MARKETING THE MESSAGE - Parliamentary Brief July 2005 - David Grayson

Arguably, the marketplace aspects of responsible business practice are the least
developed in most businesses championing CSR. This is ironic as this is the core of the business -- and many of the risks to business reputation are to be found in the marketing area -- and certainly where many Corporate Social Opportunities exist. As one of the leading CSR intermediary organisations, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), says in its publication Corporate Social Responsibility: A Guide to Better Business Practices (2002), 'the wide range of issues associated with the marketplace makes it difficult to provide comprehensive, detailed assistance with implementing socially responsible marketplace policies and practices'.

Marketers need to be conscious of the environmental and social impacts of the
sourcing of raw materials used in their products and the health, safety and labour
conditions under which branded products are manufactured in their own or in
supplier factories. Certainly many more companies are putting CSR criteria into their purchasing requirements. Figures to be published in the Autumn by The Copenhagen Centre, for example, based on a survey of 300 Danish smes, show that two thirds of respondents face buyer requirements on social and environmental standards. These figures are broadly in line with a UK survey conducted by MORI for the Small Business Consortium back in 2002. Significantly, the Danish survey has also found that half of the smes find that CSR requirements conflict with other contractual requirements concerning prices, quality and delivery times. Two thirds have never received guidance from buyers on how to implement sustainability requirements. Yet it should surely now be recognised that firms introducing CSR requirements - to be acting responsibly themselves - need to provide such help.

Advertising too has become an increasingly fraught area -- whether, for example, it reinforces stereotypes by the portrayal of particular ethnic, age or gender groups or reinforces, for example, the non-visibility of particular groups, such as through the non-portrayal of disabled consumers. A 2003 report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising concluded that advertisers are not reflecting Britain's ethnic minorities and that these communities do not believe that they see images of themselves that are balanced or truly representative. There are also increasing questions about whether it is appropriate to target advertising at children. Already, businesses have been banned from advertising products such as cigarettes to children, and there is growing pressure on sectors like fast-food to do the same.

Marketers should certainly be thinking about the availability of their products
and services to vulnerable groups such as children. Take the advances in technology that permit mobile telephone users to access the Internet, including pornography sites. Such content is clearly inappropriate for children -- increasing numbers of whom now have their own mobile phones. Hence, the involvement of mobile telephony companies in the development of protocols to restrict the availability of such adult content, resulting in the launch of an industry agreement in January 2004, which calls for an independent body to determine whether content is suitable or not for those under the age of 18.

At the other extreme, some companies face the challenge of the lack of accessibility of their products in some markets because of, for example, price (as in the case of pharmaceutical companies producing retroviral drugs for people with HIV and AIDS) and the consequent implications for pricing strategies in different markets. In the not too distant future, pharma companies may face far more ethically challenging dilemmas over who has access to anti-ageing and brai-expanding treatments.

Increasingly, companies also have to consider what responsibility they have not just for the use of their products and services - but for misuse too. Kids accessing porn from 3G phones is one such example. The debates around food and obesity, and pressure for responsible drinking are others. International drinks firms such as Diageo and Allied Domecq are both developing major strategies here - including promotion of a "standard unit" of drink and understanding of how to avoid drinking to excess. In the gambling sector, the industry has combined to launch the Responsibility in Gambling Trust.

Other, more immediate marketplace issues include mis-selling, for example of financial services such as pensions or of utilities. How far have financial services companies yet established KPI for responsible marketing of their financial products and reconciled these with existing KPI on sales and profit targets - and ensure that their reward structures and promotion, balance these KPIs?

Or again, the environmental impacts of excess packaging and end
use of products. Can we envisage more debate about the role of
responsible marketing in sustainable consumption, with questions asked about how much is enough and how the power of branding and marketing professionals can be harnessed to identify and market sustainable goods and services -- that is, about harnessing "corporate social opportunities." One fascinating new area is the way that CFS has balloted customers to determine the ethical investment stance of CIS. Sky TV's disability strategy, based on detailed market research, robust business case and action on seven key issues, is another.

Key CSR questions now for marketing departments include:

� Do we know the conditions under which raw materials for our products
are sourced and how they are subsequently manufactured? Do these
conditions match our public commitments on environmental and social
responsibility?
�Are our marketing strategies and advertising campaigns to target diverse
customer segments executed in ways consistent with responsible business
practices?
� Are we regularly exploring the implications of potential misuses of our
product(s) and are we taking active steps both to protect ourselves legally and
to protect our reputation?
When did we last debate as a marketing team the potential for corporate
social opportunities arising from the way in which corporate social
responsibility issues are impacting our business?

In short, there are no shortages of CSR marketplace issues - but they need marketers to treat them in a joined-up way: not as a bolt-on to business operations but built-in to business purpose and strategy.

David Grayson is a director of Business in the Community. This article is based on his latest book: Corporate Social Opportunity - with Adrian Hodges -which is published by Greenleaf: �19.95.
www.davidgrayson.net