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28 © HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2045-855X JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL. 2, NO. 1, 28–39 SPRING 2013 James R. Gregory, 122 West 27th Street,9th Floor, New York, NY 10001, USA Tel: 1 212 329-3055 E-mail: [email protected] Accountability of sustainability Received (in revised form): 5th January, 2013 JAMES R. GREGORY is the founder and CEO of CoreBrand, a global brand strategy, communications and design firm. He helps clients develop strategies to improve their corporate brands and bottom-line performance. James is credited with developing pioneering and innovative tools for measuring the power of brands and their impact on a corporation’s financial performance. He has written four acclaimed books on creating value with brands: Marketing Corporate Image, Leveraging the Corporate Brand, Branding Across Borders, and his most recent work, The Best of Branding. Abstract This paper provides a detailed examination of how corporate branding creates value, and more specifically,identifies the role of sustainability in building market capital.Two valuable keys to getting the budgets necessary for a successful corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme are being able to speak the CFO’s language, and understanding that the CEO’s role is to build corporate value.This is an objective approach to CSR measurement and investment in the corporate brand, which affects everything from recruitment to cash flow, and to market capitalisation.The best way to get senior management to invest is to connect measurable CSR successes with a corporate brand. Keywords sustainable, sustainability, CSR, intangible assets, brand value, brand valuation CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY The presentation to your CEO went exceptionally well. You conclude with ‘corporate social responsibility is simply good business,so we need you to approve our budget’.The CEO replies,‘Prove it to me.Prove that it is good business.Tell me how this benefits cash flow for the organ- isation. Tell me how it benefits share- holder value.’ Silence fills the room, as you see your budget disappear. Common sense says that having a good reputation in the marketplace is a nice thing. But, does it really have an impact on business results? Furthermore, if the CEO is focused on cash flow and share- holder value, is it possible to connect cor- porate social responsibility (CSR) to financial performance? How can one measure CSR perform- ance to provide the same kind of account- ability that virtually every other department in the organisation does? How can it be tied back in to cash flow, or into shareholder return? Answering these questions requires an in-depth self-evaluation and answers to many more questions. What CSR activi- ties will have the most impact on a busi- ness? Is enough being done? How can CSR activities be evaluated? Are we even breaking through to reach our CSR goals? Or, are we wasting our time as far as CSR is concerned? Are actions getting the credit that they deserve? How strong a CSR profile is strong enough? Are promises being made that cannot be achieved, which are going to hurt us in the long run? Is the company doing things that might cause problems for its ability to do business in the future? Is the company involved in inappropriate CSR activities that are outside its expertise and therefore not believable? CSR is not just James R. Gregory

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28 © HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2045-855X JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL. 2, NO. 1, 28–39 SPRING 2013

James R. Gregory,122 West 27th Street, 9th Floor,New York, NY 10001, USA

Tel: �1 212 329-3055E-mail: [email protected]

Accountability of sustainabilityReceived (in revised form): 5th January, 2013

JAMES R. GREGORYis the founder and CEO of CoreBrand, a global brand strategy, communications and design firm. He helps clientsdevelop strategies to improve their corporate brands and bottom-line performance. James is credited withdeveloping pioneering and innovative tools for measuring the power of brands and their impact on a corporation’sfinancial performance. He has written four acclaimed books on creating value with brands: Marketing CorporateImage, Leveraging the Corporate Brand, Branding Across Borders, and his most recent work, The Best of Branding.

AbstractThis paper provides a detailed examination of how corporate branding creates value, and morespecifically, identifies the role of sustainability in building market capital.Two valuable keys to getting thebudgets necessary for a successful corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme are being able tospeak the CFO’s language, and understanding that the CEO’s role is to build corporate value.This is anobjective approach to CSR measurement and investment in the corporate brand, which affectseverything from recruitment to cash flow, and to market capitalisation.The best way to get seniormanagement to invest is to connect measurable CSR successes with a corporate brand.

Keywordssustainable, sustainability, CSR, intangible assets, brand value, brand valuation

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITYThe presentation to your CEO wentexceptionally well. You conclude with‘corporate social responsibility is simplygood business, so we need you to approveour budget’.The CEO replies,‘Prove it tome. Prove that it is good business.Tell mehow this benefits cash flow for the organ-isation. Tell me how it benefits share-holder value.’ Silence fills the room, as yousee your budget disappear.

Common sense says that having a goodreputation in the marketplace is a nicething. But, does it really have an impacton business results? Furthermore, if theCEO is focused on cash flow and share-holder value, is it possible to connect cor-porate social responsibility (CSR) tofinancial performance?

How can one measure CSR perform-ance to provide the same kind of account-ability that virtually every other

department in the organisation does?How can it be tied back in to cash flow,or into shareholder return?

Answering these questions requires anin-depth self-evaluation and answers tomany more questions. What CSR activi-ties will have the most impact on a busi-ness? Is enough being done? How canCSR activities be evaluated? Are we evenbreaking through to reach our CSRgoals? Or, are we wasting our time as faras CSR is concerned? Are actions gettingthe credit that they deserve? How stronga CSR profile is strong enough? Arepromises being made that cannot beachieved, which are going to hurt us inthe long run? Is the company doingthings that might cause problems for itsability to do business in the future? Is thecompany involved in inappropriate CSRactivities that are outside its expertise andtherefore not believable? CSR is not just

James R. Gregory

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about doing the right thing, because it tiesinto so many other business issues.

Accountable sustainability is seen as akind of continuum.When we think aboutCSR, it is important to understand wherewe stand.We want to engage the company’sconstituencies about things that are impor-tant to them. What do these core con-stituencies care about relative to sociallyresponsible activities? How do we developprogrammes internally, and externally withour value chain partners in order to evalu-ate performance in a meaningful and rele-vant way? And,how can CSR be integratedinto everyday business? How does itbecome part of the company’s DNA, partof the things that we do every day?

KEY DIMENSIONS OF SUSTAINABILITYWhen thinking about CSR, there are sev-eral key dimensions that are the mostimportant for building the corporatebrand consistently.

First, any CSR positioning needs to betrue to the history and the future of theorganisation. If a company proceeds witha CSR message or plan that does not alignwith its fundamental values or mission, itis going to ring false.

Secondly, a CSR programme needs tobe relevant. If constituencies, internal andexternal, do not connect with the messageor the activities being undertaken, it maybe good to do, but it is not relevant, and itwill not improve the image of a business.

Thirdly, CSR efforts need to be uniqueto a company. Are there things that canbe done that nobody else can do ordeliver? It is fine to do things that arecommon, that are easy, and that areexpected within an industry. But where isit possible to innovate on CSR in a waythat nobody else can? These are the thingsthat are going to be important, and set thestage for value creation.

Lastly, a CSR programme needs to besustainable. Sustainability is a key tenet ofCSR. But it is necessary not to approachit from an organisational perspective thatsays, ‘We are going to do this becauseenvironmental issues are hot, and whenthat goes away, we are going to stop doingit’.The same goes for engaging in finan-cially transparent issues because, ‘we arerequired to, and we will make a big dealabout the triple bottom-line report, butthen we are just going to let it phase out’.It is essential to integrate. It has to bemade a key part of the company’s DNA.

If these four criteria are not met, ulti-mately a CSR programme is going to failto some extent and not be as successful asit could be.

HOW CSR CONTRIBUTES TO THECORPORATE BRANDA corporate brand is a financial asset ofthe company and something that can bebuilt over time. CSR is a component ofthat overall asset, and when we thinkabout the brand, there are as many defini-tions of ‘brand’ as there are consultants inthe world talking about branding. Thepresent paper describes the corporatebrand as the sum of experiences that allaudiences have with the company acrossthree main areas (Figure 1):

(1) business processes: the products youmake or services you provide;

(2) culture and behaviour: how you actwith those key audiences and engagewith communities; and

(3) communications: the things that yousay about yourself and how youcommunicate with the public.

If business processes, culture, behaviourand communications are in alignment,the chances are that key audiences are

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going to understand it and believe it.When these things are done right, theybuild what CoreBrand calls ‘brandpower’, which is measurable. It is hard tomeasure every experience with everyaudience across all three dimensions;however, it is relatively easy to measurethe impact of those experiences on busi-ness decision makers (BDM) and thefavourability that they have toward thecompany. These dimensions are exam-ined in a consistent quantitative researchstudy called the Corporate BrandingIndex (CBI).

The CBI includes financial informa-tion from the markets. Reported financialfundamentals are gathered and analysed, aswell as annual projections and how thecompanies in the index are expected todo in the near and long-term futures.Communications spending data areincluded in the database to help under-stand how aggressive these companies arein building their brands and promotingthem to the marketplace.

The CBI quantitative research studywas started in 1996 and has continued,

uninterrupted ever since.There are 1,000companies tracked across 54 industriesand 10 business sectors. One of the pri-mary findings of this study is the directcorrelation between the brand power(familiarity � favourability on a weightedscale) of a corporation and its stock per-formance. On average, across all 54 indus-tries, the corporate brand has an impacton approximately 5–7 per cent of theaverage company’s stock performance,although this changes by industry. Inindustries where the brand plays less of arole, the impact will be lower (eg electricutilities). In industries where the corpo-rate brand plays a significant role, theimpact will be much higher (eg the bev-erage industry). An entire book could bewritten (the author has in fact writtenseveral) on this connection, but for now,this paper will focus on the role CSRplays in this equation. Audiences acrossthe board have been looked at, and insome cases, multiple audiences for a com-pany, in order to understand the truedimensions of their CSR actions and theirbrand.

Figure 1 The brand experience

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It is great when clients seeking answersto very important questions start with thewords, ‘How would we determine. . .?’ Itis always a pleasure to engage unchartedchallenges. We initiated one such pilotprogramme with a major client thatwanted to know the connection betweenCSR and corporate brand value. Webroke down the request into two ques-tions. First, does CSR have an impact onthe corporate brand? Secondly, if the con-nection to corporate brand exists, can itbe tied into the models that link corpo-rate brand to market capitalisation?

As mentioned previously, the CBIoffers consistent evaluation of corporatebrands since 1996 examining familiarityand three specific attributes of favourabil-ity: (1) overall reputation; (2) perception ofmanagement; and (3) investment potentialof the 1,000 companies in the index.TheCBI model connects the corporate brandto stock performance, so this became thebase measure for the project. However, themissing link was the need to find similardata that examined CSR attributes acrossas many companies as possible and to cross-reference the data from those companies

with the data in the CoreBrand database.A partner was found in KL Deitrand’s(KLD), which will be described in moredetail later in the paper.

The issue was to understand how cor-porate social responsibility data, brandimage data, reputation data and financialdata overlap.Where were the commonal-ities? Where were the differences? Werethere any relationships? By combiningthese databases, it was possible to identifyand define specifically the role that CSRplays in driving brand image and reputa-tion; and subsequently, how it influencesmarket capitalisation and the overall valueof the organisation.

Once all the data of these companieshad been examined, it was found there arefour primary factors that influence brandpower (Figure 2). Combined, these factorsrepresent about two-thirds of the corpo-rate brand for the average company — asubstantial slice of the corporate brand pie:

(1) Corporate communications: The com-munication a company puts out in themarketplace is the leading driver ofbrand power.

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Figure 2 Four major drivers of the corporate brandSource: CoreBrand analysis of 426 companies with full data available

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(2) Sector affiliation: Some companies areperceived more positively than otherssimply by the business that they are in.

(3) Market capitalisation: How big a com-pany is also plays heavily in the percep-tion of it, whether it is good or bad.

(4) Corporate social responsibility: Althoughrelatively small, it does help to drivethe overall perception of the company.

So, it is not just that everyone feels thatCSR is important — it is important.Thedata support the idea that social responsi-bility is a driving factor of image and rep-utation. It is not just a perception — it isreality.

Drilling down a little further intofavourability attributes, one finds thatinvestment potential is the most highlycorrelated attribute of CSR. It is notoverall reputation or even perception ofmanagement as one might expect, but ithas a direct impact on people consideringinvesting in a company. This is tied veryclosely to the socially responsible indicesor investment funds through whichpeople become aware of a companybecause of the CSR activities that it does

and become more interested in investingin the business because of these activities.

To drill down into favourability,CoreBrand measures three attributes,overall reputation, perception of manage-ment and investment potential (Figure 3).

As has been said many times before,CSR has the greatest impact on the finan-cial and government sectors, and it isborne out here too.The strongest impacton brand from CSR is when brand isconsidered from the perspective of WallStreet.

Notice though how CSR’s impact onreputation is growing profoundly —increasing sevenfold in the three yearsbetween measurements.

Now that the relationship betweenCSR and branding has been established,this paper uses the models CoreBrand hasdeveloped to understand how this trans-lates back to shareholder value. Figure 4illustrates the drivers of share price ormarket capitalisation value. Any financialprofessional will say that market issues orfinancial performance issues are the pri-mary drivers of share price, and we wouldagree with that. About 80 per cent of

Figure 3 The impact of CSR on key attributesSource: CoreBrand analysis of 426 companies with full data available

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share price can be explained by financialfactors. These financial factors includecash-flow earnings, dividends, stock pricegrowth, expected future cash flow andfinancial strength. These are the financialfactors that drive the stock value ofcompanies.

Corporate brand power contributes tomarket capitalisation in a consistentmanner.The contribution itself, however,varies significantly from industry toindustry (see Table 1). It also varies withineach industry. On average across all indus-tries, brand power represents approxi-mately 5–7 per cent of share price.

For example, the Coca-Cola Company’sshare price is dependent on a meaningfulcorporate brand equity level of about 20per cent. In the beverage industry, becauseit is consumer facing, the average corpo-rate brand contribution to market capital-isation is 8.6 per cent. Clearly, Cokeenjoys a premium value over industrycompetitors.

The same holds true for industries thatare more commodity driven, such as theelectric utilities industry, which has his-torically very low brand equity value. Anelectric utilities company with a brandequity of 5 per cent would actually beconsidered very high for the industrybecause, on average, only about 1.2 percent of share price can be expected to bebrand related.

Figure 4 The corporate brand explains 5–7 per cent of market capitalisation*Data Source: Value Line Investment Survey, Competitive Media Reporting and Corporate Branding Index annual survey

Table 1 Understanding one’s business withinidentified industry ranges

Industry Average BEV BEV range

Electric utilities 1.2% 0 ~ 4%Home builders 1.4% 0 ~ 6%Banking 3.8% 0 ~ 13%Computers and peripherals 4.1% 1 ~ 16%Beverages 8.6% 3 ~ 20%Retailers 9.7% 2 ~ 18%Food manufacturers 10.9% 1 ~ 20%

Data source: CoreBrand’s directory of brand equityBEV: brand equity value as a percentage of marketcapitalisation

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Breaking down these factors helpsunderstanding of this premium effect andthe role that brand plays in market value— a role that most financial analysts tradi-tionally ignore. Understanding these con-nections is the first step to managing themand creating corporate capital.

The next step is to examine thepercentage of total brand equity that canbe explained by CSR. Remember, if therole CSR plays in familiarity or favoura-bility is understood, it is possible to use themodel to explain its impact on marketcapitalisation.

CALCULATING THE ACCOUNTABILITYOF SUSTAINABILITYThere are a number of challenges indeveloping a model that connects CSRto stock performance. CoreBrand hasdone an enormous amount of work inunderstanding how the brand affects

market capitalisation, as well as howcommunications have an effect on thebrand. When the regression analysis wasconducted, the results indicated thatCSR is a small but important factor thathelps to drive brand image. Other factorsdriving brand image include corporatecommunications, sector affiliation, andsize of company (as explained elsewherein the paper).Already knowing that CSRcan have an impact on brand image, onecan then calculate the ROI measures forinvestments in CSR (Figure 5).

METHOD FOR MEASURING THEIMPACT OF BRAND ON MARKETCAPITALISATIONFinancial factors for modelling a brand’simpact on market capitalisation are basedupon the actual factors that drive stockperformance for a specific industry. Theextent of a company’s opportunity to

Figure 5 Calculating the ROI measures for investments in CSR

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improve its economics by strengtheningits brand varies widely, depending on theindustry and the existing level of strengthwithin a company’s brand. Unrealisedvalue might be available based on thecompany’s brand strength and marketdynamics. By understanding how muchvalue is available and defining how muchit costs to realise that value, equations canbe generated on a case-by-case basis forindividual companies. This methodicalprocess takes the emotion out of thebrand budgeting and planning process andputs it into a business context.

Brand value is dependent on thestrength of four areas:

● familiarity and coherence of the brand;● reputation of the company;● respect that external audiences extend

to corporate leadership and brandambassadors (employees);

● confidence that financial audiences hold for the company’s stock perform-ance.

The model that will be presented and dis-cussed has the following attributes relatedto its database:

● tracking of 1,000 leading US corporatebrands across 54 industries;

● consistent research methods and histor-ical data since 1996;

● survey of 10,000 VP level and higherexecutives in the top 20 per cent ofUS businesses each year to measurefamiliarity and favourability with cor-porate brands;

● interviews conducted continuouslythroughout the year;

● 400 different respondents rating eachcompany each year.1

The brand communications ROI modelhas two key regression equations:

● The first measures the factors that drivechanges in brand power (familiarity andfavourability).

● The second measures the factors thatdrive changes in stock price.

In the first model, brand power is thedependent variable, and independent vari-ables are advertising investment, corporatesize, dividend, stock price growth andearnings volatility. Approximately 78 percent of brand power variance is explainedby this equation.

The dependent variable in the secondmodel is stock price. Independent variablesare cash flow, earnings, dividend, expectedfuture cash flow growth, company size,financial strength and brand power.Between 85 per cent and 90 per cent ofstock price variance is explained by thisequation.

ELEMENTS FOR A BRANDCOMMUNICATIONS ROI MODELThe factors having an effect on corporatebrand power are advertising investment,corporate size, earnings volatility, stockprice growth, dividend payout, publicrelations, corporate communications andinvestor relations.

The brand communications ROImodel is used to identify the return inincreased market capitalisation forincreased communications (or the calcu-lated equivalent CSR) investment. Themodel assigns weights to the factors thatcause change in both brand power andstock price. Once weights are assigned toeach of the variables, the model can meas-ure the impact that changes in investmentcan have on brand power and, in turn,stock price. The model holds all othervariables (mostly financial) constant inorder to isolate the impact that spendingwill have and measure its return in terms

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of market capitalisation.Thus, the analysisis focused on the sensitivity of a com-pany’s stock price to changes in commu-nications investment. This level ofsensitivity is called the benefit-to-costratio (B/C ratio) — the change in share-holder value divided by the cost.

The results of the brand communica-tions ROI model are expressed as mar-ginal revenue versus marginal costanalysis. In Figure 6, the straight line indi-cates incremental increases or decreases inthe advertising spending level, and thecurved line represents the correspondingexpected impact on market capitalisationfor each spending level. This ‘valuation’line is curved because there are bothincreasing and diminishing marginalreturn relationships between advertisinginvestment and stock price impact. Thekey objective of the model is to identify,statistically, at which advertising budgetlevel shareholder value increase exceedsinvestment by the greatest amount.

In other words, at what point is the posi-tive ‘spread’ the greatest. The model also

reveals the breakthrough point (that is,whereincreased market value occurs), the point ofdiminishing returns (positive but a decreas-ing rate) and the point of negative returns(where additional investment is counter-productive and results in decreased value).

This approach is judged to be optimalfor analysing corporate communicationspending as it is consistent with the con-cept of evaluating ROI on the basis oftheir ‘spread’ versus either the weightedaverage cost of capital or cost of equitycapital, and then using this ‘spread’ as apredictor of how the market price of totalor equity capital relates to the book value(of total or equity capital).This ratio is themarket-to-book (M/B) ratio. Thus, thebrand equity model is consistent withaccepted financial theory and practice.Another aspect of consistency is thatexisting and expected cash flows are keyinputs to the model.

Figure 6 provides a graphic illustrationof this concept of increasing and decreas-ing marginal returns, taking into accountthe statistics that have been gathered and

Figure 6 Communications ROI: diminishing returns curve Source line from figure

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analysed to show the impact of changes inspending on market capitalisation.

ADAPTING CSR DATA INTOCOREBRAND’S FINANCIAL MODELSAs mentioned earlier, it was possible to useKLD’s CSR data because the informationwas very compatible with CoreBrand’scorporate brand research. KLD Research& Analytics, Inc. is a research indexprovider for environmental, social andgovernance factors in the USA. KLD wasrecently purchased by MSCI, which is aleading provider of investment decisionsupport tools. While KLD’s data offeredcontinuous research, the key element wasadapting their measures to CoreBrand’svaluation model.

Companies were rated on each of thefollowing CSR dimensions:

● community (strengths and concerns);● corporate governance (strengths and

concerns);● diversity (strengths and concerns);● employee relations (strengths and con-

cerns);● environment (strengths and concerns);● human rights (concerns);

● product (strengths and concerns);● military (concerns); and● nuclear (concerns).

CoreBrand included all issues tracked byKLD where there were enough data tomake statistically significant observations.In order to adapt their data into themodel, a CSR score was created (Table 2).The CSR score is a relatively simple cal-culation based on the nature of thetracked media coverage.

In scoring CSR, positive mentions areconsidered strengths and are scored as a�1; negative mentions are consideredconcerns and are scored �1.All mentionsare summed, and this combined figure isconsidered a company’s CSR score.

CSR scores range from �9 through to–9 based on media coverage on each ofthe tracked dimensions; each dimension isworth one point. For example, if a com-pany is rated positively on four dimen-sions and negatively on one dimension, itsnet CSR score � 3.

This scoring system allowedCoreBrand to evaluate individual compa-nies versus peers versus industries in themodel, and measure the impact that CSRcan have on business performance. After

Table 2 Tracking performance and tying to brand equity

3Q,Year 1 4Q,Year 1 1Q,Year 2 2Q,Year 2 3Q,Year 2 4Q,Year 2

Share price, $/share 44.00 58.00 62.14 56.65 57.87 59.87Sales revenue, $bn 11.90 12.00 12.40 12.40 12.40 12.40Shares outstanding, m 247.90 250.30 253.00 253.00 253.00 253.00Familiarity 52.00 52.90 53.80 55.20 55.70 56.00Favourability 58.40 57.80 58.80 59.30 60.40 59.10Total mkt. cap., $bn. 10.90 14.50 15.70 14.30 14.60 15.10Brand equity, $m 881.00 1185.00 1320.00 1253.00 1308.00 1345.00% of mkt. cap. addedby brand equity 8.10 8.20 8.40 8.70 8.90 8.90CSR score 3 5 4 4 6 5Portion of brand equityadded by CSR 0.25 0.41 0.32 0.33 0.48 0.42

Note:The analysis is examined over time to track performance and calculate return on investment

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all the variables were calculated, 426 com-panies were found in the KLD researchthat could be included in the CoreBrandmodel.

EXAMPLEA particular company happens to be inthe transport industry, a commodity busi-ness. It is doing pretty well in terms ofbrand equity in general at 8 per cent,which is just above the average for itsindustry. The company has seen animprovement in its brand equity scorethat is directly attributed to CSR overthis measurement period. About 0.25 per cent of its total market capitalisationwas driven by CSR, and just about a yearand half later, it is now almost 0.5 percent of the company’s total market capi-talisation (see Table 3).This can be trans-lated into real dollars at any point in time.So, when the CEO asks about the finan-cial impact of CSR, they will have theproof. CoreBrand’s data can go as deep asany financial professional wants to. Thekey is not creating a black box that theywill not embrace, but helping them seethat intangible assets, like the corporatebrand and CSR, are contributing andgrowing factors to corporate value.

In this case, a two-point increase in theCSR score will grow brand power by0.53.This will increase market capitalisa-tion by 0.16 per cent:

● 0.16 per cent change in market capital-isation is equal to US$157m;

● the company invested US$22m; in CSRprogrammes;

● the ROI is US$135m;● US$6 return for every US$1 spent.

So, when this particular company is fur-ther examined, a change in its CSR scoreof two points is found. It does not seemlike a lot, but it is enough to add almosttwo points to the company’s total marketcapitalisation, a significant increase. Thismodel can be used to understand what itreally means financially. How does oneput a dollar value on this? For this partic-ular company, a two-point change insocial responsibility translates to US$11min communications spending. If a com-pany can improve its CSR image by twopoints, that is the equivalent of going outand buying US$11m of national advertis-ing.Then the questions the CEO will beasking are ‘Should we do it? Is it the rightthing to do? Will we benefit from theinvestment?’. The answer is, ‘Yes. Thebenefits are clear.We should do it.’

CONCLUSIONThe key is to determine what CSRdimensions are most important to thecompany. Pick the dimensions that canbe influenced, the things that are believ-able, the things that are true to the organ-isation, and the things that are relevant tothe company’s stakeholders. Commit tothe long term. CSR has got to be inte-grated into the company’s DNA. It hasgot to be part of business. It is not some-thing that is just an add-on. It is not justsomething nice to do. It has got to be akey component of what the companydoes every day. But, it is also necessary toadapt as the market adapts. It is vital tounderstand what is important. It is vital tounderstand how the market influencesyour role and your implementation of

Table 3 Calculating CSR’s market capitalisation impact

OOlldd NNeewwCChhaannggee lleevveell lleevveell

Added social responsibility 2 4 6Brand power 0.53 47.83 48.36Brand equity, % of mkt. cap. 0.16 9.56 9.72

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CSR as it moves. And lastly, measure theprogress, define new targets and hold notonly the managers, but also leadership,accountable for supporting the effort.Why? Because, if the managers are goingto be held accountable for implementingCSR efforts, then leadership has to beheld accountable for how it gets fundedand how it gets supported over time.

This paper started with the assertionthat ‘CSR is simply good business’. Tothis, the following can now be added:

‘CSR contributes to the total brand expe-rience, it builds familiarity and favorability,

it improves key attributes especially invest-ment potential, and it contributes measur-ably to brand equity value. Future potentialreturn can be estimated for budgeting, andROI can be calculated for this importantCSR investment.’

AUTHOR’S NOTEFinancial data were collected from sourcessuch as Value Line, Bloomberg and others,covering both financial fundamentals andanalyst rankings; advertising spending datacollected from Kantar Media Intelligenceto track brand investments.

ACCOUNTABILITY OF SUSTAINABILITY

© HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 2045-855X JOURNAL OF BRAND STRATEGY VOL. 2, NO. 1, 28–39 SPRING 2013 39

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