Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Over the past 10 years, consumers have increasingly purchased brands from socially aware organizations.  With this shift, a huge emphasis has been placed on company procedures and sustainable practices. “Social responsibility has migrated from soft line to hard law,” says Paula Luff, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility at Hess Corporation.  

She is right.  It’s no longer an added bonus for a business to be socially responsible; it is what’s expected from society.  Companies must understand consumer demand for CSR-related information and develop an appropriateCSR strategy based on company branding and values.

The Better Business Bureau recently held their annual forum, “Transformers: How Corporate Responsibility Trends Are Changing Business Now” in downtown Manhattan. This session featured top corporate responsibility professionals sharing best practices and tactics to develop socially responsible programs based on the increased demand for this information from today’s consumers.

While the discussion was related to many elements of CSR programming and reporting, there were five key takeaways that every company should understand:...

The press is replete with doubters. A prominent NPR host complained about whether or not he would be able to engage in the famous Oreo “twist, lick, and dunk” ritual.

ABC News even conducted a side-by-side comparison of the two cookies rating them on size, twistability (the thin ones broke 75% more often), dunkability (the thin ones took 18 seconds longer to get appropriately soaked), nutrition (the thin ones fared only slightly better), and taste (the regular ones had more of a nice chocolatey taste), with the original version clearly coming out on top.

On top of that, the new Oreo Thins—albeit the company doesn’t talk about it—comes with a 42% price premium over the regular “double-stuffed” Oreo cookies (i.e., a pack of Oreo Thins weighs 10.1 ounce and is priced at $5.49, a regular Oreo pack weighs 14.3 ounce and is priced at $5.49).

So would people buy the over-priced, under-stuffed new Oreo Thins? We think chances are that many people will; here’s why....

Most people visit your site because they want something. Your ability to give them that something determines whether they take up your offer and your landing page converts. A while back, I talked about the importance of reading your customers’ minds to improve conversions, but you can go one better, by understanding not just their minds but their emotions.

According to Psychology Today, there’s a strong emotional component to the way people evaluate brands and potential purchases. And it’s not just about feeling good about your ad (though that’s important, too); it’s about what’s going on inside their brain....