According to the 3rd annual Edelman goodpurpose survey that was launched today, despite the prolonged recession, the social purpose of brands is more important than ever.  The Edelman survey sampled 6026 adults in the U.S., China, Canada, U.K., Germany, Italy, France, Brazil, Japan and India to track attitudes and actions ...

In 2004 /05 my colleague Joel Sears (one of the principals of Collectivity) and I convened a year-long series of round table dialogues to find new ways of using community engagement to build brands, energize employees, and engage customers. In re-reading the summary reports from these sessions, I found the learning ...

Recently, most people I talk to believe that reducing the environmental impact of corporations has become operational "table stakes". First and foremost, actions in this area result in reduced costs. Secondarily, they address what has become one of the defining issues of our our generation. Many people believe that corporate ...

I believe we have entered a new era of CSR communications where using conventional advertising to convince consumers of the environmental and social benefits of corporations and brands is ineffective and irresponsible.

According to David Hessekiel, President of the Cause Marketing Forum, "public trust in corporate America is "in the toilet".

IBM's newest take on its successful Conversations for a Smaller Planet campaign is a solid example of how a corporation can blend its business purpose with a related social purpose in an authentic, believable way.

Over the last few months, the CSR people I've been speaking with in corproations have acknowledged that the environment, while fundamentally important, has lost it's place as a significant differentiator. It's now simply expected that corproations will be doing everything they can to minimize their environmental impact - with some ...

Can these words be anything other than mutually exclusive? I think so but luxury brands will need to dig deep into their history and values to come up with social attributes that will be seen as authentic in the minds of customers and employees. Especially today when corporations that suddenly ...

I read something today in the Globe and Mail that suggested that consumers "wants" have shifted to "needs" and it made wonder if this applies to CSR. My own obvious bias aside, while I think this is true in many consumer goods categories (Do I really need an new pair ...

We're living in the "era of responsibility" and people interested in CSR may be interested in knowing about a new wiki that my firm Impakt has developed to help spark collaboration about the role social purpose of corporations. You can access it at: http://corporatesocialpurpose.wikispaces.com