Corporate Image or Corporate Responsibility

First of all, welcome to my new blog. I am going to attempt to post somewhat regularly here my musings on some grappling issues. Of course, if not obvious enough by the title, the first one will be about corporate image and corporate responsibility.

At school, I am taking a media studies program. For the most part, the faculty take a left leaning socialist view of the world. Most of my professors damn the man for all the nasty evil things he does like under pay his employees while overworking them, exporting jobs to the third world, and manipulating consumers to buy into their product. I won't discount anything that they're saying, because I do think a lot of that is true. I shamefully worked at Wal-Mart last summer and let me tell you, do they ever try in every way to assimilate you into Wal-Mart culture to the point where you'd worship the ground Sam Walton walked on. Fortunately enough for me, I could see through the bullshit, due in part to my own thoughts on the company and my program. That aside, the point is the man does not look out for the greater good of society, but will do whatever it takes to increase the bottom line each quarter.

Speaking of the bottom line, I was at a presentation featuring McDonald's president Louie Mele (oddly enough, the faculty of health sciences sponsored this presentation). He talked about McDonald's seeing its first loss a few years ago. To keep its lead in the fast food industry, Mele talked about how the company wasn't listening to its customers and the company wasn't with the times. In order to compensate, Mele said that the company introduced a contemporary new slogan, "I'm Lovin' It," salads, and other "healthy" food options. He said while the salads weren't hot items, he said the options needed to be there so that the health conscious people would still want to eat at Wal-Mart. Clearly, the bottom line is more important here than is the corporate responsibility. I'll touch on the corporate responsibility in a bit.

Contrary to his efforts to get more customers into his stores, in response to a question from the audience about childhood obesity, Mele said that its the customers who choose to go to McDonald's and that the kids do not go to his restaurants, but rather the parents take them there. I do give him credit there, until I'm reminded of his company's advertising campaigns. Happy Meals always come with toys, and to make sure you're children are loyal, tell them that they can collect 6 new Barbies or 6 new Hot Wheels cars, where only one is given away every week. The ad gets the kids wound up and the parent inevitably appeases the kids by heading to McDonald's once per week. Is it just me, or is that a form of telling the public to come to McDonald's regularly? I know Mele himself didn't advocate fast food every day, but the company ads certainly do. Therefore the bottom line is still important to McDonald's Canada.

Now onto corporate responsibility. Sure, McDonald's may do a lot of nasty things despite it's claims that its alright to eat in moderation (which I would agree with if I didn't feel like a sack of poop after having a meal there). With all the profits that McDonald's takes in every year, a large amount of it goes towards Ronald McDonald house. The house provides a place for families to stay while their children are receiving medical care of some form and couldn't get it in their community. Without this house, some of these families, possibly strapped for cash, may not be able to afford to go to the hospital with their children. If you think about other corporations, there are a bunch of services that wouldn't exist if it weren't for their generosity. This then begs the question, is it corporate image or corporate responsibility?

I would argue it is a bit of both. The company can't be seen to be doing all these bad things. However, does the company need to have their name plastered on whatever their sponsoring? That becomes advertising under the guise of charitable support. Giving money to charity is something that companies should just do without an advertising spectacle.

-Peter

p.s. I've got a free big mac coupon if you want it.