More Than Just Charity
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aligns business
operations with social values. CSR integrates the interests of stakeholders-all
of those affected by a company's conduct-into the company's business policies
and actions. CSR focuses on the social, environmental, and financial success of
a company-the triple bottom line, with the goal being to positively impact
society while achieving business success.
There are several distinctive definitions of CSR. The World
Business Council described CSR as "business' commitment to contribute to
sustainable economic development, working with employees, their families, the
local community, and society at large to improve their quality of life."
Business for Social Responsibility defined CSR as "operating a business in
a manner that meets or exceeds the ethical, legal, commercial, and public
expectations that society has of business." The term Corporate Social
Initiatives (CSI) is also in place to describe major efforts under the CSR
umbrella.
Corporate social marketing finds a corporation supporting a behaviour change campaign intended to improve public health, safety, the environment, or community well-being. Again, a cause is at the core but here the intent is to actually change public behaviour. Example is GlaxoSmithKline's "Vaccination for all" campaign to increase public awareness for vaccination.
Marketing Campaign Aims to Trim American Middles
A full-time community-relations specialist with the U.S. Jewish Federation and mother of three kids ages 5 to 13, Schwartz-Getzug can't fathom how she could find time to get to the park, much less play with her kids there. Besides, she says, "I'm not convinced that those little steps actually have an impact. . . . Taking the stairs certainly does something, but it doesn't replace what's really needed."
She's what New York advertising giant McCann-Erickson Worldwide calls a "jaded can't doer" -- a parent too busy to eat right and exercise and too discouraged to launch a lifestyle overhaul. Not all Americans have grown overweight or suffer the health consequences of inactivity, but many share Schwartz-Getzug's personal assessment: "I'm still relatively healthy," she says. "But I'm not in very good shape, and I don't feel very good."
"We need to push that emotional button that's going to get them to pay attention with their whole body and not just with their mind," says Riley, a former New York public health official. "That's an element of social marketing that more public health people are getting comfortable with. Ten years ago they thought that was cheap somehow; they thought that was tawdry."
P&G and PSI Announce New Marketing Approach to Bring Safe Drinking Water to Dominicans
Procter & Gamble and Population Services International (PSI), a non-profit and non-governmental organization, announced today a new marketing approach to bring PUR Purifier of Water® to people in the Dominican Republic…"This unique partnership brings together the social marketing expertise of PSI with the proven distribution capabilities of the private sector in order to provide bottom-line health benefits to Dominican children," stated PSI Senior Vice President Sally Cowal.
PUR, which was developed jointly by Procter & Gamble and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, "represents a good example of public-private collaboration and also demonstrates how the government can work side by side with private companies in order to offer greater benefits to society," said Hans Hertell, U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic in a launch event for the safe drinking water effort in Santo Domingo. PUR has been shown to reduce diarrheal illness by an average 50% in controlled health intervention studies.
Technorati Tags: Corporate Social Responsibility, Health Education, Health Communication, Obesity, Partnerships, Social Marketing
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