Is it just me or does anybody else find corporate ad campaigns eschewing social responsibility a bit duplicitous?
I was standing on the subway platform in Washington DC this weekend. Looking around, I saw this ad sponsored by Chevron. They have been waging this campaign on billboards and television for a while now touting all things sustainable: save energy, turn off lights, drive a hybrid car, and so on. These are nice virtues that we can all agree with. The problem is I am being told to be more environmentally responsible by a FREAKING OIL COMPANY!
Here is my question: Do campaigns and non-core business activities like this serve the public interest or is this really just a bad publicity stunt that wastes money?
From a corporate social responsibility perspective, I want to see companies behave better and be responsible to all stakeholders. The problem is that I often notice that companies choose form over substance: a corporate ad campaign condemning energy use or smoking cigarettes (Chevron, RJR), charitable giving while destroying social infrastructure (Wal-Mart), helping children while undermining public health (McDonalds). For those of us looking at and evaluating companies from a social and environmental perspective, it’s easy to take a quick look at what a company says it does and give them a thumbs up or down. Sustainability reports, charitible giving and codes of conduct are nice to see but at the end of the day, does it really matter? Isn’t what companies “do” as companies the primary if not the only factor by which we should measure their true responsibility?
I invite your comments on this question. I would also like to hear from you about examples of what you would consider corporate social hypocrisy. Email me at info@jmr-financial.com
Chevron with feelings? Shareholders must be horrified. Corporations are given great deal of money in the form of share purchases, with the legal obligation to return a profit! That is their charter, and absolute responsibility. Fooling around in social issues is bullshit propaganda and will profit no one. Corporations are non-persons, artificial social psychotics, legally bound to take small amounts of money, and at all costs, make them bigger, and they do it well. If society wants change, change the rules, the laws of incorporation to cover some social issues, making a level playing field for all corporations and it will happen. Willful social destruction is a result of poorly written incorporation laws, corporations mindlessly follow their laws, they do not “feel” anything, we have to write that into their charters to get different results.
vrotmnenogi