Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is ideally a means for businesses to make corporate decisions with the public interest in mind. CSR campaigns allow companies to maintain ethical standards by accepting responsibility for their actions and their impact on communities, employees, and the environment. The Coca-Cola Company uses the Live Positively campaign as a way to make a positive difference. According to their website, Live Positively is a “commitment to make a positive difference in the world by redesigning the way we work and live so sustainability is part of everything we do” (www.thecoca-colacompany.com).

As part of their social responsibility efforts, Coca-Cola sponsors programs and charities to help communities around the world with things like education, climate protection, and recycling. Operations Grass Roots is a project where each bottling facility is required to get involved with their local civic organizations, business leaders and politicians. Programs working specifically with education include My Coke Rewards which helps purchase playground equipment and art supplies for schools and Teach for America which recruits teachers for low-income schools. Each year the company also provides more than 1,400 college students with scholarships to two and four year universities.

In terms of climate protection, the company says their goal is to “to grow the business, not the carbon in our manufacturing operations” (www.thecoca-colacompany.com). They strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by improving the efficiency of coolers and vending machines and improve productivity in bottling plants to reduce manufacturing emissions. They also use fuel-efficient transportation for delivery. By the end of 2009, more than 300 diesel-electric hybrids trucks had been created. Currently, Coca-Cola has over 200,000 vehicles used to deliver their products around the world, and they are working to optimize delivery routes and create lightweight packing to cut down on pollution. The company estimates a 40 to 50 percent improvement in energy efficiency by the end of 2010 and a five percent reduction in carbon emissions in developed countries by 2015 (livepositively.com).

In terms of recycling, the company offers things like RecycleBank, where participants earn redeemable RecycleBank Points for rewards from Coca-Cola and hundreds of other participating businesses based on the weight of their recyclables. The Coca-Cola/NRC Recycling Bin Grant Program donates recycling bins to kick-start recycling programs for local organizations. The company is also working with Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Japan to establish community organizations that promote recycling and litter reduction.

Since 1.3 billion people around the world lack access to safe drinking water and an estimated one-third of the population is expected to face water shortages by 2025, Coca-Cola is committed to protect and preserve water resources (Laitinen). The company plans to preserve resources by using water more efficiently and ensuring that every gallon of water used will make a gallon of product. Their goal is to improve water efficiency by 20 percent by 2012 (www.thecoca-colacompany.com). The company has begun 120 community water projects in over 50 countries “working on a wide range of local initiatives, such as watershed protection, expanding community drinking water access, rain water harvesting, reforestation and agricultural water use efficiency” (livepositively.com).

Coca-Cola got its start in the late 1800’s as a patent medicine and has evolved into one of the world’s most popular and well known beverages; it is sold in over 200 countries. Their marketing and PR tactics have created a brand known worldwide, and the company is constantly recognized for its achievements and initiatives. In March of this year, the company was named one of Fortune’s most admired companies. In February, the company joined world efforts to help Haiti in the aftermath of natural disaster, just after making Newsweek’s “Green Rankings.” There is no doubt that this organization has in many ways made positive strides toward a better tomorrow for our world, but like many other corporations, there have also been harmful occurrences, though positive CSR publicity often keep them out of the spotlight.

The idea of CSR is to inspire community involvement and improvement, yet some people view CSR and even corporations as a whole in a negative light. Milton Friedman and others have argued that a corporation's purpose is to maximize returns to its shareholders not society as a whole, and that only people, not organizations can have social responsibilities (Friedman). Even though Coke seems to have numerous efforts towards making the world a better place, several flaws in their CSR programs have occurred. In response to eight employees of Coke bottlers in Colombia being killed in 2006 and others threatened and jailed on terrorism charges, Ray Rogers at Rutgers University launched Killercoke.com and urged universities nationwide to stop selling the product on their campuses. He claimed "The reality is that the world of Coca-Cola is a world of lies, deceptions, corruption, gross human rights and environmental abuses," while a coke spokesperson claimed he "has no facts to support his claims" (Businessweek.com). In March of 2010, Coca-Cola’s Indian subsidiary was fined $47 million for damage to the water and soil in a southern Indian village which occurred when the company discharged a sludge that contained toxic chemicals like cadmium and lead (nytimes.com).

The important thing that we as consumers and public relations professionals need to realize is that we must dig deeper into what’s really going on in a company and not just trust the positive information displayed on the company website. Coca-Cola operates in more than 200 countries, so it is essential to look not only at the positive things it does within our specific community, but also find out about negative aspects elsewhere and make sure our society knows about them in order to make educated purchasing decisions. The company prides itself on helping to “create sustainable communities by finding solutions to local needs, building capabilities and improving quality of life through programs, partners and people;” which is certainly an admirable goal, but it is society’s job to hold them accountable (www.thecoca-colacompany.com).

Promoting HealthyMilledgeville

Today my PR group set up a table at Kroger from 2 to 4 p.m. to promote our Facebook page HealthyMilledgeville. We handed out low-fat brownies along with the recipe and gave out a list of healthy options when eating at local restaurants.

A few months ago, we read articles from the Wall Street Journal and CNN which discussed how social networking can help health care. We teamed with Digital Bridges, a local program dedicated to bettering our community through the use of technology. We decided to create a Facebook group where people could go online and share recipes and fitness tips, and before our promotional event today we already had 506 fans of the page.

At our event, we asked people if they had heard of HealthyMillegeville and then told them about it and encouraged them to become a fan of the page and share the information with their friends. Not everyone answered our survey (some just took the info and brownies), but of those surveyed 15 knew about HealthyMilledgeville and 41 did not. When asked about what aspect health they were most concerned with, most people said nutrition and health were most important. We handed out about 80 brownies and got a great response from the shoppers going in and out of Kroger. Two women who stopped by work at local doctor's offices and said they would put the word out in their offices, and one man who works with Healthy Baldwin invited us to work at a health fair he is hosting on May 1. Overall, our event was very successful, and I look forward to seeing how many more fans the facebook page gets after our promotions.

I'm on island time

Since last Sunday I have been working as a member of the Junior Staff at Sea Island. After a relaxing 5 day spring break in Daytona, I jumped into Camp Cloister, a day camp with 50 kids under the age of 9. This job constantly puts my hospitality and childcare skills to the test, but is one of the best experiences I have had. On my first day, four-year-old twin boys who look and act exactly like Disney channel's Zack and Cody walked in with the collars popped on their pastel Lacoste polos. Each grabbed one of my hands and one said "Hey babe who's your favorite super hero" (thankfully we both like Batman and a bond was instantly formed). The rest of my day was spent doing tye dye and playing duck duck goose on the beach. Each day, each second for that matter has been different. Sometimes the kids love the activities we have planned for them, and other times we have to come up with things spur of the moment with 13 screaming six-year-olds waiting impatiently...event planning improvising at its finest :) Sometimes I work at the movie theater, sometimes I am a camp counselor, sometimes I make flyers or posters for upcoming events, and sometimes I dress up like a princess, wear a tiara, and drink pink lemonade. I think this is what it means to be in PR...just taking things as they come, being prepared for anything, and staying flexible yet in control of the situation. My first few days here have been all about that, and its been a whirlwind to say the least. I have met families from all over the U.S. and even the world and built some amazing relationships with the children and families so far this week, and I can't wait to make more great memories this summer.

BrAiNStOrM!?!?!

Last Friday, I spent the day at Manning Salvage and Lee in Atlanta, learning more about the real PR world and shadowing GCSU's PRSSA professional adviser Carlos Campos. I had a great day networking with people at MS&L, learning about their particular clients and experience and getting valuable advice about internships and much more, but one of the highlights of the day was an offsite "field trip" in the afternoon. We met Professor Larry Stultz of the Atlanta Art Institute, who is known for his creative brainstorming techniques, in order to get some fresh new ideas for the MS&L crew. Mr. Stultz had some amazing ideas. He said that with creativity, the sky is the limit and everyone must be involved and engaged in every step. He said that when brainstorming, the group should have toys, music, pictures, and NO smart phones.

First, he mentioned assumption smashing, where you ask questions like what can we add, what can we take away, can we make it bigger or smaller, or can we change the color or style? Then he talked about mind mapping, where you write the key word in the middle and let people write things around it, drawing lines and connecting other questions, phrases and ideas. He then talked about the six thinking hats of Debono (blue is the leader, white is positive, black is negative, green is creative, yellow is optimistic, and red is emotional) where group members put on different theoretical hats to look at the situation from different points of view. My favorite was “Out of the Blue” where everyone makes a paper airplane and writes one word on it. Then everyone flies their own plane, picks up a new one, reads the word on it, and then writes the first word that comes to their mind related to what they just read. All of this is done with loud music and lots of energy.

What I liked most about all of these ideas was the simple fact that they encourage outside of the box thinking, which I think people don't do nearly enough. In a world where we have information at our fingertips, I think people loose the ability to think critically, or creatively for that matter. If things as simple as toys, music and simple group activities can boost brain power, .why are we not incorporating more of these things into the classroom or workplace, and what could happen if we did??

Think Outside the Box

I recently read an article called Great Minds Don't think alike by Ray Silverstein. In it, Mr. Silverstein talks about how it is easy to hire people who think like you...everyone agrees and there are no conflicts. But really, this type of thinking is detrimental to growth and innovation. Silverstein says that in the workplace, collaboration is must. He says that to do this, we can encourage and reward new ideas, take action against negativity, let others be in charge, and bring in people from diverse backgrounds.

This article made me think about how things in the past have been negatively impacted because everyone just went along with the group, and agreed blindly to whatever the status quo proposed...groupthink. In fact, I can't think of any event in history where groupthink was a positive thing. I think of how a few girls fueled the crazy witch hunts in Salem in 1692 that ended in the lynching of innocent people and how thousands of people were senselessly killed in the Holocaust, blindly following orders to torture other human beings. I think of how engineers have failed with the crash of the Challenger shuttle and the sinking of the Titanic. Did one person not think differently, ask why, or propose better ideas for construction? Or how about with things like cults or the Pregnancy Pact (where a group of teenage girls agreed to all have babies together before even graduating high school). How do people rationalize killing themselves in the name of religion or throwing away their future at the thought of "playing mommy."

Groupthink, occurs when people don't want to shake things up, when they attempt to minimize conflict by not voicing or evaluating new ideas. Everything runs smoothly when we are in agreement, but is that always a good thing? History certainly says no.

So, my advice for the day:

BREAK OUT OF YOUR BOX!!

Senior Seminar Research....AHHH!!

So I am in the process of completing my first (and final) big research project. For my mass communication senior seminar class, we are required to do a group and personal paper on a research topic of our choice. A few weeks ago, we all submitted research proposals...mine was an idea to look at TV shows from the 1950's , 60's 70's 80's and 90's and compare them with the popular shows of today. Our society has gone from I Love Lucy where a married couple was shown sleeping in separate beds, to shows like Teen Mom, where we highlight the lives of unwed teenage mothers. After breaking up into groups, however, my team decided to look at alcohol advertising deciphering how beer, wine, liquor, and anti-alcohol campaigns all use different methods to hook their target audience.

Previous research has shown that beer ads as a whole appeal more to men, and often involve humor and women depicted as sexual objects. Wine ads have two main target audiences, ages 21-29 and 30-45. Their ads use specific jargon, leading viewers to believe knowledge is required in order for the consumer to appreciate wine as an experience. Liquor ads use lifestyle branding, grabbing their target audience by showing a desirable lifestyle of luxury or leisure.

So what next? we are going to look at the top ten brands of beer, wine and liquor and view five commercials and then compare these with anti-alcohol ads. At the end of the semester, we are going to turn in a 15 page paper on our findings and hopefully present at the student research conference at GCSU on April 16. Wish us luck!

Smile...You're in PR :)

For my small group communication class this semester, we were required to do research on a particular area of nonverbal communications, so I chose smiling. My researched showed that smiling, no doubt has a positive effect on human communication. The studies discussed in the articles I read proved that people are more responsive to other people when they are approached with a smile. In communication, public relations especially, a simple smile may be the key opening the doorway to gaining trust and building positive relationships.

Here are a few interesting things I found:

1. In Top 10 Reasons to Smile, Dr. Mark Stibich tells us that smiling can improve our attractiveness, health, and stress level. He notes that smiling can trick the body into changing the mood, and can even reduce stress and boost the immune system. It can lower blood pressure, release endorphins, as well as make one look younger and seem successful. Smiling is contagious; it helps one stay positive.
2. A Slow Smile Attracts found that a longer smile was seen as more authentic, flirtatious, and trustworthy and less dominant. Head tilting increased attractiveness and trustworthiness, but only when the head was tilted to the right. Smiling was associated with attractiveness in females and dominance in males, and in general, female smiles were found to be less genuine than those from males, though women seemed to be better at detecting the difference in short and long onset smiles.

3. Four graduate students in Amsterdam stopped people in the city square and asked them to help with a survey; when the experimenters approached participants with a smile, they were much more likely to get a positive response. They found that smiling participants were more willing to help and that smiles from the experimenter increased the helpfulness of the participants. Interestingly, it was also found that women smiled more than men, but a smile from a male experimenter was more likely to elicit helpfulness than a smile from a female experimenter.

4. A 2003 BBC news article showed a sonogram picture of a baby that appeared to be smiling, even though typically babies do not smile until about six weeks after birth. Dr. David Chamberlin says that infants instinctively respond to smiles. In his studies of brain activity in early infants, he found that smile centers in the brain become active early on in prenatal development.
5. Dr. Norman Cousins claimed to have cured his cancer by watching funny movies, stating that the body has its own biochemical responses to laughter and that even a fake smile can bring happiness by activating pleasure centers in the brain. Also, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Hughes tells of how he and his troops used smiles rather than weapons when dealing with a hostile situation in Iraq.

So, PR professionals, get out there and show off those pearly whites!! :)