This June saw Internet Week in NYC, a schedule of events for people making their living—or living their passion—in Internet-related pursuits. Channelise attended a conference called The #Promise about “corporate citizenship’s” use of social/mobile media to make socially and environmentally responsible impacts. The one-day conference generated multiple days of ideas for us. First, we’ll talk a little about how this relates to branding issues; tomorrow, we’ll get into some concepts that excited us.
The conference was free by application and put on by ThinkSocial & PepsiCo. Is there too much hypocrisy for a company that has arguably been detrimental to the health of the world’s populations and environment to hold a conference on corporate responsibility? Or would it be worth it if more major corporations followed suit, doing a small part to mitigate negative impacts? We think that nearly everyone in attendance came with a healthy skepticism that “corporate social responsibility (CSR)” practices are little more than marketing ploys to pacify consumers back into buying their products.
Naturally, any Tweet tagging the conference showed up on two large screen feeds on either side of the stage. A Brooklyn furniture company tweeted “#thepromise Pepsi should promise to stop repackaging tap water in plastic bottles made out of petroleum products from BP.” As it were, ideas like this were discussed and generated at the front of the room, while international sugary, fatty, and salty beverages and snacks were handed out in the back (we tried chorizo-flavored Lays from Venezuela; not terrible).
To PepsiCo’s credit, opposing arguments weren’t stifled or entirely high-fructose-corn-syrup-coated. The goal of the day was to explore ways to leverage social/mobile media toward corporate responsibility and have companies make “promises” to do so.
The Healthymagination site
Linda Boff, GE’s Global Director of Marketing Communications and Digital, freely admitted that GE engages in CSR practices because it’s good for their bottom line. It helps the company rebrand and reposition their products as better for the world. The company has created the “Healthymagination” brand to start to address global health care shortcomings with catchy videos they hope go viral. Though the media links back to GE’s website, it is not obviously branded as a part of the company.
GE has also de-engineered a few items in order to make them more useful for poorer, usually rural populations. A new line of “Lullaby Warmer” incubators includes a hand-crank operated version; it uses just a few minutes of hand-cranking to give a baby a space. A portable ultrasound machine helps bring diagnoses to far-flung locations for just $8K—traditional equipment can cost upwards of $20K. Sounds good to us.
With perhaps the most stark-sounding CSR-related title, we also heard from Timberland’s Senior Manager for Values Marketing, Margaret Morey-Reuner. Commendably, Timberland has jumpstarted a few interesting community involvement efforts, like City Year. However, in attendance at a Clinton Global Initiative yearly meeting, they were advised by the former President to hone their activities into one, strong effort. Being Timberland, they decided to plant trees. Soon, you’ll be able to visit their Facebook page and buy or gift virtual seeds, which will translate into the real thing, planted in devastatingly deforested places like Horqin, China. Their “#promise” is to plant five million trees in five years. The side company that will help carry out this effort, as well as spark creatively green product creation (soda tab purse, anyone?), is called Earthkeepers—and opposed to GE’s Healthymagination, it’s very closely branded to Timberland.
Soda Tab Bag - photo from Earthsaver.com
Which is a better approach? To tie doggedly your “mitigating” company with your corporation, or create a looser tether? Timberland’s Earthkeepers is more visible, so it’s easier to credit the corporation. Perhaps they also benefit from their ingrained appeal to those more Earth-minded. But GE’s projects are more behind the scenes, giving the company more of a martyred-mother status (you’ll never know how much I’ve done for you!). Of course, a successful branding strategy takes into account myriad factors, and the answer isn’t the same for every corporation. What’s important is that a corporate social reasonability policy does good, whether the company is profiting from it or not.
Side note: Speaking of basic branding, however, it’s interesting how often the simplest items are overlooked. Channelise couldn’t figure out why the conference producers didn’t decide on a hashtag format. On programs and presentations (and consequently, Tweets and write-ups) it was written both #thepromise and #promise. Since “#promise” is already tied to other topics on Twitter, it seems they should’ve stuck with a uniform “#thepromise” for this event.