Marketing is Only Marketing when it’s Sustainable

I had the pleasure of participating in last week’s annual assembly meeting of the CSR Europe organization which was a perfect opportunity to distribute Intel’s European CSR report to many of my CSR colleagues. Although the report presents many examples of our CSR activities across Europe, it’s not meant to be a marketing brochure. Yet I use it as my primary marketing tool because good marketing is rooted in reliability and I think the report shows just that.

The prominent exposure of the CSR Europe’s Guide to Sustainable Marketing at the assembly made me think about the new role of marketing professionals in terms of CSR.

In this booklet guide Donald Fuller(Sustainable Marketig-Ecological issues 1999) defined sustainable marketing as “the process of planning, implementing and controlling the development, pricing, promotion and distribution in a manner that satisfies the following three criteria: 1. that customer needs are met. 2. that organizational goals are attained and 3. that the process is compatible with ecosystems.” This Guide is complemented with a great 3D Online Game with the objective of showing marketers that environmental criteria can be a part of consumers’ choice of product.

Intel has always worked on the premise that CSR Marketing without CSR substance is not marketing at all. It’s plain wrong. But when there is real substance – real activity and achievements – then there is a real marketing story to tell. One that communicates reliability and strengthens the brand. This makes corporate responsibility coupled with clever marketing and clear communications a winning formula.

Today when businesses are competing on CSR in terms of both market development and reputation, CSR marketing (with real CSR substance) is the way to go!