CSR Comms Now Measures Behaviour Change, Not Reach

For years, social-impact teams measured success with a simple question: how many people did we reach? Priyanka Lillaney, head of brand communication at Kotak Education Foundation, argues that the more important question is now “What changed because we reached them?” Her case for Behaviour Change Communication matters just as much for brand managers, founders and marketers selling anything else.

Visibility is not influence

A campaign can earn millions of impressions and still leave behaviour untouched. Lillaney is blunt about the hierarchy: visibility is not impact, attention is not action, and engagement is not necessarily change. The real test is what happens after the message is consumed. Does a parent begin to see education as a pathway instead of a cost? Does a teacher try a different method in the classroom? Those are behavioural outcomes, not communication outcomes.

She writes that the shift from visibility to influence begins with putting people, not programmes, at the centre. A celebrity can create attention and an influencer can create reach, but when someone changes a real choice, communication has influenced something with consequences beyond the campaign. As Lillaney puts it, “Belief is the bridge between communication and behaviour change.”

The end of the ‘beneficiary’ story

One of the sharpest points is about language. Calling people “beneficiaries” reduces them to recipients, or worse, evidence of a programme’s success. Lillaney reframes them as participants in change and often the most credible advocates. A teacher explaining how a new pedagogy changed her classroom, or a government partner describing systemic collaboration, carries lived credibility that branded communication cannot buy.

This is not just a nonprofit idea. The same logic applies to customer stories. A review that shows a real decision being made is usually more persuasive than a polished campaign line. But authenticity comes with responsibility: consent, dignity and ownership must lead, or the story is extraction, not engagement.

Measure movement, not just media

If the ambition is behaviour change, measurement has to follow. Reach, impressions and engagement still have a role, but they measure exposure, not transformation. Lillaney’s sharper questions are simple:

• Did more students apply?
• Did teachers adopt new practices?

That reset is the bridge to a behaviour-change mindset. Marketers can borrow Fogg’s behaviour model — B=MAP — where a behaviour happens when motivation, ability and a prompt align. Awareness campaigns often only raise motivation. The real work is making the action easier and giving people a clear prompt.

What the next generation looks like

Lillaney predicts deeper engagement instead of bigger campaigns: regional storytelling, AI-enabled personalisation at scale, and people experiencing change becoming the most powerful storytellers. The communicator of the future, she says, needs the discipline of data, the imagination of a creative, the strategic lens of a behaviour-change practitioner and the empathy to tell human stories with dignity.

That is a useful brief for any marketing team. Behaviour change is not a CSR add-on; it is the difference between being seen and being chosen.

Source: ETBrandEquity.com