In 2015, it’s no longer enough for brands to just deliver a good product and be trustworthy. Consumers want brands to represent something bigger than themselves.

According to Edelman’s Brandshare report 87% of respondents around the world say they want a “meaningful relationship” with brands. Harvard Business Review found that only 23% of consumers feel that they have one. If your customer feels they have no real connection to your company, they will move on to a competitor.

So what makes a brand really significant? Salesforce’s Jeremy Waite defines these as ones that are conscious of their impact and run by people with belief in a greater purpose – be it social or ecological. These are brands that want to generate “loyalty beyond reason” and ultimately, beyond profits.

Do good

From the YMCA’s establishment in London in 1844, to Walt Disney establishing the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund in 1995, the concept of a company doing good is nothing new, but today corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns have become an essential marketing tool. Brands have come to realise that they can kill two birds with one stone by making our lives easier and the world a better place.

“Do-gooding” brands can be seen across all industries. Last year household coffee company Kenco launched a campaign called Coffee versus Gangs, taking on gang culture in Honduras. This initiative was geared towards providing coffee farmer training to young people, helping to keep them out of the gangs that blight Honduran society.

Toms, the fashionable footwear company, showed style does not have to be without substance: the company announced for every pair of shoes bought it would donate a new pair to a child in need. Recently it went a step further by launching an eyewear range that operates in the same vein: for each pair of glasses sold, eyecare will be provided for those most in need.

At Philips, we’re also striving to improve people’s lives – in fact it’s our goal to change 3bn lives for the better by 2025. We take a two-pronged approach which combines the social effect of our products and solutions (those that directly support health care or wellbeing), along with successes in lowering our ecological impact.

Be sincere

It’s necessary for a brand to have a purpose more engaging than profits, but any old cause won’t do. The cause should be rooted in the brand, it should make sense to customers and it should have a practical, shareable outcome. But this goal is not without its challenges. Brands that are thought to rely too heavily on cause marketing can sometimes face backlash for using those in need and charities as marketing tools. Employee engagement can be difficult to inspire and consumers are quick to judge and slow to forget if they believe a campaign to be disingenuous.

One simple way to counteract scepticism is to be sincere. If there is criticism then listen, adapt and grow from it. Don’t pull out immediately or support one cause one week and another next, be consistent and be prepared to stand your ground. Social media has inevitably become the best litmus test for CSR campaigns so make use of it. If the cause is the right one and approached the right way, employees and customers will share it, reinforcing the brand and the message every time.

It’s also worth noting that while globally significant good-cause campaigns can have immense impact on brand perception, smaller, more tactical efforts can be just as powerful on social media. Oasis and UPS are two examples of companies that took this quick-win digital approach – the first with their #springasmile campaign and the latter with Your Wishes Delivered. Oasis invited consumers on their social channels to spin the wheel and do a randomly generated good deed, before inviting three friends to do the same. UPS encouraged their American customers to tweet “wishes” at them and then delivered gifts to customers in need.

These days, not only are brands expected to improve the lives of their consumers, they also need to do their bit for society as a whole. A reputation has to be earned and brands recognise that they need to work harder to win the loyalty of their customers, while at the same time projecting the kind of image that might attract future employees. But corporate responsibility should not be viewed as decorative. It is only through a genuine desire to do good that we can become the meaningful and significant brands that our customers want us to be.

Blake Cahill is the global head of digital and social marketing at Philips

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