Filed under: Coca-Cola, Corporate Citizenship | Tags: Coca-Cola, Corporate Citizenship, Kraft, Nestle, Oil, Tobacco
The Conformist is a 1970′s Bertolucci movie set in 1930s Italy. It’s about an ordinary bloke who becomes a murdering fascist – incrementally, just by following his desire to fit in. He doesn’t really do anything – he just goes along with what’s going on.
I’ve been thinking of this recently, looking at how big corporates respond when their fundamental business is under attack. Of course, there’s a very murky history:
- The oil industry funded a network of fake citizens’ groups and bogus scientific bodies to discredit climate science. This did an enormous amount of damage by confusing the public debate. Greenpeace did a great investigative job of mapping the flow of dollars on the website ExxonSecrets.
- The tobacco industry fought a long and under-hand battle to prevent the banning of smoking in public places, funding a “grassroots” movement and then forming the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition – here’s an archive of the TASSC website.
- The infant formula industry, led by Nestle, are critcized by the likes of UNICEF and Save The Children. They seem to avoid the under-handed, and have set-up an industry body – the International Association of Baby Food Manufacturers, with a stated objective “to protect and promote the health of infants” – a statement that causes a chill to pass down the spine, rather like leaving an elderly aunt in the care of Dr. Harold Shipman.
I always try to imagine the individuals involved in these dubious endeavours – just like The Conformist, not especially bad people, but losing their grip on any moral realities, step by step. But is this changing? Maybe a new conformity is setting in: doing the right thing.
Yes this sounds niave, but consider the latest industry to come under attack: the processed, packaged food business, which stands accused of causing an obesity epidemic in the US. The bad press has reached a crescendo: Obesity Costs the US $270 Billion a Year (New York Post), Obesity: a National Security Threat? (CNN), Michelle Obama’s ‘Spotlight’ on Obesity (Business Week).
The response of the industry appears more positive – starting with the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, Founding with $20m by Kraft, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Hershey, Unilever and others. It has a big, bold goal: to Reduce Annual Calories By 1.5 Trillion By 2015. The members aim to deliver this through product development, and through a range of initiatives, such as campaigns in schools, in the workplace, funding research, and even large donations to National Parks (for outdoor activities, I assume).
Inevitably, people will still criticize companies like Kraft and Coca-Cola for making essentially unhealthy products – but the way they’re responding to criticism shows that something has changed. It seems as though the old corporate defense mechanisms have been set aside, in favour of a more collaborative, constructive response. Nobody wants to work for a brand that people deface, like this Coke Love poster. Optimistic maybe, but could it be that doing the right thing is the new corporate conformity?
Coke image from jhmostyn’s photostream
Thanks to Tom Neumark of the RSA for The Conformist recommendation – here.
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good classic reference! and with Jean-Louis Trintignant in the key role, one of our most fascinating actors. Interesting to note that at the end Marcello begins to think his old life was in a way “non-conformity”, and that he wants another life (but the old life catches him up if I remember well….)
Comment by jerome February 7, 2011 @ 4:25 pmPhilip Morris tried to diversify away from a product that had such a bad rep by buying Kraft. It’s ironic that companies like Kraft went on to be next in the firing line.
Comment by Ben February 14, 2011 @ 1:31 pm