Today in Digital Marketing - Is Your Corporate Social Responsibility Program Actually Hurting Sales? (Spoiler: Maybe, Yeah.)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today,

Starting point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen. Today, how do corporate social responsibility programs at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Our muscles affect shopping cart values. And on the premium podcast with more stories, no ads and expert live streams, Google appears to be giving up on part of core web metrics. But why and what will they replace it with? It's Wednesday, December 8th, 2021. Happy Constitution Day, Romania. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital. And here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, episode 522.

Starting point is 00:01:06 We hear lots of horror stories about platforms banning accounts. Hell, it's practically a hobby at Facebook. It happens elsewhere too, and not just social media platforms. Payment providers can ban merchants. Just ask PayPal what it thinks about people who do sex work for a living. But what about the other way? Payment processors banning consumers from buying the products that you sell.

Starting point is 00:01:31 It happened to John Erivosis. I was trying to buy masks for my mom and me, and all my credit cards got blocked, my debit card got blocked, and then I asked my mom for hers, because, you know, we live separately, and her card didn't work either, and I'm going, OK, this is really weird that they've like blocked my name. But no matter, he'd go try another site. I went to other sites. The same thing happened.

Starting point is 00:01:52 And I kept thinking it was some errant, weird glitch because it was only occasional. Then it happened on some software I was trying to buy for taxes. Then it happened on Substack. And again, the first time on Substack, it didn't work where all the newsletters and things are. Again, I thought it was me. Then it happened with another newsletter I tried to subscribe to. Then it happened a week ago on Discord. And I went, okay, this is getting scary because it's picking up frequency. And thank God, when I tried to buy the tax software about two weeks ago, I got an error that said Stripe error. Yes, Stripe, the wildly popular payment processor of the Web 3.0 economy and used almost everywhere these days. So John calls them and the guy on the phone, 15, 20 minutes, he keeps checking with people going, I can't find anything.

Starting point is 00:02:39 What you've got to do is go to the company and have them contact us because we can give them more info we can give you. Which is always a bad sign, right? I mean, clearly there is a reason. John's just not allowed to know it. He tries to get the merchant companies involved. They don't get anywhere. So yesterday, John took to his Twitter account, a verified account with 113,000 followers. I have a problem and need your help amplifying it

Starting point is 00:03:06 he tweeted along with a description of what's been happening other accounts retweeted some offering their own experience and hey guess what turns out Stripe doesn't much care for viral tweets and within a couple of hours a guy I knew from politics 15 years ago happens to do communications at Stripe now. He sees it, calls me because he's got my phone number, and immediately pulls it up and goes, we blocked you because somebody's site got hacked. There was some kind of fraud attack on a website.

Starting point is 00:03:38 E-commerce took the entire site down for a couple of days. So we blocked the most recent 20 transactions. And there was the answer. Stripe's solution to having a security issue was, according to John, to take the last 20 people who accessed the site in question prior to the security issue and just ban them from ever making purchases again. But how did they manage to block John when he tried using his mom's credit card? They attached it to my email. So every time I used my Gmail, which is my main email account, they saw and said, that's the guy. Stop him. So it didn't matter if I used my mom's or my nephew's credit card. What if you're a regular person who didn't happen to know somebody at

Starting point is 00:04:19 Stripe who could fix it? What if you don't have a Twitter account with 100,000 followers like I do that helped elevate it? I mean, you're banned for life. And it's literally banning somebody for life from e-commerce. It's not just one credit card. All your credit cards get banned everywhere, and there's no way to get it fixed. And Stripe is taking over the world. It's really kind of scary. I am big internet guy, but that scares me. John Arafosis is a political consultant in Washington, D.C. His sub stack is at CyberDisobedience.com. He spoke with me this morning from his family home in Chicago. We asked Stripe for comment and did not hear back by deadline. Well, you've heard the advice before. If you want to reach the younger generation of

Starting point is 00:05:03 consumers, make sure you've got a story to tell about the good you're doing in the world. Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, has become an integral part of a digital marketing plan. But have we been doing it wrong all this time? Diane Nickerson is an assistant professor of marketing at the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University. This past summer, she co-authored a research paper that is one of the first to study the effect of CSR on brand sales. And earlier today, I asked her if that surprised her.

Starting point is 00:05:33 My co-authors and I were surprised. What we found was that a lot of people had done laboratory experiments and looked at purchase intentions. And there's been a couple of papers here and there that have looked at sales, but not exactly in the same way. Most of the papers that use real-world data actually look at stock price or the market valuation of the entire company and not really consumer sales. All right, so let's talk about the different types of corporate social responsibility. You and your colleagues identified three primary types. Yes. We identified corrective, compensating, and cultivating CSR. And basically, the premise is that, you know, corrective looks at a brand's work towards addressing its own harm to society or the environment, like negative externalities, by changing its business practices, correcting for what it's done.

Starting point is 00:06:36 Compensating, on the other hand, also addresses environmental or societal harm. But in this case, it does not address, it does not relate to changes in business practices. And then cultivating is what we typically think of as corporate social responsibility in terms of corporate philanthropy, donating time, resources, addressing various issues in society, but not related to the company's own harm. It was interesting to read in the paper that one of the examples you gave was Coca-Cola, that they actually tested, like a marketing split test, a number of different CSR initiatives to see which one got a better consumer reaction.

Starting point is 00:07:13 Yeah, so they engage in a number of different corporate social responsibility initiatives. Of course, a large company like Coke, and this was more of like focus groups, so they would tell them about different initiatives they were interested in pursuing. And if you check out their CSR report, you see that they have focused a large number of resources on environmentally friendly packaging, their bottles, and then water conservation. Did any of those three types, corrective, compensating, and cultivating goodwill, did any of those actually hurt sales? Yeah, we found in our analysis of real-world brand sales and in the lab studies

Starting point is 00:07:55 that cultivating CSR actually hurts purchase intentions and results in a slight drop, about 3.5% drop in sales when they are cultivating, doing cultivating CSR. So this is if a brand has like nothing to do with, I don't know, the homeless, but they're donating money to the homeless instead of working on corrective or compensating, that impacts sales negatively. Why do you think that is? Exactly. So one of the things we tested in the lab was sincerity, the sincerity of the brand's initiative. And so that came out. So consumers tend to think that corrective and compensating CSR actions are quite sincere,

Starting point is 00:08:38 with corrective being the most sincere. And cultivating is seen as relatively insincere. And the intuition there is that it's a distraction, taking away resources. So you're investing this money into, if you're Starbucks, they had a Race Together campaign some years back, 2015 or so. They got a lot of backlash for that. But you're investing in this initiative that doesn't help an issue that you already may have a problem with help or even to

Starting point is 00:09:05 invest it. You're not even invested in improving your product. So it's just going towards something that, you know, is seen as trying to cultivate the goodwill of consumers as opposed to, you know, working on your product or any issues that you might have. My full interview with Professor Nickerson goes into way more depth, including what to do if you're a small brand, whether consumers respond better to environmental programs or social programs. And what about if your brand is already known for corporate social responsibility?

Starting point is 00:09:34 Does doing more move the needle that much? The full interview will be coming your way on the premium podcast feed this weekend. You can sign up for it now. It's at todayindigital.com slash premium or tap the link in today's episode notes. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack,

Starting point is 00:09:56 fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. I first heard about it in our Slack community, which you can join for free at todayindigital.com slash slack, link in the episode notes. Jeremy, a sales and marketing manager, said it.

Starting point is 00:10:25 Quote, These sorts of reports happen a lot because Facebook's always trying new things. I replied to Jeremy saying, Remember, there are hundreds of Facebooks at any given time because of staggered rollouts, test groups, country and region differences. What you're seeing might not be and almost certainly isn't what others are seeing. But then Meta announced it formally today. A new professional mode for user profiles, which they appear to have just switched on for some pages without any prior notice. Because Facebook's's gonna Facebook.

Starting point is 00:11:10 Despite it sounding like a feature on LinkedIn, it's actually aimed at creators looking to unlock revenue opportunities and gain access to tools to help grow their audience, according to Facebook. The new mode is currently only available to select creators in the U.S., according to the announcement. One of the first monetization options available will be the Reels Play bonus program, which allows eligible creators to earn up to $35,000 a month based on the views of their qualifying Reels. Meta will select which creators can earn bonuses because it's currently an invitation-only program. In addition, Professional Mode will make post audience and profile insights available to creators creators similar to what page owners currently have access to. Creators will be able to see how many shares, reactions, and comments a post has and track their follower growth. There will also, though, be updates to the new pages experience. Here's what you can expect once it rolls out. A new professional dashboard that provides admins with tools and insights to assess their pages performance

Starting point is 00:12:03 because, you know, that's what we need is another dashboard. Okay, I'll stop now. A new section at the top of the feed provides a snapshot of new comments and shares and tips on how to create high-performing content. A new two-step post composer that allows creators using pages to easily schedule posts and cross-post into groups directly in the app, instead of having to post through Facebook Business Suite or Creator Studio. Editor's note, hallelujah. There is no official release date yet. However, the announcement did say the company plans to, quote, expand to more people in

Starting point is 00:12:39 the U.S. soon and more countries in the coming months. Yes, friends, it's time for another episode of Who's Copying Who? I mean, really, shouldn't this just be Who's Copying TikTok? I swear I'm going to change that. This time, it's Twitter. Twitter is testing a new redesigned Explore tab, which displays tweets in full screen and vertical format. It looks exactly like TikTok, but with retweets. And when I say exactly, I mean exactly. There is

Starting point is 00:13:11 even a for you page that is literally called for you. So for those of you playing along at home, first they copied Instagram stories, which itself was a copy of Snapchat and made Twitter fleets. Then they canned that. Now they're copying TikTok videos and making, I don't know, Twitter talk video. I mean, I'm sure they'll come up with a goofy name. The Explore tab is currently being tested with users who use Twitter in English on Android and iOS, and in some countries. So, will you be repurposing your video content for Twitter if this update is rolled out to everyone? Correction. When this update is rolled out to everyone? Correction.

Starting point is 00:13:46 When this update is rolled out to everyone? At its recent annual LensFest event, Snapchat revealed several new features for its augmented reality spectacles and advanced AR options. Here's a look at what you can expect to see. Updates to the Lens Studio tool. With real-world physics. AR options. Here's a look at what you can expect to see. Updates to the Lens Studio tool with real world physics. With this development of Snaps AR creations, the company says objects will now appear and respond more realistically to forces like gravity and collision. And some new interesting real-time data integrations. Lens creators can include elements like weather and even stock

Starting point is 00:14:22 market information in their creations. A new L lens call to action option, which will let brands include links within lenses to drive direct traffic from an AR effect. Creators will also be able to view new analytics within the My Lens section of Lens Studio. Additionally, Snapchat explained the new opportunities that augmented reality presents for brands, along with the growing pool of 100 million consumers who are now shopping with AR. According to the company, two out of three consumers are more likely to purchase

Starting point is 00:14:52 after encountering a branded AR experience. And finally, Snap announced the launch of an AR content accelerator program called 523, which will support small minority-owned content companies and creatives that traditionally lack access and resources. Snap's team will support applicants and give them $10,000 per month in funding to help them create new AR experiences. With all these developments, 2022 might be the year for you to try augmented reality in your marketing strategy.

Starting point is 00:15:29 Envelope, please! This year's winners of Twitter's Best of Tweets Awards have been announced. Here are the standout brands that Twitter says, quote, made us laugh, cry, retweet, and reply. Quoting the company, best brand presence goes to McDonald's. McDonald's pushed the boundaries and evolved its persona to speak to the most diverse and largest generation in American history yet, from celebrity meal campaigns with Saweetie and BTS to launching its loyalty program. McDonald's continues to be at the forefront of conversation. The most tweeted about brand was Disney+. The most popular brand

Starting point is 00:16:00 tweet went to Nick Jr. with the message from Steve from Blue's Clues. No, I didn't catch that one either. Oreo took the prize for best campaign to creatively push the envelope. When a fan liked an Oreo tweet, the beloved cookie analyzed the fan's most recent tweets to share a personalized Oreo horoscope with tasty insights about their personality. Other honorary mentions include hashtag Nintendo Switch, taking home the prize for the most tweeted brand hashtag, and Mountain Dew winning the best campaign that connected to a major moment.

Starting point is 00:16:32 The brand created a campaign that aired during the Super Bowl and offered one winner $1 million if they guessed how many Mountain Dew bottles appeared in the ad on Twitter. Microsoft Bing is tapping into the eco-conscious audience. The company today announcing a new ethical shopping hub that is currently only available to UK consumers. Bing's new hub provides consumers with categories like

Starting point is 00:16:58 eco-friendly, upcycled, or fair trade fashion. Ratings are integrated into the shopping experience and provided by Good On You for three focal areas, people, planet, and animals. These filters can be applied by consumers when searching for products. The company plans to expand beyond fashion into other areas soon. And finally, a new academic paper studying shopping carts has been published. No, not the digital ones, the real ones. And although we usually cover digital stuff here, I thought this was sort of interesting.

Starting point is 00:17:37 So you know the handlebar on all grocery shopping carts, that long horizontal bar? These researchers decided to study how switching that bar to two vertical handlebars would affect sales. So they made some that sort of looked like the handles you'd see on a wheelbarrow or an elderly person's walker. And guess what? Vertical handlebars were found to make people buy more. Turns out, pushing a horizontal handlebar activates the tricep muscles of the arm. Apparently, psychologists have long thought that activating triceps is associated with rejecting things we don't like. Think about the motion your arm makes when you push or hold something away from you.

Starting point is 00:18:17 On the other hand, when we use our biceps muscles, we're usually doing something we like, like pulling or holding something close to us. And yes, using vertical bars activates those biceps more. The study was published in the Journal of Marketing, quoting from the paper, indeed, although shoppers found our new cart to be unusual, they ended up buying more products and spending more money. These results show that standard shopping carts may constrain buying, unquote. The study authors also had some advice for consumers like you and me wearing our consumer hat, quote, awareness of how you use your shopping muscles may come in handy as the holiday season approaches. To minimize shopping trips and buy many gifts in one go, flex those biceps to pull things into your cart. Or to minimize spending,

Starting point is 00:19:07 flex your triceps to keep unnecessary purchases out of your cart. A reminder about our weekly happy hour Zoom call. It's open to everyone. There's no guest expert. It's just a chance to hang out with me, other listeners, and newsletter subscribers. We can Happy Hour Live racquetondigital.com slash happy hour live. I'm out of town tomorrow for agency business. So our associate producer, the intrepid step gun will be sitting in for me. Bye for now. It's the season for new styles and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Racketuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy.

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Today in Digital Marketing - Is Your Corporate Social Responsibility Program Actually Hurting Sales? (Spoiler: Maybe, Yeah.)

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