Credit Where Credit’s Due: How to Get Your Company’s CSR Activities Noticed

Helena Uhl

In 2015, Austria’s largest train service provider did something that every second Austrian would remember almost a year later. 

OEBB launched a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative: providing not only basic care to refugees arriving in Vienna but also transportation using specialized trains.

Refugees arriving in Vienna, Josh Zakary/Flickr 

Using the slogan ‘Menschlichkeit fährt Bahn’ (humanity takes the train), they accomplished something that many companies struggle with. Half of their customer base knew about the company’s CSR activities. 

From role-model to research 

Good intentions are no longer enough. People want companies to do their part in addressing social issues, according to a recent CSR study. But this is easier said than done. 

Not only do companies need to invest extra resources in these schemes, they can expect them to be ignored entirely or simply dismissed as a marketing tactic by customers. 

Yet OEBB found a way to be heard. As Austria opened its borders, thousands of refugees made their way to Vienna. This was a potential crisis for OEBB, as they faced a major challenge: how could they keep their services running for customers while also being viewed as socially conscious. With their ‘humanity takes the train’ campaign, they managed to do both.

OEBB’s campaign not only caught the attention of its customers, but also those of communications researchers. In their study, Einwiller, Ruppel and Strasser wanted to find out how OEBB’s CSR activities affected their customers (main stakeholders). Their research revealed some key reasons why this campaign was so successful. 

Five ways to draw attention to your CSR initiative

1. Know your customers

Make sure the CSR initiative you’re doing is important to your customer base. One of the key takeaways from this study was that people need to be involved in the cause to notice any CSR activities related to it. In the case of OEBB, customers who had helped out during the refugee crisis were more aware of the campaign.

Headlines during the refugee crisis, suttonnick/Twitter

2. Get the timing right

At certain times, certain issues get more media coverage. During the summer of 2015, refugees arriving at Viennese train stations made European wide headlines. When people know about a social crisis, they also pay more attention to related CSR activities.

3. Communicate your activities, but don’t overshare

Although it is tempting to bombard your customers with the news of your most recent CSR activity, this could backfire. OEBB kept their corporate communication in the form of press releases to a minimum with the exception of a personal statement from the CEO. This means that people did not immediately dismiss the campaign as a marketing stunt. So what can you do?

4. Get the public to do it for you

Menschlichkeit fährt Bahn. Danke!!! @unsereOEBB pic.twitter.com/xkeXceIdX2

— cariklaus (@KlausSchwertner) September 12, 2015

Post, share, tweet on social media. A company talking about its own CSR activities may come off as insincere, but this all changes when customers are talking about it. By sharing lots of powerful stories and images on social media, OEBB managed to get people to spread the word for them. People are more likely to take the world of other ‘normal people’ over those of organizations.

5. Build a consistent CSR image

Do more than just one CSR initiative. Although only 50 percent of people remembered the CSR activities related to the refugee crisis, almost 70 percent remembered some other form of CSR activity by OEBB. People may pay closer attention to future CSR activities, if they are already expecting it from your company.

Make sure you get the credit you deserve by knowing what your customers care about, what’s currently a trending social issue and how to get them to spread the word for you.

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About the author: Helena Uhl is a Communication Science student at the University of Amsterdam. She previously studied journalism in London and is currently working on her thesis about the political effects of fictional media.