Brand­ed social advo­ca­cy, or cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty, has been an increas­ing­ly press­ing item on the brand mar­ket­ing agen­da in recent years. John Lewis’ lat­est sea­son­al cam­paign shines a spot­light not only on lone­li­ness at Christ­mas, but also on brands that are infus­ing an ele­ment of social good into their cam­paigns. But do such prac­tices pro­vide prov­able val­ue?

Pete Mar­tin of dig­i­tal agency The Gate, writ­ing in “The True, The Good, The Beau­ti­ful”, begins with a bold max­im on social busi­ness:

“Every busi­ness is a ‘peo­ple busi­ness’. Every enter­prise is a social enter­prise. Every brand is sim­ply the sum of the thoughts and feel­ings and actions of its com­mu­ni­ty.”

Draw­ing from the time­less wis­dom of philoso­pher Pla­to, “The True, The Good, The Beau­ti­ful” is an impas­sioned call to action for brands in the 21st cen­tu­ry to address the age-old dichoto­my between the prag­ma­tists and the ide­al­ists, the num­ber-crunch­ers and the strate­gists – and in the con­text of the busi­ness world, the inevitable ten­sion between short-term busi­ness tar­gets and the long-term goals. The argu­ment (and there is per­haps grow­ing momen­tum for the view rip­pling through the mar­ket­ing world) is that the bal­ance is tip­ping towards the more ide­al­ized end of the spec­trum. Brands increas­ing­ly are becom­ing much more self-aware and proac­tive on social issues. The key ques­tion that must be addressed: is social advo­ca­cy indica­tive of a wider trend in busi­ness or is it mere­ly the lat­est mar­ket­ing fad?

Can Brands Be Advocates Of Social Good?

One of the endur­ing ques­tions for brands is whether they can posi­tion them­selves as advo­cates of social good while remain­ing com­pet­i­tive. Do such efforts aid their over­all brand val­ue, which can deliv­er prov­able ROI, or is it an unnec­es­sary cost? Sev­er­al notable brands have invest­ed in advo­ca­cy. Ear­li­er this year Lisa Lacy report­ed on how Coca-Cola, Nivea, and the U.S. Navy have used social good to cre­ate mem­o­rable expe­ri­ences. In Cana­da, cof­fee chain Tim Hor­ton’s have the envi­able posi­tion of being the coun­try’s best loved brand, due to a cul­mi­na­tion of cre­ative mar­ket­ing (such as their pop­u­lar pay-it-for­ward cam­paign), their grass­roots local com­mu­ni­ty work, and fair-trade prac­tices. When it comes to social progress, 2015 has also seen a large num­ber of brands speak­ing out on the issues of the day. Always for exam­ple, have ignit­ed social media with #LikeA­Girl and #Unstop­pable – an emo­tive, and incred­i­bly viral cam­paign that has put the spot­light on soci­ety’s under­ly­ing gen­der bias­es. LGBT issues too, have been one of the break­through top­ics of 2015. Numer­ous brands, includ­ing JELL‑O, Jet­Blue, Ben & Jerry’s, Chee­rios, Tiffany, and Wells Far­go, have voiced their own fla­vor of sup­port.

#ManOnTheMoon

Evi­dent­ly, many brands have real­ized that there is val­ue in align­ing their brand and mar­ket­ing mes­sages with top­i­cal social issues and cam­paigns. One brand that has con­sis­tent­ly posi­tioned them­selves as advo­cates of social good is UK depart­ment store retail­er John Lewis. Their #ManOn­The­Moon Christ­mas cam­paign brings atten­tion to the issue of lone­li­ness at Christ­mas:

John Lewis’ video has gar­nered near­ly 15 mil­lion views on YouTube alone as of this writ­ing. The com­pas­sion­ate sen­ti­ment seems to have struck a chord with con­sumers at just the right moment ahead of the Christ­mas hol­i­days. The sheer num­ber of impres­sions, com­bined with sig­nif­i­cant high-pro­file press cov­er­age, makes #ManOn­The­Moon a clear stand­out cam­paign from the UK’s major high-street retail­ers this Christ­mas. #ManOn­The­Moon reaf­firms that con­sumers will respond to cam­paigns that incor­po­rate a strong social advo­ca­cy mes­sage.

Positive Reinforcement & Brand Trust

Why has social advo­ca­cy become much more of a brand imper­a­tive in recent years? Because in the age of freely-shared infor­ma­tion, neg­a­tive sen­ti­ment can be eas­i­ly ampli­fied on dig­i­tal chan­nels, and brand trust can con­se­quent­ly be eas­i­ly erod­ed. Trust, in essence, has become one of the most val­ued com­modi­ties for brands today. Social advo­ca­cy per­haps gives brands a chance to coun­ter­act this and rebuild trust. For exam­ple, the amount of tax­es Ama­zon pays in the UK has been an endur­ing sto­ry, Volk­wa­gen is in the midst of a cri­sis over the recent emis­sions scan­dal, and brand dis­as­ters (e.g., the Jared Fogle arrest) can quick­ly descend into dev­as­tat­ing brand­ing and PR hell. Where­as once there was an expec­ta­tion for brands main­ly to remain com­pet­i­tive, per­haps now it’s nec­es­sary for brands to engage in issues of pos­i­tive advo­ca­cy to coun­ter­act the effects of trust ero­sion and neg­a­tive sen­ti­ment. As Mar­tin writes: “Trust is built over time by doing what’s best for the cus­tomer, and ini­ti­at­ing fre­quent, rel­e­vant com­mu­ni­ca­tion around that fact.” Social advo­ca­cy pro­vides a means for brands to com­mu­ni­cate and get involved with top­i­cal con­ver­sa­tion with­out re-iter­at­ing tired or weary cam­paign mes­sages, allow­ing that kind of fre­quent and rel­e­vant com­mu­ni­ca­tion. On social media espe­cial­ly, cam­paigns such as Always’ #LikeA­Girl, or Dove’s ‘Real Beau­ty’ cam­paigns enable brands to engage in a rel­e­vant and gen­uine dis­course on top­ics con­sumers are already pas­sion­ate about – and such cam­paigns also have more longevi­ty, fueled by a sub­stance and need rather than an ulte­ri­or brand or mar­ket­ing agen­da.

The Col­lec­tive Project is a great exam­ple of how a brand­ed social agen­da can be authen­tic and inspi­ra­tional.

As a result, ded­i­cat­ed brands (like John Lewis) that build a rep­u­ta­tion over a mul­ti­tude of years for sus­tain­able and eth­i­cal busi­ness prac­tices will gar­ner a lev­el of con­sumer trust. This enables them to fuse a sophis­ti­cat­ed blend of cor­po­rate mes­sag­ing with social cam­paign­ing, which can pay real div­i­dends. The fact that #ManOn­The­Moon is shap­ing up – if social media impres­sions are any judge – to be one of their strongest ever sea­son­al cam­paigns (a peri­od of the year in which the retail­er always per­forms strong­ly), is a tes­ta­ment to the kind of div­i­dends that achiev­ing that lev­el of trust can offer.

The Value Of ‘Doing Good’

Clear­ly, more brands are incor­po­rat­ing a much more social agen­da into their mar­ket­ing cam­paigns. The issue that brands have wres­tled with tra­di­tion­al­ly is whether “doing good” and being a com­pas­sion­ate busi­ness, is mere­ly an added cost, or whether it can deliv­er a tan­gi­ble and real-world val­ue to the brand. Ulti­mate­ly, any dri­ve or cam­paign in which the goal is brand sen­ti­ment will have its advo­cates and detrac­tors, and those who will ques­tion the prov­able val­ue and ROI of social advo­ca­cy. But per­haps the suc­cess of #ManOn­The­Moon goes some way to affirm­ing this, meet­ing con­sumers on points of com­pas­sion will nev­er be an exact sci­ence. As 1960’s adver­tis­er Bill Bern­bach once famous­ly said:

“There are two atti­tudes you can wear: that of cold arith­metic or that of warm human per­sua­sion. I urge the lat­ter on you. For there is evi­dence that in the field of com­mu­ni­ca­tions the more intel­lec­tu­al you grow, the more you lose the great intu­itive skills that make for the the great­est per­sua­sion – the things that real­ly touch and move peo­ple.”

Social advo­ca­cy pro­vides a way for brands to build invalu­able brand equi­ty and trust. Over many years, through count­less moments and small engage­ments, brands put them­selves in a posi­tion in which con­sumers are will­ing and eager to gen­uine­ly engage with their cam­paigns. For many mar­keters, that’s the dream… and per­haps right­ful­ly so it’s dif­fi­cult to put a num­ber on that.