Socially Responsible Advertising

I think that we as designers should have a certain amount of responsibility for the things we choose to create and put into the world. I was disappointed but not at all surprised when I was finished reading Socially Responsible Advertising. I never thought that these or other companies were exactly honest or that they were doing as much good as they often claim to do but I guess I did not think they were doing things quite as irresponsibly as they generally seem to be doing.

I do not think that there is anything wrong with cause marketing in-fact I think cause marketing could be a good thing, but only if the company is representing the cause accurately. I have no problem with a company using a cause to increase their profit and popularity if they are really doing what they say they are doing with the money.
I do have a problem though when a company does not practice what they preach. An example of this is the way Reebok has been portraying themselves, they claim to be a promoter of human rights in the Third World but they are in-fact taking advantage of the same people they claim to be helping. Reebok’s overseas factories have terrible working conditions and they use child labor. When a company like Reebok wants to portray themselves as doing so much good I believe that they should be held accountable for the way they operate their own factories. It seems obvious to me that Rebook is using this “cause” marketing to gain more sales and that they don’t really care about their cause if they did the first place they would have started would have been in their own company.

Another problem with cause marketing is that many huge companies only donate a very small part of their profits to the cause they are advocating. Or they put a cap on the amount of money they will give to the cause and when they reach this cap they don’t tell the public and they will continue to promote themselves as though they are still donating.

I think there needs to be some way of monitoring and holding companies accountable to the public and the causes they represent. If cause marketing is done right it could be a very good thing and could make a huge difference in the world. But it seems to me that to often cause marketing is not really doing very much good except to make the brand more popular and could be damaging the cause more then they are helping.