corporate social responsibility

"The ultimate selling proposition might just be saving the planet," said International Advertising Association (IAA) executive director Michael Lee. The IAA recently met with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss how marketing firms might help address global warming. Lee added that marketers can "help change consumer behavior, influence public policy and help the UN make further progress on the issue." Also present at the meeting were executives from Publicis Groupe, Interpublic Group, Omnicom, Ogilvy & Mather and Euro RSCG, among other major marketing firms. Secretary-General Ban remarked, "As climate change affects everyone, everywhere, the UN needs partners in the private sector and in civil society to mobilize and spur action." Details of the UN-marketer partnership will be revealed at COP14, the next conference on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will be held December 2008 in Poznan, Poland.

The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) is alarmed about the extent of corporate greenwashing. The authority's chief executive, Frank Goodman, explained, "You are not allowed to say your product is good for the environment unless you can prove this. Our code is very specific on this point." Of particular concern are claims by companies that they have become "carbon neutral" by buying carbon offsets for their greenhouse gas emissions. John Curran, the environmental executive for Musgrave Group, which markets leading retail brands, said, "It's easy to make the claim, but it is almost impossible to really be carbon neutral. ... Low carbon is the best you can aim for. But once PR gets a hold of things, being seen as green can turn into a crusade for some companies."

"We do not want children to smoke," British American Tobacco (BAT) declares on its website. But the company that describes itself as the "world's most international tobacco group" routinely violates its own voluntary international marketing and advertising standards, according to a July 1, 2008 BBC-TV This World investigation. BAT was caught in Malawi, Mauritius and Nigeria using marketing tactics that are well-known to appeal to youth: advertising and selling single cigarettes, and sponsoring non-age-restricted, product-branded musical entertainment. (See also "Playing with Children's Lives: Big Tobacco in Malawi.")

When a company adopts and prominently touts its voluntary behavior codes, only to end up violating them, people start asking questions: What are the real reasons for these codes? Are they just for public relations (PR) purposes? To, as they say, 'cover your a*s' (CYA)? How did they arise? What, if any, value do they have?

Protesters outside Edelman's London officeOver the next week, campaigners from around the United Kingdom will converge on the site of a proposed expansion of the coal-fired Kingsnorth Power Station and participate in civil disobedience protests. The company behind the proposal, E.ON UK, a subsidiary of the German energy company E.ON, is so worried by the prospect of the planned civil disobedience campaign that it has hired the PR firm Edelman, to see if it can help ensure that the company's proposal retains government support.

Like so many companies, E.ON UK gushes about its corporate social responsibility program and proclaims that it is "working towards low carbon energy" and that "climate change is an important issue for society." It sounds reassuring, but the reality is much more disturbing.

A recent investigation by BBC Television showed British American Tobacco (BAT) violating its own voluntary marketing and advertising codes in Malawi, Mauritius and Nigeria. Contrary to BAT's public pronouncements that it doesn't want children to smoke, the company was caught using marketing tactics in these countries that are known to appeal to young people, like advertising and selling single cigarettes, and sponsoring non-age-restricted, product branded musical entertainment.

As trading has become more global and corporations have become more multinational, countries started discovering that they have little recourse to rein in the harmful behavior of corporations. As public clamor to regulate multinationals has grown, companies have increasingly responded by adopting "voluntary codes of conduct." But what are the real purposes for these codes? Are they just window dressing, or worse?

A BBC investigation has found British American Tobacco (BAT) violating its own voluntary international marketing standards in Nigeria, Malawi and Mauritius, using tactics that appeal to youth and circumvent advertising restrictions. BAT promotes and sells single cigarettes in these countries, a marketing strategy that appeals to youth, who often can't afford to buy an entire pack. BAT also sponsored musical events that had no formal age checks at the door. Celebrities at these events wore clothing bearing cigarette brand logos. In Mauritius, where cigarette advertising was banned in 1999, BAT paid to paint retail stores the same color as their leading brand, Matinee. In Malawi and Nigeria, posters were seen depicting single cigarettes and pricing cigarettes individually. BBC observed children as young as eleven buying single cigarettes. BAT's website says the company's voluntary marketing standards "embody ... our commitment to marketing appropriately and only to adult smokers." They promise their tobacco advertising will not "be aimed at, or particularly appeal to youth," will "not feature a celebrity," and that the company will engage in "no event sponsorship unless the participants and audience are adults." Previously-secret tobacco industry documents show that BAT adopted voluntary marketing standards as a way to "demonstrate responsibility" while staving off stricter government regulation of their products.

You've heard the term "greenwashing." It refers to corporations that try to appear "green" without reducing their negative impact on the environment.

Since 2002, the group Breast Cancer Action has promoted its "Think Before You Pink" campaign. It's fighting "pinkwashing," which is when corporations try to boost sales by associating their products with the fight against breast cancer. Pinkwashing is a form of slacktivism -- a campaign that makes people feel like they're helping solve a problem, while they're actually doing more to boost corporate profits. Pinkwashing has been around for a while, but is now reaching almost unbelievable levels.

"After waging an aggressive public relations campaign against Wal-Mart for three years, the company’s full-time, union-backed critics, who once vowed never to let up, are putting down their cudgels," writes Michael Barbaro. The critics are Wal-Mart Watch, sponsored by Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union, and WakeUpWalmart, which is financed by the United Food and Commercial Workers union. According to Barbaro, the friendlier relationship between the unions and Wal-Mart led the company to disband its controversial front group, Working Families for Wal-Mart. "Shrill condemnations and embarrassing leaked documents are giving way to acknowledgments of progress -- and, in the case of Wal-Mart Watch, free advice." Through targeted labor and environmental initiatives, Wal-Mart has left its critics "navigating a complex situation in which they have to decide, issue by issue, whether to shake hands with the company or to slap it."

When a patient checks into a hospital or goes to see a doctor, they are typically handed a booklet called "Notice of Privacy Practices" and are asked to sign a document acknowledging that they received the information. Patients assume that these "privacy practices" are in place to protect their personal information and that doctors and hospitals will keep their information in strictest confidence. In reality, patients usually overlook fine print contained in these documents that say that hospitals can share their personal information and use it for fundraising purposes. Thus someone who checks into the hospital for a heart ailment can later be solicited to help pay for expensive new hospital equipment or a new diagnostic wing. Fundraising professionals call this "high touch direct mail," but others think gathering marketing information this way is disrespectful to patients. Dr. Steven Fugaro, an internist and president of the San Francisco Medical Society, says the practice raises ethical concerns. "When you go to Macy's or Wal-Mart or buy a car, it has come to be expected that your name will be used for commercial purposes. But ... people come to us because they are sick. They have an expectation that their names will be kept private, even the fact that they were treated by the doctor or a hospital." Most patients are unaware that health care privacy laws are being used to harvest marketing data.

New York Times reporter Melody Petersen, who covered the pharmaceutical industry for four years, has now published a book titled Our Daily Meds: How the pharmaceutical companies transformed themselves into slick marketing machines and hooked the nation on prescription drugs. In her book, Petersen refutes the commonly-held notion that drug companies plow their profits back into research to develop life-saving drugs, and concludes instead that drug companies primarily put their profits into influencing medical science and marketing drugs. Petersen writes, "With their hoards of cash, the companies have readily handed money to patient groups, hospitals, universities, physician societies, government agencies and just about any organization they want on their side. ... The industry's cash-filled coffers have given it a stranglehold on medical science." Petersen also exposes the problems with direct-to-consumer advertising and the drug industry's portrayal of common conditions, like anxiety and urinary frequency, as illnesses, as a way to convince people they need medication.