Category — Corporate Social Responsibility

People often used demographics when describing their customers: some will add a lifestage view (25 - 35 years with children), some may add a value (people who aspire to healthy living), and some may add a lifestyle (sportsmen). But few use all three to describe the context of their customers’ lives. Yet, it is in this context that ‘unique selling propositions’ are to be found. Additionally, as a 2007 report by McKinsey found, not understanding this context is creating a trust gap between consumers and organizations.

Pigeonholing consumers into lifestage as a start, is a pretty reasonable gauge for needs: Shakespeare’s ‘seven ages of man’ still elicits wry smiles, whatever our age. But today’s ‘lover sighing like furnace’ is more likely to check his mistresses views on climate change before texting his ballad. For each generation has life shaping values, and astute companies must monitor these to guide their value propositions.

As the world enters a new economic stage, how are trends in cultural values playing out with different generational lifestages?

How are the ‘freedom protesting’ baby boomers approaching their retirement, will they differ from today’s austerity pensioners? How are generation Y coping with their mobile lives, and are emerging teenagers ‘hoodies’ or ‘greens’?

To start with differentiate between lifestage, values and lifestyle – all of which drive customer behaviour.

1. Lifestage – is based on demographics (age, and family situation). Young families naturally have different needs to young singles, empty nesters from older families.
2. Values – are what people aspire to and spring from two sources, upbringing and culture. Generational values are laid down in formative years and shape our life view, even as cultural values shift. For instance, how does the 60s generation react to the green values of today’s culture, and does this differ to the 80s generation?
3. Lifestyle – the way people actually behave given their environment.

For the report Bridging the Trust Gap which looks at how values are affecting different lifestages resulting in various lifestyles, click here.

When travelling, ‘local’ breakfast television makes an educative ’screen saver’ for the morning routine. Pictures, and presentation style speak volumes, even if the language is incomprehensible: a black cloud ‘avec’ rain drop, means a soaking in any tongue.

So, on a recent trip to Ljubjana it was enlightening to watch Slovenian television showcase business leaders on its breakfast programme; it even appeared to give their salary, although I’m not entirely sure about that. The tenor of the pieces are obviously meant to inspire, giving career path, and an ‘ideal day’. Not quite ‘Hello Magazine’ style, but it could easily be given a gloss.

Apart from celebrity business people such as Richard Branson, Simon Woodroffe and Alan Sugar, when did I last see a ‘normal’ business hero outside the business pages of newspapers and journals in the UK? When did you?

Slovenia is a new country rising from the ashes of communist Yugoslavia; which itself was wrested out of the fatally tangled Habsburg Empire. Except for a short time under Napoleon, the Slovenes don’t seem to have had very much independence in the last 1000 years. Now, with around 2million people, the Euro, and EU development funding, they are seeking a purpose with competitive advantage and ‘feeling’.

Making business rather than ‘Pop Idol’ an aspiration for people seems a shrewd move. And there is evidence aplenty to show that distinctive business success based on a personal social responsibility is Slovenia’s zeitgeist. “Forward with nature” is their united mission covering everything from pre-fabricated motorway architecture, to ecological housing construction and a hospitality industry built around ‘wellness’ and ’slow-food’.

But I would say they still have one cultural disadvantage to overcome from their communist past - customer service. Real, honest, altruistic customer service woven into their shiny, new, green, designer businesses could well be a world beater for brand Slovenia.

This time last year the ‘plastic bag’ movement was getting into full swing. Now, the hype is passing. Going green hit a high last season; now economic pressures have taken over. A new report by Ernst and Young suggests that as food prices rise, higher priced organic food will be shunned; whilst higher fuel prices show that giving up ‘combustion engine’ transport is neither popular or viable. Meanwhile the evidence on climate change is looking less and less consensual.

But that does not mean that organizations can go back to business as usual. There is seldom hype without good cause; a butterfly has fluttered its wings and changes are in motion.

The problem with greenwash is that it has been a bullying, hypocritical, bandwagon. Live Aid wrist bands were worn more as a ‘personality’ fashion statement, than out of a real passion to help Africa sort out it’s structural issues. But underneath it all there is still a need to think about our environment - just look at the state of China. There is still a need to save resources - Freecycle is a popular movement. There is still a need for companies to help combat social issues - obesity is real, and food education badly needed.

So, in your research find out both the ethical concerns and the everyday problems of your customers, and build your proposition accordingly - but be informative and be honest. There are still good ’solid’ reasons for people to buy organic food from local producers, cut down on plastic bag use, and walk more - it will save them money, declutter their houses, and help them lead healthier, longer lives. There are also major market segments very interested in doing something real to help others, and companies like outdoor clothing company Patagonia, provide an excellent service in raising awareness of global social and environmental issues.

Personal social responsibility never was and never will be hype.

How to respond to the ‘man made’ climate change debate is difficult for business.  If you run a staff workshop on ‘brand or product development’ you will encounter swathes of ‘foot dragging’ cynicism: and that goes for customers too.  But if you don’t consider the issue, then other stakeholders and ‘interest groups’ may not look on that favourably. 

Now, in spite of the claim that all scientists agree that climate change is mostly man made, we have had yet more contradictory evidence in the last few months: a film in the US ‘An Inconvenient Truth or Convenient Fiction’ and a court case in the UK which has ruled that ‘The Inconvenient Truth’ has overlooked, well, some inconvenient truths of its own. 

Then comes ‘Cool It - A Sceptical Environmentalists Guide to Global Warming’, by Bjorn Lomborg, telling us that no climate model has predicted the Gulf Stream will turn off.  And ‘Scared to Death’ a book by Christopher Brooker and Richard North which tells us that:-

•  The 1998 hockey stick temperature graph is now a totally discredited scientific thesis. The hottest year of the 20^th century was 1934 not 1998.
•  Many scientists now say world temperatures have fluctuated for centuries, and tend to correlate with the radiation from the sun, not CO2 levels.
•  In 1998 the UN’s enquiry into climate change asked 1,500 experts to report. But in the final huge document the prefacing Summary for Policymakers did not include the caveats that the experts reports had put forward.

The book also states, that consumers will not tolerate the drop in living standards that the EU’s 2050 emission targets demand.  In the end it will be the corporate world that needs to react on behalf of customers: and the Carbon Trust is already advertising for innovators to help business develop new ‘low carbon’ technologies. 

Maybe the best way for business is to depoliticise the whole issue and take the middle ground: split climate change away from CO2 emission, both are happening it’s the correlation that the issue .  Saving resources including energy is laudeable; after all it cuts down customer’s energy bills.  Innovating methods of CO2 control will save customers the extra tax they will be charged at least.  Looking after the natural environment enhances well being. 

In addition make sure your staff have access to ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, ‘Convenient Fiction’ and ‘Scared to Death’ as balanced inputs to workshop thinking and corporate debate.