CSRs as a media tool

CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility is, in my opinion, the next cutting edge tool for spreading brand awareness.

Corporates, especially MNCs, have understood the power of this wagon, and are using it in manifold ways to announce their presence unobtrusively across TG segments and locations. BG-India is one such entity that I feel is doing pretty good service to various domains, and announcing their presence as a corporate, here to stay in India. The home page of their website carries a link dedicated to their CSR initiatives.

http://www.bg-india.com/corpresp/index.html

Others, like Mahanagar Gas have experimented with CSR in unique and novel ways to bond with their consumers, provide value to the CSR audiences, and derive value too... One of their CSR initiatives, provided employment to retired senior citizens. MGL tied up with Dignity Foundation to provide a "rozgaar" for these people, who in turn were gainfully employed to walk the MGL pipelines (4 kms a day) and report any digging or hazardous activities. Senior citizens were also deployed in their communities to enhance connections, provide information, and coordinate complaints. The results were pretty apparent :

1. Provide livelihood to a neglected section of the society.
2. Build a huge, well networked team to protect and enhance their assets.

Re. the recent campaign run by Anil Ambani for promoting his new corp logo ... I wondered whatavenues he would have chosen to bring the brand closer to the community (in Mumbai), via the CSR route (if). Some things I would have done are:

1. Give every public servant, including traffic cops, beat cops, sweepers, municipality workers, etc, a rain coat/umbrella to face mumbai monsoon, embossed with the logo.
2. Provide a cover for all manholes in Mumbai, and announce presence through a small flag waving atop, or an embossing
3. Give each beggar who soaks in the rain, a set of tshirts and a plastic jacket to cover themselves with

And many, many more along those lines.

The Intel CSR initiative to provide "PCs for Rural India" is simply mindblowing. The specs of this PC are : Not too high on processing, etc.. but sturdy enough to withstand power failures and dust. Why, its so simple that its enchanting. Not only have they enabled a rural India, but have also cleared a huge stock at one go.

There's a lot more initiatives happening along these lines. I will watch each one of them with care :) Probably, I might have just helped people work out a few such initiatives :)

Sanjeev Sarma
www.indianshutter.com
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