Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility to Young Consumers: Focus, Values and Media

In Today's world, companies' way of communicating their corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment plays a very important role in their organizational success and legitimacy accordingly this paper aims to investigate young consumer's perception and evaluation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication of companies using a survey highlighting the underlying values and attitudes of consumers aged between eighteen and thirty. This consumer group is the largest group (24,6%) in the Turkish context and this group is shaping the future consumption habits (www.tuik.gov.tr). The results showed that young consumers are following the CSR issues and they put much more emphasis than expected to these activities so they demand more explicit and relevant information on CSR projects. They are also looking for specific project based factual information that is locally and personally important as they are self-centered and don't mind about general society well-being projects. CSR communication is fundamental as it became one of the major tools for companies to leverage on their investments, manage reputation and create market opportunities through relevance, credibility and today’s young consumers values and media preferences. These insights can help companies in their communication planning and execution by adopting a more direct and open approach based on companies' competence. CSR communication is very challenging hence this paper takes into consideration young consumers preferences and values in relation to CSR in Turkish context to help engage the consumers of the future.