Ok… something hit me today as I was washing my car. Remember those Coke adds during the Olympics? Remember the one that said, “if you have bought coke in the past 10 years, you have helped support an olympic athlete”…? My brother, upon first seeing that commercial, relayed to me something about how great he felt for buying coke… knowing that he supported these olympians–many of them in the special olympics. His response was, I think, a pretty normal response; the marketing people who put that TV spot together were really reaching a personal nerve… connecting the purchase of the product to changing someone’s life… kudos to whoever thought that one up.
However, it got me thinking; is this really cool for Coka-Cola to be doing??? Basically, they donate some small percentage of their total profits to help a few mentally and physically challenged athletes and then try to use that fact as a marketing tool to sell a product. One could argue that Coke is using the special olympians as a tool for profit… playing the heart-strings of their audience to increase sales… in a cruel and calculating way.
I don’t really want to point fingers and assume some sort of moral depravity… but it does set off a few warning bells when I see this kind of corporate behavior.
SNAP! Exxon did the same thing with their malaria/mosquito-net story!
Is this ethical? Should corporations be in this business??? Using the plight of the less fortunate to try to increase brand loyalty???
What do you think?