CSR: do corporations really care?

“A corporation is the property of its stockholders...its interests are the interests of its stockholders.” Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman has always been a major opponent to CSR practice saying that the argument that business should actively seek to do good without self-interest in mind “preached pure and unadulterated socialism.”

Although, Friedman ‘argument is relevant. Globalization and the information revolution have changed the nature of the relationship consumers have with companies. In fact, “private” corporation are now seen as being public. Corporations and brands have now a personality and more than a product, consumers buy a personality they like.

Some believe that CSR has its roots in philanthropy, but call me a skeptic if you want because I think that CSR is just a stunt used by PR professionals for crisis management and reputation management.

Two examples that I think will prove my point: Nike and Microsoft.

After being accused of using child labor in its factories, Nike sat up a CSR department to turn around public opinion. It is said that nowadays Nike is one of the global leader when it comes to improving labor standards in developing countries. However, NGOs are still arguing that workers in Nike factories receive “poverty wages” that do not allow them to live decently. Moreover, Nike has recently had problems when closing two of its factories in Honduras.

My second example is Microsoft. Microsoft has a CSR department; however Bill along with his wife created a foundation named the Bill&Melinda gates foundation.

My question is the following, if CSR is some kind of philanthropy. Why would there be a distinction between the Microsoft CSR department and Bill Gates foundation?

2012: Can we again?

It’s not a secret that when Barack Obama entered the white House in 2008 he broke many barriers. He was the first African-American US president and he also was the first leader who understood the power of communicating through social media.

Now that Obama has announced that he is going to run for president one again, everybody is wondering how the (social media) political landscape is going to look like for 2012 now that all candidates will be optimizing the use of social media.

In 2008, Obama’s campaign team has used social media to its fullest. Not only was he able to get his message out there, he was also able to garner the votes of those who don’t vote (the youth) and to energize Americans into action.

Let’s have a quick look to Obama’s social media strategy:
There was the website, the blog, the Flickr account, the YouTube channel, the Linked In account, the Twitter account, the Facebook page , the MySpace page etc. And all this work paid off.

On the eve of the election, a web strategist thought about taking a snapshot of the Presidential Candidates Social Networking Stats and numbers don’t lie!
Obama was able to raise $656million for his campaign; over $500 million were raised online.
Let’s hope that for 2012 the republican candidate will also hop on the social media bandwagon.

A nice side to marketing!

I always thought that marketing was selling a product to make money out of it. I recently discovered that there was also “another side” to marketing, a nice one this time: Social marketing. Social marketing was born as a discipline in the 1970s; it uses the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to "sell" ideas, attitudes and behaviors.

Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society. It is generally used in health care programs.

As in “regular” marketing, social marketing focuses on the consumer’s wants and needs instead of trying to persuade him/her.

Social Marketing uses the 4 Ps used in consumer marketing and adds 4 more Ps, which gives us the 8 Ps of social marketing:

1. Product: in social marketing the product can be but is not necessarily a physical one. (Physical product: condoms, service: medical exams, practice: breastfeeding etc.)

2. Price: it refers to what a consumer has to do to get the product. The price can be money (to buy the product) but also time (to get a medical exam).

3. Place: it describes the location where the consumer can get the product. It can be a store, a clinic, a moving bus etc.

4. Promotion: it refers to do ways by which a demand for the product is created (advertising, PR, media advocacy…)

The following Ps are specific to social marketing:

5. Publics: all the people that are involved in the program. It includes the target audience as well as any audience that can reach them or have an influence in their involvement in the program.

6. Partnership: since a social or a health issue cannot be dealt with by only one institution. Partnerships are created between all or some of the actors that play a role in the fulfillment of the program.

7. Policy: the implementation and the success of a program can only happen if there is a policy change accompanying it. An adequate policy can help make a program sustainable.

8. Purse Strings: most organizations that develop a social marketing program need funds to do so.

Here are some examples of social marketing videos that were made for The Partnership for Drug Free America: