Cause marketing and PR: Improving your brand identity through authentic, long-term social impact
Brands and corporations today face pressure to do the right thing. It’s not as simple as picking something that sounds good and throwing money at it, though. Your cause marketing and similar PR efforts have to be genuine, align with your values and inspire action.
Balance emotion with quantifiable social impact
The best cause marketing efforts strike a careful balance. An emotional hook grabs people’s attention, but it only goes so far. With everything you do in cause marketing, make sure you can quantify and qualify results. Who benefits from your efforts? How are you making a difference? Show how you’re moving the needle.
The Arizona Game & Fish Department’s desert tortoise adoption campaign has it all—adorable animals and heartwarming adoption stories along with a time-bound goal and eye-catching data. The annual campaign runs from March through October and is designed to educate and inspire action, informing people that tortoises actually make great pets and helping to find homes for the adoptable animals. This social cause is a natural fit for a wildlife organization, and it tugs on heartstrings with data to back it up.
Treat the media as a PR partner
The media can help spread the word about your cause marketing efforts, but social impact work should not be done solely for the sake of media coverage. Media and consumers recognize attempts at self-promotion and are unlikely to give it attention; worse yet, self-promotion can result in criticism and negatively impact your brand’s reputation.
Media relations regarding cause marketing come down to appealing to the media with more than just a feel-good story. Be thoughtful and strategic in how you present your data, show the impact of your efforts, and prioritize timing. Come up with creative angles to give the topic more relevance. Provide the media with everything they need to craft a complete, compelling story, such as:
Relevant background information.
Access to subject matter experts through quotes or interviews.
B-roll video and other visual assets.
Quantifiable data illustrating your impact.
Skepticism from the media is a challenge to overcome in cause marketing—no matter how pure your intentions. An effective approach is to view the media as partners in helping raise awareness of an issue, not necessarily focusing solely on how your organization is doing great work. This approach forges pathways to tell your stories and report on progress along the way, demonstrating both impact and providing the media and its audiences an opportunity to take action.
Be authentic and genuine in your cause marketing
When designing your cause marketing campaign, align your efforts with your company values, your brand identity, strategy, and your product or service. The public is savvy; they will see through inauthentic efforts—and they’re not afraid to call you out. You have to consider whether what you’re doing makes sense for your brand. Seek out opportunities with a natural connection to your core values.
Foster Farms, a California poultry company, has established a long-standing hunger relief program. Its partnerships with local food banks go back over 15 years. Building long-term, authentic relationships on shared values has allowed Foster Farms’ social impact efforts to thrive. By recognizing a need—hunger—and asking how they could help, Foster Farms discovered a natural way to bring greater awareness to a need while committing their own resources in support of the cause.
Evolve with consumer’s expectations
Everyone, from executives and stakeholders to media and consumers, views cause marketing differently today than they did 20 years ago. Both the media and consumers expect more from today’s companies. Knowledgeable consumers don’t hesitate to do their own research, digging in to learn more about brands, while media members devote most of their limited time to breaking news rather than feel-good PR stories.
Larger companies often integrate cause marketing into their greater environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts. Cause marketing is tied directly to social impact. Public companies are increasingly reporting ESG metrics to their shareholders, so in-house positions are often dedicated to quantifying cause marketing outcomes. Rather than treating PR initiatives as a nice-to-have, companies now embed cause marketing/social impact into their overall strategic plan.
Cause marketing isn’t dead
Cause marketing remains a difference-maker when you balance a compelling emotional appeal and quantifiable data with the goal of raising awareness of an issue and inspiring action. Respect your audience by being authentic and strategic in your efforts and align your cause marketing efforts with your brand identity.
Contact us today to talk about how you can authentically embed cause marketing in your overall brand strategy and ESG approach.
