Most CSR Initiatives draw little attention as they are either perceived to be an act of gaining free publicity or because they hold little relevance to the community itself. Which brings us to an important question – though significant efforts and resources are being invested, can CSR initiatives move towards gaining recognition as a positive brand act? Now, here’s how your CSR initiatives can contribute to the society, lead to a favorable brand image, and earn consumer loyalty.

• Create a platform for community members to be part of your CSR initiatives
• Encourage community members to identify and recommend causes to be supported
• Make meaningful contributions to the society
• Send out positive signals and display your dedication to causes and society
• Be transparent

Eventually, adherence to the above factors can go a long way in converting your CSR efforts into a positive brand act.

Now, why will adhering to these factors make your CSR initiative work? Today, consumers want to be involved in most things that concern them, including causes they strongly feel about. This has led to a greater need of fulfillment. And today’s consumers will feel fulfilled by being part of a brand’s development as opposed to maintaining a passive relationship. A relationship that’s so far been one of merely consuming the products or services on offer. So, it pays to involve your consumer. More so if you want to spread your brand’s word.

1) Speculative work allows for deviation from the objective and compromises on the quality of work – Design’s success is based on a collaborative approach from a clearly defined goal / objective between the designer (agency) and the client. In the absence of both collaboration and clear goals, the process only results in a superficial evaluation leaving both the agency and the client short changed. It is critical to note that “design” is a strategic approach in developing brands and businesses. A hypothetical brief provided for speculative work only results in a myopic and hypothetical solution which cannot be judged against real business scenarios.

2) Fee or Free – Every true spirited professional individual or an organization needs to be compensated for its efforts. Clients demand to be served free only demonstrates a lack of understanding of the value of design in developing businesses and respect for the individuals or an organisation. To add, there is enough perversion in the market where the able and experienced designers are easily put on the same scale as lesser knowledgable individuals who are willing to provide with speculative work to earn-a-keep. This results in the clients’ going through a not-so-friendly or a beneficial experience. And, eventually calling for a competent and well experienced professional at a later stage adding to their investments or crimping the budget available to the designer.

3) What is the effective way of evaluation? – Evaluation of designers or agencies are more effective by referring to recent portfolio examples. This would present the evaluating client an opportunity to probe into real case scenarios and how it was addressed. The client can also request for a note on the issue, the approach and the result. In addition, the clients can also ask the designer or the agency to submit an approach note along with the problem statement as interpreted and redefined by the latter. This will bring about a better sense of judgement by understanding the thought process in which the problem was viewed and approached.

In conclusion, it is important for each one of us to understand this process in serious detail and also to educate customers at every opportunity available. This will not just impress your client, but also helps your client derive real value from design.

Wikipedia describes googlism as this. A quick scan of the results will definitely put a smile in your day. Go ahead, have some fun.

Objective: Recruitment

Solution: We at i-Vista, engaged various soical communication media to address our recruitment needs. All it took for us was to update status messages on Google Talk, Facebook and LinkedIn. Our status message called out various positions we were looking at filling in. The insight came from the simple fact that people do interact and respond to our status messages. My colleagues were part of this campaign by updating their messages across the platforms they were active. Our friends came in as a bonus – when they saw our status messages, lot of them voluntarily updated their status messages by saying they were helping so and so in recruiting.

Result: The campaign ran for a week and generated fifty odd enquiries, eight interviews and four resulted in being our colleagues. The most tangible benefit of it all was the cost saving in the fees payable to recruitment agencies.