes should be true to its own brand values and fill a real need gap in the community at large. There is no point when companies and brands claim to promote CSR and be committed to sustainable development while simultaneously engaging in harmful business practices. I believe that we have enough cases of NGOs claiming CSR yet their insincerity and hypocrisy is directly linked to other hidden political motives.
International versus regional CSR profiles
If we take Europe, for example, or even the US, we will see a clear commitment to sustainable business best practices under which falls CSR. Companies have been taking their social role seriously and often place it under the banner of what is known as CSR. The EU has developed a corporate sustainability framework, which identifies a progressive set of economic, social and environmental objectives that companies are encouraged to achieve. In our region this does not exist in the current market reality. Such practices represent a continuing commitment by a company to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of its workforce, family members, as well as the local community and society at large. Shell, Total, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Body Shop all are good examples.
CSR in our region suffers lack of understanding, belief and governance: So far, we have sporadic and ad hoc, one-off individual activities. We have rarely seen a clear vision outlined by a brand and owned as a brand value to be pursued, thus linking CSR to the corporate strategy. Surely, there are exceptions to this, yet we still have a long way to go.
To put all this into our contextual reality, the whole field of corporate strategy and media communication is evolving and the move towards CSR is relatively new. We are witnessing an embryonic phase of CSR and one could say that it has been gaining ground since companies are pressed to adapt to the demands of the global economy. Our region has its own dynamics and the majority of small and medium sized companies are family run. They still don’t believe that they should adopt the CSR model and its value. Quite often it is perceived as a PR activity. Equally, as a shared responsibility, communication agencies do not see what’s in it for them from a revenue-based thinking and, as result, are not being proactive. Lots of education and initiative-based thinking is required, while researching community needs and gaps are of fundamental importance, yet these are completely absent.
As for the other few companies that do understand the importance of CSR and how it can help, they still think of limited budgets and tend to prioritize other tactical and short-term product driven activities instead.
If one examines the current laws that exist in our region we can also understand why this has not been taken on a serious role. Therefore, the laws that govern such activity also do not help.
Obstacles will continue to face the expansion of CSR in the Middle East and North Africa region for key reasons, the main of which are:
1. Organizations still do not believe that CSR should become a vital part of their initial brand belief system.
2. The lack of understanding among SMEs, which form a significant share of the market, about CSR.
3. The scarcity of trained media experts in the region to build business capacity in this area.
4. Insufficient shareholder or government pressure on companies to make their management records public.
What is crucial for the industry as a whole, especially for our region, is to assess how CSR is perceived by companies as well as consumers, governments and media professionals. Once a common understanding of defining CSR and believing in it is reached, only then can everybody profit from such a strategic and fundamental relation that lies at the heart and essence of both sides of the equation. After all, it is a human relationship packaged in a commercial context. In net, CSR is no longer an option, and it’s time to give back, yet the question remains: are we ready for it in our region?
Paul Boulos is the regional director of business development Middle East & North Africa at DRIVE-DENTSU
