Demos’s new report Service Nation is about the democratic notion of serving the community, and how young people can get more involved to start good habits for the future.

The Government’s idea of a National Civic Service was mooted amongst 54 young people at a Demos convention in September. Only 8% liked the name, and the words duty, civic and service were not very popular. The idea of gaining a sense of personal achievement and fulfilment was important.

We couldn’t help thinking about the psychological value exchange between brands and people, and the success of branded community initiatives like Orange RockCorps, with their strapline: Give, Get Given.

Brands are great influencers and motivators of human behaviour, and they can also be great levellers. As such they can be ideal agents of democracy.

We are big fans of what Orange is doing with Orange RockCorps, and the way they are doing it by merging the CSR and marketing agendas, talking about civil initiatives through brand communications. Other brands are making valuable contributions to society through CSR-led initiatives such as the Vodafone Foundation’s ‘World of Difference’. We rarely see these efforts expressed in primary brand communications, which is a shame because this limits the reach of these good civic initiatives.

Do let us know about communications that promote civic initiatives that you have seen by other brands like Orange RockCorps. In the meantime, we’ll start thinking about measuring the overall contribution to civic service that brands are making.