Mallen Baker's Blog

Can you have a short award-winning CSR report?

18 Nov 2008

Doing the rounds at the moment - the revelation that if you have a longer corporate social responsibility report, you're more likely to win an award for it. So obviously, we should all be doing longer reports, right?

It reminds me of the fact I read not so long ago about truly great advertising campaigns. What would you think is the definition of a truly great campaign? Memorable? Funny? Reputation-enhancing? Artistic?

Of course, as far as most businesses are concerned a truly great advertising campaign is one that sells product. Preferably in large volumes.

But an analysis of the campaigns that win industry awards are, surprise surprise, not the same ones as sell the most product. The ones that work the best in selling product are often pretty boring, standard - sometimes even annoying adverts that use some pretty basic, well-understood mechanisms. BOGOF anyone?

And one survey suggested that marketers are rather more focused on winning awards for their campaigns than they are about producing campaigns that sell product.

Not that they don't sell product. They just don't sell as much.

So, is there a parallel here? Whether the fact that a CSR report wins an award or not is relevant really depends on the basis for the award, and who we think the target audience for the reports are and whether meeting the award's criteria make them better at communicating with those audiences.

I think I'd rather see awards go to the company that has reduced its carbon emissions the most, or shown leadership in ending child labour, than to companies that have come up with the best technical communication solution to impress a bunch of CSR geeks (speaking as one myself, you understand!)

In the mean time, I would suggest that short reports are good. Forget the damn awards. Put the data on your website, and use the report to tell an honest, authentic story.

Comments

Add your comment

Your name  

Your web link  

Just checking that you're a real person. Which barks? dog or cat?

 

<< back