From a fair.org blog post, which appears to be a reprint of a 1995 piece written by Jay Letto, I found this quote,
"After spending three decades doing everything in [its] power to weaken, inhibit and delay environmental legislation," Garfield said, "for General Motors to take out ads congratulating the eco-movement is like John Wayne Gacy celebrating the International Year of the Child."
It's a funny quote, and dissects perfectly the hypocrisy around many of the marketing campaigns to try and define their image as one that is concerned with the same contemporary issues as their socially-conscious consumer. It seems like more and more companies are acting preemptively rather than reactively to try and anticipate potential issues surrounding their products. This helps define their image and provides a foundation for damage control were issues ever to come to light. Bennett gives a few examples-of the Starbucks effort, and the reaction of Coke to the polar bear issue. Companies now make an effort to showcase their best practices to insulate themselves from criticism and ally with a variety of causes. Does Coca Cola still use polar bears in their ads? Nissan does. But, in their ads the polar bear is hugging the driver of the hybrid vehicle, somehow associating Nissan with the preservation of polar bears, which seems a stretch to me. The quote above still can be applied to GM-thinking of the new Chevy Aveo ads..
Bennett also makes the point that due to the ability for campaigns to go viral, ones that both smear and promote the practices of corporations, companies need to be even more invested in the way they portray themselves. The OCA Global Week of Action Against Starbucks, or the online campaigns against BP are examples of how quickly bad press spreads across personal networks. The Nike meme example also shows how easily associations can be made between brands and social issues-imagine the lost capital resulting from such campaigns, and the equally large amount of capital being invested by companies to try and anticipate and preempt the damage that could be done over via internet meme. Overall, demanding more accountability from corporations must be seen as a positive result of the interaction between the online public and its social agenda.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1309
Coke's recent advertising campaign is a great example of the hypocrisy statement. It basically was like "since you buy coke, you've been helping with the largest recycling program in America"...all because they USED to use glass bottles. It was obvious that a PR company had come up with this and they jumped on it. I haven't noticed many of the ad's recently so it was apparently a short lived campaign.
ReplyDeleteI think that companies should be very invested in how they portray themselves. More so I think they should portray themselves truthfully and based on business practices worthy of being portrayed in a positive light. This would easily allow for more credible advertisements, etc that in turn would create a positive viral presence for the brand. But, PR and Advertising are areas that companies typically try to reduce in times of economic turmoil thinking they can maintain a great brand presence from within.