So, it is good news to see that Sports Business, one of the key reads for the sports and sponsorship industry, is running a conference soon-ish to get to the heart of the issue: can CSR in sport deliver? Speakers and attendees look like a top quality bunch so if you’re interested check out:

www.sportandsocialresponsibility.com 

If you want to have a look at what rugby union is doing at a social marketing and community level check out the site we help run for Premier Rugby Limited:

 www.rugbyinthecommunity.com 

or check out this week’s

www.marketingmagazine.co.uk

Their argument is summarised via the LA Times, if you want to save yourself the bother of buying the book – which I would.

What they describe is the art of manipulating consumer-citizens’ ‘choice architecture’ to help overcome ill-informed, irrational, short-termist or momentum-based decision-making.

Their approach – essentially choice-biasing rather than choice editing – they describe as “paternalist libertarianism”.

This approach is chiming very loudly with the centrist conservative party in the UK, who appear have wholeheartedly embraced social marketing as an alternative to regulatory intervention.

It further accelerates the blurring of the roles of civil society, government and the corporate sector… But while the behavioural economics techniques of Nudge are applicable in any sector, they instinctively make me feel most uneasy in the residual public sector.

The ‘choices’ which nudge gives rise to Nudge rapidly become the sort of ‘choice’ you have to not sign corporate terms and conditions online. However, this is not my problem with Nudge.

My first problem with it is the impracticality of scrutiny and governance. The capacity of parliament to monitor, and our capacity as citizens to elect governments to engage in this sort of activity is very unclear.

A second implication is that the role of policy itself is eroded. We will end up electing for competence over a system which is increasingly governed my market forces, dictated in their turn by ever denser clusters of wealth and influence.

Finally, at a structural level, the opacity of linkage between principles, policies and practices threatens our collective social accountability. Without ‘transparency’ over the array of options and their impacts and policies which underpin them, we are simply concealing an iron fist in a velvet glove. It may be more effective, but it sets a dangerous precedent.

Ultimately, freedom of choice includes the freedom to choose ‘wrongly’.

Sport might be a solution to that social marketing challenge, you’d think?.

But have sport and health got their act together?

Not well enough is the answer, according Peter Baker, CEO of the MHF. The MHF, who work with Glasshouse, have called for a new review of how sport and health should work together and the development of a new national sports / health policy. If you’re interested in either agenda, visit the Guardian to get a better view of the MHF point of view.

But one thing not mentioned was the commitment made by the players to charity, community and social marketing work.

This work gets little play in the media, but it is seen by children, parents, fans, NGOs, LEAs and charities on the ground. And it counts. It is a key driver of reputation for the players as personal brands. It is a tangible demonstration of their social and ethical values (and those of their clubs as corporate citizens) and it is one of the fundamentals underpining their value to brand or social marketers.

Most of the players, owners and coaches recognize this community work is one of the factors which differentiate them as a brand and which makes their people and their game more valuable to fans, sponsors and other stakeholders.

Which is why they are consciously managing it.

Which is also why, alongside the growth in the use of players for brand endorsement, there has also been a 100% growth in the use of rugby players and clubs for social marketing purposes since the game went pro ten years ago. Many clubs have Foundations dedicated to working with national and local sponsors from the private and public sector (for example, the National Sports Foundation is part funding with EDF Energy the rugby based National School Sports programme and the players and volunteer staff clocked up north of 100,000 hours per annum on delivering social marketing and community programmes. See the work go to www.rugbyinthecommunity.com