CSR Communications

So you produce a sustainability report, or a corporate social responsibility report. It's OK. You may even have won an award or two from the CSR professionals. But you know the audiences you really want to talk to simply don't look at it. Where do you go next? How do you turn a once-a-year report into effective CSR communications?

A lot of companies make the mistake of assuming that their report is the beginning and the end of their CSR communication programme. The truth is that some of your most important stakeholders - your staff, your customers and your local communities, for instance - don't get their information from reports and probably never will.

You need to find new ways to make things interesting for your key audiences. That involves understanding what issues interest them, and how they want to hear about them.

Mallen has worked with companies to understand how they should approach their key audiences, what issues to cover and what language to use. This support can take a number of forms:

• Carrying out research to understand key stakeholder needs better, and to create a communications approach targeted to those needs
• Scripting, and working with partners to produce, video content that makes your CSR perspective interesting and accessible
• Providing a 'critical friend' detailed feedback service on communications or reports to tell you the truths you need to hear before you publish
• Carrying out video interviews with key executives and / or other stakeholders to lift your content a notch above the 'straight-to-camera' monologue that, try as you might, never conveys to excitement of the real story

Interested in talking about how you can take the next step on the move from reporting to effective CSR communications? Get in touch.

A couple of case studies

Centrica produces an annual corporate responsibility report, and has previously had video talking-heads footage of its CEO and senior responsible director to provide narrative. They wanted to do something similar, but commissioned Mallen to provide an independent - albeit sympathetic - interview with Sam Laidlaw and Mary Francis. The aim was to make the feel of the video more dynamic, more flowing and less scripted. You can see the videos here or see the Mary Francis video below.

BAM Nuttall wanted its sustainability reporting to be lean and focused on its key audiences, particularly its own staff, customers and suppliers. Focus groups and stakeholder interviews were carried out to understand what were the important issues for those groups, and then an approach was taken to reporting on line that was extremely concise, with plain language narratives and video interviews with a number of employees.

Employees were provided with a special link, which made extra narratives visible to provide extra content aimed specifically at them. Content was then promoted internally via the intranet and employee newspaper - leading to a higher-than-standard percentage of employees visiting the site.