Filed under: 1 | Tags: ABC, ALP, CSR, green jobs, Greens, Kevin Rudd, Liberals
I’m loving the phrase ‘National Green Jobs Corps’. It doesn’t lend itself very well to acronymity but it does give the air of a revolution; a revolution that will sweep across the country like a huge wholesome broom, leaving nothing but a few specks of evasive dust in its wake**.
Filed under: 1 | Tags: branding, CSR, employer branding, gen y, Generation Y, marketing, recruitment
PR is lovely. It allows companies to make newsflashes of ‘insight’ into topics ‘we have little to no understanding of’ (ie. Gen Y**) and promote themselves in the process.
Recent example: Morgan Stanley’s report by a 15 year old intern on why teenagers don’t use Twitter.
Let’s just ignore the fact that I’ve seen umpteen posts saying exactly the same thing from ‘Gen Y’ blogs. I think a more sensational headline might have been ‘15 year old interns handling affairs of global financial management company’.
Like I said, PR is lovely.
This brings me to my original question: does Gen Y really look for CSR when choosing an employer?
…because according to headlines from several large companies, this is a key requirement tabled by ‘Gen Y’ in interviews.
Is this really true or just a marketing stunt?
- It allows the company to grab a headline
- It makes students think that if everyone else is aware of it maybe they should be too
- A further 250 words can be devoted to the company’s CSR efforts
[Let us note at this point that just because a story has been used for marketing purposes, it is not necessarily made up - the Morgan Stanley case demonstrates this.]
However, as a blanket statement, I don’t think you can say that ‘Gen Y’ feels CSR is important in an employer.
Rants on the general nature of the term ‘Gen Y’ aside, at the moment those just graduating or in junior roles are mostly just glad to GET a job. Many will not have the option to ‘choose’ their employer, and they will rank pay and job description higher than CSR in importance. It only comes into play where all else is equal. (Not that it’s so black and white – it’s usually that we like the brand more from the impression we get.)
This is something we’ve seen from before the GFC, though. Unethical corporate behaviour can be a disincentive, but proactive CSR strategies mostly only aid HR in forming company culture.
Not to say that CSR is not important – as a generation we are more aware of environmental issues hearing about a brand doing ‘good things’ can leave us with a better feeling.
But from talking to a variety of people, there is only a select group to whom CSR is very important. They’re generally highly educated, grew up with volunteer work or come from a religious educational background. Caring about issues like sustainability or human rights often coincides with a dedication to studies and long-term results. If they form part of your target market for candidates then your employer brand will benefit from an extensive CSR program.
Me personally? I wouldn’t feel comfortable working for an unethical employer and would much prefer to go for a job where I have the opportunity to continue making an impact on causes I believe in. Quite a few friends are the same. But I know we’re definitely not the majority.
**Irony fully intended.
Filed under: 1 | Tags: branding, carbon credits, Carbon Planet, CSR, culture, gen y, strategy
Too often, when I ask representatives of corporations (in the wide-eyed innocent manner only a prospective graduate can achieve) what their CSR program is the answer is a resounding “Errr…”
This is most disappointing when one of the key parts of their marketing pitch to ‘Gen Y’ is that they are socially responsible.
I’d like to look at this from a branding and strategy perspective.
If one of your reps didn’t know about one of the other ‘five basic tenets’ of your business, say, client service, you’d fire them on the spot.
The best way to communicate the values that your company wants to represent are through the actions of the people that make it up. Increasingly, due to societal pressure, companies are throwing ‘the community’ on a list of things they value. But how can staff embody company values if they don’t even understand them?
As more and more companies get on the bandwagon, CSR will shift to being a hygeine factor and the motivation will have to come from interesting concepts and authentic execution.
If you are going to go for CSR programs, it’s NOT just a ‘role’ that you can palm off to one person in corporate communications. It’s not a profession, it’s not a function. It’s part of company culture.
Otherwise, you end up with the situation I described earlier. For the students you’re trying to attract who care about CSR and want to know you’re doing it, that would be an ‘epic fail’ (to use ‘Gen Y’ speak).
All it takes (imho) is training and dialogue. This is why I’d like to see companies like Carbon Planet not just offering carbon credits and consultation but also training for entire organisations.
Make sure that your employees have an idea of what your company is doing. (Especially if you’re in an ‘evil’ industry like oil.) Better yet, an understanding. The feeling that through little extra personal effort they’re part of an organisation which is helping the community gives employees something to feel good about.
At the very least, please, brief them before sending them out to represent your company.
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I’d like to add something for evangelists of CSR: it’s important to remember that when you’re talking to people outside of the CSR community the things that are obvious to you may not to be obvious to them.
It’s a constant sales pitch. You need to convince them in a way that doesn’t make them hate you.
Sweeping ‘obviously we must do this’ statements, absolute refusal to discuss other points of view, spam; they’re annoying and they give others who don’t want to listen the perfect excuse to brush you off.
If you’re going to call for action, how you’re communicating is just important as what you’re communicating.
Here’s a few thoughts on careers fairs straight from Gen Y:
- If you’re advertising an aspect of your business as an area of interest for your recruits – let’s say, CSR and volunteering opportunities – all of your reps should know about it. Not just HR. (If HR knows.) If your 6 month recruit has no clue, what does that say about induction processes and the integration of CSR into company culture??
- We don’t have business cards, but if YOU don’t that’s just poor form. If we’ve been talking to you about your company, it’s nice to know that we can contact the same friendly person later.
- Most students are just cruising for free things. Popcorn is a winner. And a good demonstration that buzz does not equal results.
- We can smell desperation.
Generally, the people I talked to were great – and I was pushing the limits of ‘it’s as much about students testing companies as it is about companies testing students’.
A little disappointed about the lack of knowledge at times though. Evidently some ‘core values’ weren’t core values at all.
GFC was definitely hitting – a lot less free food than usual.
Best freebie: USB radio (thanks DSD! even relates to your core business).
Worst: fluoro erasers (you expect us to, like, write?), closely followed by the usual array of unidentifiable confectionery.
Government departments also appear to have multiplied. Either that or they are the only people not solely looking for accountants.
After reading this article on the Marketing & Strategy blog, I feel like CSR is going to suffer death by vagueness.
So I’ve written this post on Brandcurve – I had originally intended it for this blog (with slightly more colourful language) but I think it’s of better use there.
Call me an idealist, but when I think about what the world *could* be like if everyone did just a little bit more for the common good…how much better would things be?
It just takes a little bit.
[Which reminds me - if you're in Australia, consider donating your empty cans/bottles to One Village's Bottles for Bricks program. They'll be recycling them (10c each in SA) with the proceeds going towards building a school in Uganda.]
The last week or so has seen Telstra’s BigPond move into the uncharted waters of establishing themselves on Twitter.
Bold? Yes. Successful? Well, so far there’s been some criticism but the company is handling it well.
One thing they ARE being cautious about is whether this move will contravene Australia’s Spam Act 2003 (Cth). And as Zac Martin has pointed out, there may be implications for other mediums like blogs, blog comment, facebook messages, etc.
[this post is not AGLC compliant]
To put it simply, at this point the law is not conclusive.
The legislation has attempted to cover mostly e-mail spam while anticipating future methods of spamming. Most of the cases related to the Spam Act have concerned e-mail, so there has as yet been little definition for contraventions using newer mediums.
Apparently the main concern for BigPond’s lawyers is whether Twitter would be considered a ‘commercial electronic message’.
First, does Twitter count?
Twitter is a microblog site. That means, everyone has their own feed of blogs <140 characters, and these are only distributed to other people if they choose to subscribe to that blog by RSS, or ‘follow’ the blog.
The key point of contention is s 5(1)(b) of the Spam Act , which essentially states that for the penalties to apply a message must have been sent to and electronic address. This address must be in connection to::
“(i) an e-mail account; or
(ii) an instant messaging account; or
(iii) a telephone account; or
(iv) a similar account.”
Is an RSS compiler a ’similar account’? Now there’s the problem.
If Twitter is a ‘commercial electronic message’, then would BigPond be contravening the law?
I think that the matter would be more complex, but still defensible.
There are three separate offences::
-
Unsolicited commercial messages must not be sent. – However s 16(2) allows messages to be sent if prior consent has been given. Schedule 2 s 2 defines this as either expressly given, or reasonably inferrable from conduct or relationships.
If someone is ‘following’ a Twitter feed, that might be express consent. But it is almost definitely a reasonable conclusion that they wanted to hear from the Twitterer. -
Commercial electronic messages must include information about the individual or organisation who authorised the sending of the message. – s 17 clarifies that the organisation sending the message and their contact details must be ‘clearly and accurately’ identified. Arguably the link to a profile from the Twitter message will supply just that.
-
Commercial electronic messages must contain a functional unsubscribe facility. - This is the trickiest. s 18(1)(c) requires the message to contain a statement that the receiver can unsubscribe. Tough with Twitter’s 140 char limit. It would be up to a court to interpret this, but Twitter already provides options to unsubscribe or block, and with a purposive interpretation I think that would be sufficient.
So Twitter’s probably okay, but what about other websites?
With or without the ‘commercial electronic message’ debate, I think most spaces like blogs, Facebook and Myspace are still okay.
Most of these sites require you to be ‘friends’ before you post on their space, which means you have consented to hear from them. (Private messages on these sites may be a different matter though.) In the case of blogs or publically enabled Facebook walls, not using moderating systems for comments may imply that you have consented to all messages.
Most companies will use a profile on these sites to post information, which will clearly identify them.
Most sites also have a blocking capability.
The most iffy of these is blog comments, which is bad news for NAB with the complaints about their advertising tactics in August.
That’s my legal rant for the year, if there’s anything you think I’ve missed let me know.
Incidentally, the Australian Law Reform Commission is reviewing Privacy Law. Part of this is a proposal to have specific legislation for direct marketing – specific consent and easier opting out may be part of this. Won’t be in force for a while if at all, but that WOULD rock the boat for marketers.
Filed under: 1 | Tags: CSR, FairTrade, G Magazine, Green Book, green washing
I have a lot of arguments with people about whether or not being environmentally friendly is a waste of company resources…
I really believe that there are a lot of instances where making a bit of effort to be ‘green’ is definitely in a company’s best interests. Cutting energy wastage, for example. But with environmentally-friendly consumer choice magazine G Magazine pushing ‘green’ companies into the spotlight, it’s not just about conscience but consumption. The magazine itself claims to be carbon neutral and use fully recycled paper. (I wonder if their paper is also carbon neutral?)
This will be seen especially with their ‘Green Book’ (based on their Green Directory) to be released in about a month and sold alongside the magazine. The difference with this directory is that the 1500 companies to be listed have been picked out by G Magazine, unlike with competitors the Green Pages (which has gone the other way and launched its own magazine) and the Australian ‘broad’ (read: scared of complaints) EcoDirectory.
What will this really mean, though?
Green-washing needs more than just putting a fancy name on a product. The coffee industry is rife with certifications programs, but unless consumers have some kind of understanding of what the label means they won’t pay a premium, as discussed on brandchannel. And even though most consumers aren’t going to dig into the whole process in detail to check you’re telling the truth, it only takes one carefully placed media investigation to unravel you (whether it’s true or not – jury’s still out on the Heart Foundation tick).
Meanwhile, certification programs like FairTrade have spent so much time and effort to build their image, which has only more recently started translating into a change in consumer behaviour. (Other established brands like ‘Made in Australia’ may not even see any changes in some goods.)
I note that none of the directories have direct links to their selection/screening criteria on their homepages, which is surely the first thing any conscientious consumer is going to want to read.
Can anyone now just come up with their own certification labels? Even if it’s for their own products? And will the added value be enough to overcome the resulting price premium?
What does green really mean?
Filed under: 1 | Tags: advertising, carbon emissions, carbon neutral, CSR, direct mail
Further to my post yesterday on the concept of making marketing communications greener, the Direct Mail Special Report from May’s AdNews tells me that some companies are trying to make direct mail a little more eco-friendly.
I have to admit that I’d never heard of carbon neutral paper before…and I’m just a little curious as to how you calculate it (do they take into account the carbon absorption lost by the trees cut down?) but Paperlinx/Australian Paper claims that their new range, [go green with] Envi, is another way to ease that corporate guilt. They’re accredited by the Australian Department for Climate Change’s ‘Greenhouse Friendly’ scheme, which has to count for something, but I’d still like to see their calculations.
Meanwhile, other suggestions for getting green with your DM include, using non-toxic inks, waterless printing and reducing waste by recycling where possible.
But hopefully, as the whole report tries to sell, if direct mailers are becoming more targeted and better at engaging consumers, there won’t be much waste at all. [Personally, I will directly bin anything that is addressed to 'the homeowner' purely out of distaste.]
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You know you’re a marketing geek when…
…I was waiting in line at one of my favourite cafes today and amusing myself by looking at their miniature cakes, which they’re known for. These cakes both come in a smaller and larger version, with a substantial price difference between them. One of the types of cake is a lamington which is decorated with hand-shaved coconut. I happened to notice that the shavings on the smaller cakes were much larger than those on the larger ones. My first thought? Is this a marketing ploy to make people feel like the smaller cakes are ‘too small’ so that they upgrade?
Cutting carbon emissions is the cause du jour – sod the other environmental effects, let’s just measure our CO2 and then cut, cut, cut!
A lot of companies are spending a lot of money to try and tell consumers that they’re doing just that.
Perhaps they should be looking at spreading the ‘green’ message in a ‘green’ way, though…it’s been calculated that marketing communications cause over 500 million tonnes of carbon emissions per year and is likely to increase, according to TrinityP3. (See here.)
What can you do? For a start, include it in your ‘carbon footprint’ when buying offsets. Then have a look at communication delivery methods and how they can reduce environmental impact whilst retaining their marketing impact. Waste paper is an obvious sinner, as are novelty products that require transporting long distances, but internet isn’t entirely blameless either.
It won’t be perfect, but it’s definitely something to think about.
