“Be Helpful”: How Brands Build Their Social Role

Now consumers are guided not only by the product of the company – people are interested in being part of the culture that it represents. What is the social role of the brand, we talked in the new episode “What has changed?”

Edition guests:

Ruslan Nozdryakov, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Procter & Gamble in Eastern Europe, explained why brands need a social role and how to properly build communication in order to “be of help”.

Nikita Kukushkin, actor, creator of the Help project, told how to start helping people and why empathy is a basic need for any person.

The host of the podcast is Gosha Rudakov, a multimedia producer of Trends.

What is the social role of the brand

Ruslan Nozdryakov: “We live in a world where it is no longer interesting to just make money. When offering a product or service, we also give a goal-setting, which indicates that our product is about important things.

The social role is that goal-setting. If you look at large companies, you can see that they tend to build their social roles around three topics: ecology, acute social issues, support for those in need. The extent to which a company translates its expertise into any of these areas leads to goal setting. The expertise of Procter & Gamble is taking care of the house and the person.”

Do creative people need a social role?

Nikita Kukushkin: “It all depends on the upbringing and the person himself. My mother has always been my example. It seems to me that everyone needs to help others. This is an internal need. If a person does not realize it, he becomes ill.

How do you know what social issue a brand is fighting for?

Ruslan Nozdryakov: “We don’t have a department of good deeds. We just do. This can be explained by the example of dishwashing detergent. It is not enough to simply offer the scent of chamomile and add many unmeasurable promises to the packaging. Products must be of tangible value. For example, it turns out that even if you put only eight items in the dishwasher, it will be more environmentally friendly than washing under the tap: in terms of water consumption and due to the absence of the need for additional rinsing. You just need to make an effective machine wash product.”

How is the consumer changing?

Ruslan Nozdryakov: “This is a two-way traffic. Two stories can be told here. The first is that 60% of consumers express concern about social problems and would like to solve them. The second story is based on a comparison of Russian and European consumers. 70% of European consumers believe they can influence the social agenda. In our country, only 30% count on a real chance of influence. True, this figure rose by 8 p.p. over six months. “Our consumer believed in the effectiveness of their actions.”

Help app

Nikita Kukushkin: “People are confused by not knowing where exactly their money went in the transfer. People are ready to help personally, but not ready to help through the organization. Help is the world’s first targeted transparent help app. In fact, this is a whole system: you enter the application, see a map, select a point (each point is a real person), see a request in the form of a grocery set. Behind all this is a real story, a real person who can be seen in the photo. Everything is open: you can see the roadmap of the way your money is transacted, the invoice and the photo of the person who received the help. This is digitized compassion, the unification of people apart from ideology, politics, religion. At the moment, 600 people receive assistance every month.”

Publicity and social projects

Nikita Kukushkin: “Publicity matters. In our country, one might say, there is a pyramidal structure:

• Consumers who make a request.
• Opinion leaders and influencers who work for the consumer.
• And also those who are paid attention to by millionaire bloggers.

All the people who are in our project go to the theater. It turns out that this is such a conversion of one reputational link into another.

Ruslan Nozdryakov: “Of course, behind a public person is an audience. But it is important to understand that public people are approached only when they themselves take on a social role, when they see value in it. For example, we created the Give Plastic a Second Life project together with Dima Bilan, who himself is involved in this agenda.

Thanks to this project, we have created the largest non-state network of plastic vending machines. The plastic we collect is used to make playgrounds, and people themselves vote in which city to install them.”

How brands communicate about social issues

Ruslan Nozdryakov: “Social problems are defined by society, companies do not invent them. You need to respond to the request where you understand, everyone should do their own thing. We often touch on social topics.

A simple story: the role of mother. We glorify heroes, astronauts, and mother is remembered only on Mother’s Day and on March XNUMXth. We have decided to launch the Thank You Mom campaign as part of Olympic sponsorship. It became a story that behind every strong athlete is a strong mother. Another project is about strong girls Always #LikeAGirl. Or Share the Load campaign in India for fair distribution of household responsibilities.

Nikita Kukushkin: “There is a myth that you need to help covertly. It is necessary to develop an understanding that helping another is a basic need that should not be praised or talked about when it is not required. Help is the norm. Don’t treat it like a distant dream.”

Company goals: what else needs to be done

Ruslan Nozdryakov: “Ecology definitely concerns everyone, but time is short. The point of no return is 2030. Every day, 70 species of flora and fauna disappear. Every week we eat one plastic card, because plastic is everywhere. It is important that companies have a plan to fight, because then it will be clear what has been achieved and what has not.

We promised that by 2030:

• Let’s switch to renewable electricity produced in our country.
• Achieve carbon neutrality. 50% by optimizing production and logistics. 50% by investing in large tree planting projects to restore the lungs of the planet.
• All of our packaging will be made from recyclable plastic. We want to reduce the use of virgin plastic by 50%, and we also strive to reuse packaging.”

Nikita Kukushkin: “23 regions are on the way: they are added as organizations appear that are ready to cooperate with us. Then – our whole country and other countries. Now we are working on basic needs – a food package, medicines, we are working on a story with housing and communal services. Then we plan to reach out to one-time needs and other categories of those in need.”

What can you do now to help

Ruslan Nozdryakov: “The main thing is to do where you can be useful. In the West, they used to talk about social responsibility, that is, about social responsibility. Now this is not a responsibility, this is an opportunity – an opportunity. If the help is not natively integrated into the business, it will not work. Need to be helpful. Not to be good, not to seem good, but to be helpful.”

Nikita Kukushkin: “Start with yourself, your family, and then get to know your neighbor. Then go down the stairwell – and the boundaries will be erased.

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