Press News

Budapest, November 17, 2004

PeppeR 21 PR Agency conducted a research on corporate social responsibility. Journalists say Matáv is the best known donor in Hungary. The research sought to find out why donations are so little publicized in the domestic media.

Recently various researches were conducted to reveal the donation readiness, culture and patterns in Hungary. Some surveys state that last year corporate social responsibility produced donations worth HUF 31.6 billion. Although large companies expend such high amounts on donations this activity is not always covered in the media in a "worthy" way. What could be the reason for companies feeling a lack of response when contacting editorial offices with information about their corporate social responsibility? The three-way research just completed by PeppeR 21 PR Agency sought to find an answer to this question.

"Our goal was to find out what are the criteria used by editors and journalists to decide whether they will cover a given subject. By obtaining and publishing more accurate information about this we wanted to facilitate the work of both large companies and journalists. Information presented in accordance with the requirements of the press has a greater chance of being included among the daily news", said Gábor Sarlós, PeppeR 21 PR Agency's Executive Director about the reasons for conducting the research.

The research applied a three-way approach to this subject: from the point of view of journalists and editors, from the donor company's side and on the basis of publications in the printed and on-line media. To survey the opinion of journalists the research used a questionnaire sent to almost all domestic editorial offices addressed to the targeted persons (a total of 195 professionals). At the same time a similar questionnaire was sent to the executives responsible for communication and marketing at large Hungarian companies known for donations and corporate social responsibility. The third part was a seven-month media study of how the subject of corporate social responsibility is presented in the Hungarian media. Comparison of the thee-part research results produced interesting and in certain respects unexpected results.

County dailies show more interest

Answers to the question "Why do you consider corporate social responsibility important in the life of a company?" were greatly varied. Companies do not attach much importance to donation in respect of market competition (only 15% do so), while half of the journalists said that it could be a decisive factor between two companies with similar products. Among domestic large companies 73% say that consumers increasingly expect responsible thinking. Journalists gave less weight to social requirements for companies as a motivation factor.
The question about whether readers like to read about corporate social responsibility produced significant variations. Among the journalists 30% said that readers were interested in this subject, while companies were much more pessimistic concerning the value of news about their donation activity: only 15% said that this subject would be interesting for readers.

Among the media addressing corporate social responsibility the most frequently, regional newspapers and trade papers with rising reading rates - in some cases with much bigger circulation than national dailies played an outstanding role. Companies - thought national dailies were more important, while press monitoring services say that newspapers with a high reputation find the subject of corporate social responsibility less interesting.

Subjects covered in the press the most frequently are connected with health donations, they were followed by reports on social and education related donations. It should be underlined that in all areas of donation the most frequently mentioned donations were those given to children (children's hospital, children's catering, underprivileged children).

As for the largest domestic donor company, journalists' opinions almost fully coincide with the number of appearances. The most journalists (35%) mentioned Matáv, that received this year for the second time the "Corporate Donor of the Year" Award, another 20% listed the fixed-line telephone service provider among the first five. Journalists' awareness is reflected by the fact that in terms of the number of publications in the press Matáv was actually the undisputed number one among the large company donors in Hungary in the seven-month period of the media research. T-Mobile, Mol and Hewlett Packard were also mentioned by many.


Donation is not advertising

About half of corporate professionals say that the media are in general not interested in corporate social responsibility. One third of the respondents told about experiences that although the media showed interest in the subject, they did not want to publish the name of the donor. However media research shows that in 80% of the cases the name of the donating company or organization (perhaps through a foundation) is shown in the media. The majority of journalists do not know of any legislative restriction on mentioning the name of the donor, although some said that on the basis of a misinterpreted custom certain journalists are afraid of writing the companies' name to avoid having the article considered as an advertisement. Some declared as a fact that the Media Act prohibits communication of the donor's name.

Ildikó Fazekas, General Secretary of the Self-regulating Advertising Body has also encountered this issue several times. "The printed media is not subject to Act I of 1996 on radio and television services, i.e. the Media Act, only to the Advertising Act", she said, clarifying the background of this issue. "This issue can be investigated with a double approach. Independence of editorial offices and journalists, and the current practice that the companies' name is published in connection with bad news or even other news (financial analysis, technical novelties, etc.). The underlying reason is probably that editorial news publish information of public interest. My view is that a donation is information of public interest for two reasons. First, it serves transparency for the entity that receives the donation whose existence, goals, results and plans achievable through the donation are presented to the general public. Second, it is also in the public interest in respect of the donation culture. I consider the fact of donation to be of public interest since publication of the news enhances readiness to make donations. It should be made clear that companies do not donate for the sake of the short news item - that is published only once, if at all. So news about donations would promote the donation culture that I consider to be a subject of public interest that deserves publicity in the press and its publication does not breach any law", Ildikó Fazekas concluded.

"The goal of the research was to get to know the opinions of both sides and accordingly find the balance that is acceptable for the corporate side while it is interesting for journalists and indirectly for the readers too", said Gábor Sarlós, PeppeR 21 PR Agency's Executive Director, summarizing the results. "It is also clear that when a subject has credibility and is presented to the media in an interesting way with appropriate timing then it can be achieved that the media covers the issue of corporate social responsibility."

(A summary of the research results can be downloaded from the Agency's website: www.pepperpr.hu)