NGO Activism or Brand Destroyers?

When marketing gurus Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized that the same marketing principles used for products could be used for selling ideas, social marketing was born. The main obective here is to influence social behaviour not for the benefit of the marketer, read NGO, but for the benefit of the larger audience and general society.

Role of Social Marketers and Activists
As social change agents, activists try to nurture public consensus and act as an 'open system' which informs the public while at the same time learning from dialogue with stakeholders. It is therefore important to be seen as responsible citizens in order to win respect, acceptance and legitimacy from the majority of ordinary citizens who must be won over for movements to succeed. Social conditions and public policies that violate morally acceptable values are basically the main agenda when it comes to activism. The results being governmental policies being put in place to ensure such issues are accepted in political and judicial structures. However, some of these actions may not augur well with big corporations...

Stepping on large toes?
Corporations such as Nestle have had their share of "Corporate Crimes" highlighted by NGOs such as Oxfam and Greenpeace. The latest being the issue of palm oil being used in its products which is killing off orang-utans, all this after the issue with the Zimbabwe farm which claimed that Nestle Zimbabwe sourced 15 percent of its milk from a farm owned by the president’s wife, Grace Mugabe. All these crises as a result of close monitoring of activities of corporations by NGOs and Nestle has had quiet a rough time trying to manage their reputation and resorting to social media which hasn't worked much for them.

This video by greenpeace is the campaign against the destruction of the orang-utans' forest. Would you buy a Kit-Kat after watching it?

I thought not for most people...that's how powerful activists can be. Clearly, activism plays a big role in determining how organizations work. Pity that sometimes the environment will be destroyed in order to get people to travel as is the issue with the alarming rate of carbon prints.

References
Green peace UK, http://www.greenpeace.org.uk
http://www.techeye.net/internet/nestle-fails-at-social-media

How viable is CSR?

"Corporate Social Responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not because it is a nice thing to do or because people are forcing us to do it...because it is good for our business". - Niall Fitzerald, Former CEO, Unilever

Is CSR philanthropy? It is indeed hard to differentiate between philanthropy and CSR. I believe it should be defined as philanthropy that leads to sustainable development. In other words, while philanthropy concentrates on one or few stakeholders, CSR on the other hand should be a concept that touches on all the stakeholders. Hopkins says that most philanthropic acts by organizations are devoted to items that governments should be doing and government's failure should not be the preserve of corporations (p.114). Companies like Vodafone, Cadbury invest in CSR and have been successful in implementing it.

So then, is CSR mere window-dressing?
Is the effort to practice CSR just skin deep? CSR steadily moved up Corporates' agenda with the notion that it delivers direct benefits to the organization. If so, how then can companies convince stakeholders that practises associated with social and environmental issues aside from their business are ethical?

Cutlip et al. seems to be clear that any involvement in CSR is as a result of self-interest, to enable the company to have an easy life by indicating that an institutions relationship with its community is crucial because these communities supply the organization's workforce, provide an environmnet that attracts or fails to attract talented personnel, provide essential services and can, if angered, impose restraints on the institution or industry (p. 393).

The onus is left to the company to determine their main objective of engaging in CSR. Some companies like Nike and Johnson and Johnson have been noted as engaging in CSR to regain their reputation after crises.


References
Cutlip, S.M. et al. (2000). Effective Public Relations (8th ed.), Prentice Hall
Hopkins, M. (2007). Corporate Social Responsibility and International Development: Is Business the Solution?