Are You Sure Your CSR Programs Are Bringing Measurable Results?

During today's business research class we had a heated discussion about measuring the results of corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. As potential market researchers my friends and I are curious about quantifiable benefits brought about by cause-related marketing initiatives. As the year 2009 closes an increasing number of reports and surveys are coming out indicating CSR programs are positives viewed by the C-suits and stakeholders. The problem is - does intention and attitude really translates into behavior and revenues?


Probably not.


When your consumer do not care about you as a brand in the first place; when your CSR programs do not resonate with your targeted audience; when you mismatch your causes with business, and when you donate without your consumers' awareness... 


But even if you did everything perfectly... how do you measure your CSR benefits on the business?


Here the advantage of consumer participated cause marketing kicks in. As I proposed - there are two basic forms of cause-related practices - corporations either cut a small portion of their yearly revenues and make a direct donation to the foundations/charities of their choice, or they could ask for their consumers' engagement. For example, JCPenney's Adopt-an-Angel and Macy's 2009 Believe have consumers be the heroes who spread warmth and kindness during the holiday season. Lands' End's Big Warm Up steps further by providing entice (discounts) for consumers' do-good behaviors. 


For the first type - direct donation without consumers' participation - as companies you really need to correlate year-end earnings with customer awareness of the programs, attitudes and intentions in a long run... not to mention numerous distracting factors that might render the correlations invalid. For the second type things become much easier - how many consumers are actually participating? Are they loyal customers or just getting attracted by the corporations' riveting responsible behaviors? When every penny/good donated is connected directly with consumer participation... now you do the maths.


The greatest challenge encountered by every market researcher is to translate intentions into real behaviors - survey participants are influenced by things they are unaware of or unpredictable, which could lead to drastically different behaviors from answers they previously give on a survey.


So easiness of measurement constitutes another merit of audience participated cause marketing initiatives. The others are related to participants' "feeling-good" psychological value, direct impact they can track, or monetary reward (discounts or special offers, etc. ) So why not embrace this innovative method and let your customers play the role of heroes?