| Six
Organizational Models for Integrating Brand with CSR
Carol Holding, President, Holding Associates/Brand Strategies
Lucille Pilling, Director of Health Initiatives, Corporate
Council on Africa
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Today, corporations know that corporate social
responsibility (CSR) is inextricably linked to their reputations
and their brand identities. Yet integrating CSR and brand
development can be daunting without a roadmap. To address
this need, my co-author and I conducted in-depth, semi-structured
interviews with key managers in brand and CSR departments
in the five industries identified by McKinsey as being most
prominently engaged in CSR activities-financial services,
pharmaceuticals, extraction, consumer products, and technology.
Our analysis identified six organizational models for integrating
brand and CSR, half of which are readily replicable examples
that companies can apply to their own situation.
Model #1: Mission-Driven
This model is the purest example of brand-CSR integration
and occurs almost exclusively in companies that were founded
with social responsibility as a core value. In fact, these
companies are so aligned with CSR in both brand and operations
as to warrant the label "social enterprises." Even
in this social enterprise environment, however, brand and
CSR linkage must be formally linked for reporting and other
purposes. For example, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters hired
its first CSR officer in 2000 nearly 20 years after the company
was founded, and its first CSR report was published in 2005.
Model #2: Product-Driven Consumer Companies
PepsiCo is an example of a company whose brand-CSR integration
is product-focused, such as its partnership between Quaker
Oats and the World Heart Foundation. Despite corporate-level
support and measurement, brand-CSR integration of this type
will always depend upon the characteristics of specific products.
Model #3: Super-Regulated Industries
Companies in this category are often blocked from efforts
to integrate brand and CSR because their products are so highly
scrutinized by regulators and the public. We spoke with several
pharmaceutical companies, all of whom were cautious because
their culture does not support brand-CSR integration.
Model #4: Individual Champion
This model, exemplified by Symantec, the maker of Norton Anti-Virus
software, is based on a single person who initiates and manages
CSR in all its facets, including brand-CSR integration. Though
Symantec's initial idea for a CSR program came out of branding,
the effort was actually launched in the External Affairs department.
Cecily Joseph, Director of CSR, used the UN Global Compact
as Symantec's CSR framework, then added the Global Reporting
Initiative (GRI). Once the structure was in place and management
involvement was established, the project took on a life of
its own. One example Joseph cites is the "environmental
stewardship council, which started with 10 or 15 people. By
the end of the year we had 50 people. And this includes senior
people, VPs-all volunteers."
Model #5: Communications Team
In this model, CSR resides in the communications department
and is used specifically as a brand-building tool. According
to Steve Kess, VP Professional Relations at Henry Schein,
the drug distribution company, CSR is managed by three departments,
Corporate Communications, Community Relations, and Professional
Relations, all of whom report to the EVP of Communications
to insure that the branded CSR program "Henry Schein
Cares" reaches both employees and Schein's suppliers
and worldwide operating companies.
Different models were found at larger companies-like Adobe,
the design software company, where the CSR department is within
marketing and works closely with the Brand Director-and at
smaller ones-like Bankrate, the personal finance website,
where marketing managers with different functions all participate
in CSR projects.
Model #6: Organic Partnerships
This is the most mature brand-CSR integration model and is
based on systematically interrelated parts rather than an
existing structure.
At HSBC, CSR is a separate department but brand-CSR integration
is applied throughout the company. For example, Nicole Rousseau,
VP of Retail Marketing, coordinated the launch of HSBC's first
U.S. environmental campaign "Commit to Change."
Key to building the campaign was the formation of an employee
launch team. "[We found people] who were really engaged
and energized about the environment in every department,"
said Rousseau. Another initial task was identifying the sustainability
projects that already existed in the U.S. Bank: "Everyone
learned in the process about what we had been doing for years."
Working closely with HSBC's Sustainable Development Group
in the UK and HSBC's US CSR department, Rousseau's team built
a campaign that put CSR at the center of HSBC's retail marketing
efforts.
At Chevron, the oil giant, the CSR report is the responsibility
of the Global Issues and Policy Group while the company's
new brand "Human Energy" reinforces company-wide
CSR integration across all geographies.
At Cherokee, the private equity firm, Jonathan Philips, Senior
Director of Marketing, describes brand-CSR integration as
central to their brand: "To this day, (we) do not have
a corporate brochure, (we use) our Sustainability Report for
both investors and recruiting employees."
Conclusion
In identifying organizational prototypes on which managers
can build brand-CSR integration, we found not only replicable
organizational prototypes but also an evolutionary path:
* The Individual Champion is the model common to early stage
brand-CSR integration efforts and the model of choice for
high-tech companies and other flat, nimble organizations.
* Three of the four companies we identified as following the
Individual Champion Model evolved to the Communications Team
Model within 10 years of launching. We argue that this is
a natural and predictable evolution.
* The Organic Partnerships Model works well in the old-line
companies we interviewed. Their age and industry maturity
guarantee that some form of community involvement is well
entrenched in the organization and culture, and the full integration
of brand and CSR evolves organically over time.
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