Cause-related marketing remains an underused opportunity to influence buying habits and customer perceptions. Consumers see it as an easy way to support charities, but they want a clear affinity between product and cause, based on a sincere partnership with the business. These findings come in the third piece of a series of reports by Research International for Business in the Community. Consumers want companies to communicate more clearly the link with the cause, showing evidence of mutual benefit. This is best done within the context of the whole community involvement strategy.
Published as The Game Plan on November 17, focus groups, in-store interviewing and discrete observation were used to test the quantitative findings of previous research, The Winning Game. That study found more than eight in ten consumers (86%) saying they would switch product to one associated with a cause if price and quality were equal. Contact Sue Adkins, BITC, on 0171 224 1600
EVERY LITTLE HELPS
The supermarket company, Tesco, is extending its Computers for Schools scheme for a seventh year, it was announced on October 10. This year’s scheme has provided some 3,000 PCs and 33,000 other items of computer equipment, worth ?5 million. Unused vouchers from 1997 can be carried forward into next year and for the first time Tesco is offering training to teachers by holding special sessions in stores and helping with installation and configuration.
Meanwhile in November Tesco announced that its partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was being extended to include the stocking of a special range of bird feed products. Supplied by a company associated with the RSPB, half the manufacturer’s profits will go to the charity. The RSPB has also helped advise Tesco on its code of conduct for suppliers to its ‘Nature’s Choice’ fresh produce range. Tesco is providing ?100,000 for the Skylark Action Plan. Contact Simon Crowfoot, Tesco, on 01992 632222
SHARING THE PROFIT
The unit trusts management company, Capel-Cure Myers, is offering ?150 to Help the Aged for each new investment in its Hallmark unit trusts, subject to a minimum ?10,000. The marketing tie-up is part of a wider partnership between the company and charity which aims to raise ?10,000 for the winter Heating or Eating appeal. Contact Barry Russell, Capel-Cure Myers, on 0171 488 4000
Insurance company, Royal & Sun Alliance, is providing a package of products to members and supporters of the National Deaf Children’s Society, offering discounts on normal rates of between 10% and 20%, plus a donation to the charity of between ?5 and ?20 for each product sold. The jointly-branded promotion also ensures that products are suitable for deaf children and their families, such as including automatic insurance cover for hearing aids. Contact Scott Gerrard, Royal & Sun Alliance, on 01403 231347
Abbey National is offering an affinity credit card through schools, in conjunction with Governor and Teacher Services. Teachers, school support staff, parents and local community residents can nominate a particular school to receive the benefits, being ?5 initially, 25p on every ?100 spent and ?2 at each year end provided the card has been used. Contact Lucia Chitnis, Abbey National, on 0171 612 4979
TRUST IN COMPANIES
As popular trust in institutions decline and people feel more at risk in society, commercial brands are becoming more important in underpining consumer confidence, according to The Henley Centre’s Planning for Social Change 1998 research programme. Brands must be managed strategically, with trust reinforced at all levels, including customer service and employment policies. The need for brands to behave ‘properly’, the Centre says, extends to the outside world too.
The Henley Centre’s consumer research, made public in October, showed increasing levels of confidence in leading name retailers and brand manufacturers between 1994 and 1997. The scores for consumers expressing ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ of confidence are: Boots and Marks & Spencer 83%, Sainsbury 74% and Tesco 71%; The Body Shop ranks seventh of those included at 60%. Most trustworthy brands include Kellogg’s 84%, Cadbury 83% and Heinz 81%. The survey also showed that levels of trust in government, teachers, the police and the media are below those of brand companies. Contact Kiki Pade, Henley Centre, on 0171 878 3000
PROTECTING CONSUMERS
The government is examining the scope for legislation to protect consumers from misleading ‘green’ claims, the environment minister, Michael Meacher MP, said on November 11. In the meantime, companies should act responsibly, following codes of practice including one shortly to be issued by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The government is also reviewing the effectiveness of the existing EU ecolabelling scheme, considering whether to introduce a UK version and studying how information and product standards can be extended to other areas of the consumer market. Contact DETR Enquiries on
MISLEADING CLAIMS
The food industry is duping consumers with misleading claims about food and should adopt a strict code of conduct on labelling, the Co-operative Wholesale Society is arguing in a campaign launched on November 10 to improve practice and highlight its own record. Also in November the Consumers’ Association called for an industry wide code on food labelling. Contact Martin Henderson, CWS, on 0161 827 5292
CAN IT WORK
A group of five leading drinks companies has agreed to work together to produce a standard design for displaying the number of units of alcohol on container labels. The move, announced on October 8, is intended to lead an industry-wide response to concerns about drinking, especially among under-age groups. The five are Allied Domecq, Guinness, IDV, Seagram and Whitbread. In October, the Home Office published survey data showing that one in twenty boys aged 11-15 had drunk 15 or more units of alcohol in the previous week.
Better labelling was one of the recommendations of a task force from the police, magistrates, youth service and alcohol concern agencies, set up by the Portman Group, the industry initiative against alcohol misuse. Publishing its report, Under the Influence, on October 15, the taskforce also called for alcohol education to be included in the National Curriculum and in primary schools. Contact Andrew Chevis, Portman Group, on 0171 499 1010
Comment
The community affairs function within companies started locally, site by site, managing relations with neighbours and the local community. Today that is still an important part of most CCI programmes. But the word ‘community’ no longer has a geographic meaning alone. Now there are communities of interest and identity, with which a company must also relate.
That relationship is not geographic but through the market place, and cause-related marketing is part of the picture. As yet market-based community relations is in its infancy, a sleeping giant; companies are wary, given the difficulties of getting it right.
In a local relationship, misunderstandings are avoided or explained away through face-to-face contact. In the market place, a few words on the packet have to suffice. When a company is profiting directly through increased sales, rather than indirectly through enhanced corporate reputation, double standards are particularly deadly: 10 pence for charity on a product which pollutes the environment and uses child labour in its manufacture can seriously damage to the brand.
So care and caution should be the watchwords, not inaction.
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