Brand social responsibility campaigns through videos during the pandemic

Most often we forget that behind all the companies and corporations, ordinary people like me and you, are acting. We perceive them as profit-hungry machines without a soul and care. But actually, they do care and what’s more important, they should let people know about that. Just as our communities impact companies, the companies are also able to influence the economy and society where they operate.

That’s why this time we decided to talk about an idea that is not new, but is actual, especially in the era of companies' endless race for a distinguished reputation, brand awareness and success.

Let’s go back to start from the very beginning.

What is brand social responsibility (corporate social responsibility) and what’s its role for the company and the society?

Saying Brand Social Responsibility, we understand the responsibility that a company and its leaders have towards society. It’s the way of giving back and making a positive impact on the community, employees, investors, and overall, the public.

There are lots of ways to organize brand social responsibility campaigns to help support a society and businesses, meanwhile, improve your brand. But video is, undoubtedly, one of the powerful and easily perceivable ways to reach that goal.

Before 2020 began, all the marketers had already planned the year and their marketing activities, but none of them was probably expecting the pandemic showing up on the horizon. Let’s agree during a crisis like this, companies want to do more to stay on top of customer’s minds. But as COVID-19 has divided our lives to ‘’before and after’’, it has greatly affected also the video types in terms of the overall idea of brand social responsibility.

For example, if before the pandemic, such types of videos as documentary filming, capturing conferences, lectures and seminars, interviews with key stakeholders and beneficiaries were great for brand social responsibility, after the pandemic, lots of small businesses have expressed themselves pretty creatively with their digital videos trying to engage their customers, most of whom have had to stay home. Restaurants have started to produce cooking videos. Fitness centers have uploaded at-home workout classes. Businesses started increasing educational videos to help millions of people.

Brand Social Responsibility videos are created with the goal to push people to the immediate help and assistance in the fight against the virus.

Talking about Brand Social Responsibility videos, it’s important to note some important points that will let you dive deep into the topic more easily

• There are a lot of amazing human stories behind the message of Brand Social Responsibility videos, and people love watching human stories. Video helps to capture the real life stories and communicate it to resonate with the audience. It gives you an opportunity to make connections even when you cannot meet people in person.
• Video is the perfect way to communicate the goals and accomplishments of a Brand Social Responsibility initiative. Video ensures that your initiative receives the attention that it deserves.
  
• People don’t like reading long texts and even sometimes don’t have so much time for that, video is the best way to make them aware of what you’re doing in a short period of time.
  

But at the same time let’s not forget that in order to make sure that your campaign and video have the desired result, you need to identify your target audience and ensure the maximum effect your video can bring.

So we’ve collected real video examples, created during the recent pandemic period by some well-known brands for you to understand how powerful the impact of brand social responsibility can truly be.

1. ‘’Small Business Spotlight’’ by Verizon - supporting small businesses

During this pandemic, one of the biggest telecommunication companies in the US - Verizon announced about #PayitForwardLIVE brand social responsibility campaign to support small businesses by donating $10,000 up to $2.5 million to each of them. Verizon created a series of short videos called Small Business Spotlight where business founders present the most important information about their businesses. Also, its ongoing #PayitForwardLIVE weekly streaming series were streaming Tuesday and Thursday nights. Verizon’s total COVID-19 crisis commitment now stands at over $50 million in contributions and donations to nonprofits around the globe.

2. ‘’Stay home’’ by Ikea - the power of human touch

Ikea Spain saw an opportunity to shift perspective around shelter-in-place orders by welcoming their Spanish- and English-speaking audiences back into their own homes. By doing so, Ikea aimed at reminding people that home is where many happy moments happen like playing with kids, dancing, making music, or simply relaxing with loved ones-as the world around them shifts.

3. ‘’Ask a Pharmacist’’ video series by Walgreens - educating customers through short social videos

One of the largest U.S. pharmacies and a trusted leader in health care, Walgreens converted their ‘’Ask a Pharmacist’’ series into short, informative videos that answer customers’ common questions related to COVID-19. The brand also quickly converted an existing email campaign into a video ad to explain how people can safely take advantage of online care services and free prescription delivery.

4. “The Spoiler Billboards” by Netflix - stay home, spoilers are roaming outside

Netflix has shown incredible compassion amid this uncertain period of the pandemic. The brand came up with a clever way to “force” people to stay home, by filling billboards in gathering spaces with spoilers of popular Netflix shows. They created a funny video through which they were warning their fans about the billboards outside thus encouraging them to stay home.

5. #ShareASquare by Cottonelle - the hashtag went viral immediately through their BSR video

Do you remember the recent boom around the toilet paper? So one of the world's largest toilet paper producers, Cottonelle, delivered a direct message to discourage panic buying. The brand launched a campaign called #ShareASquare. It donated $1 million and one million rolls of toilet paper to United Way Worldwide’s COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund. And for everyone who uses the hashtag #ShareASquare, the brand will donate an additional $1 up to $100K. They also created a motion graphics video about the campaign, encouraging people to use the hashtag.

Summing up

Well, consumers feel that when they use a product or service of a socially responsible company. And for sure, the result is reciprocal.

The more such company directs its efforts towards shaping a prosperous society, the more supportive the community and consumers become. So in this sense, brand social responsibility helps build trust, raise awareness, and enact social positive change.

On 29th of September within Leeds Digital Festival, a new podcast series, Bobble Pod, was launched. The first episode was conducted by the industry expert panelists Anush Mnatsakanyan from Burnwe, Manpreet Singh from Bobble Digital, Keith Loveday from Loveday Media and Claire Daniels from Trio Media.

Their main focus was the topic of brand social responsibility on which our CEO and Co-founder Anush has shared her perspective, highlighting the importance of video campaigns. So if you’re interested in the topic and want to dive deep into the other panelists’ speeches as well, here is the vodcast of their discussion.

We’ll further wrap up these series of podcasts which will be held every last Tuesday of the month.

Make sure to check out the second episode with our experts.

Brand social responsibility, what’s your brand’s impact on the society?