简体中文
Русский
Polski
Free Essays - Marketing Essays
Brands in response to social and environmental issues
Brands rightly or wrongly can have a deep impact on their audiences’ lives. The creation of socially responsible branding has become highly fashionable in the last fifteen years, spurred by environmental concerns and partly due to the cultural impact of ageing baby boomers. Social and environmental issues have a huge influence on the perception of companies reputation, and consequently affects the outcome of a company’s success, their brand values, and purchasing decision. Today almost one third of participants in a ‘You Gov’ survey said they had decided not to buy an item of clothing because were unsure of its type of manufacturing practises and about where it had come from for example an environmentally friendly brand such as The Body Shop use ubiquity, visibility and function, in an attempt by affluent individuals to ‘shop for a better world’, the title of a popular ‘green’ consumer buying guide so in a conscious world full of big name retailers, feel they have made the ‘right’ choice by not making the ‘wrong’ one. However is the title ‘responsible business’ little more than a synonym for ‘cause-related marketing’?. This question has been controversial for many years as large organisations appear to present themselves in a misleading way. Are companys merely manipulating consumers by trading on idealism? And do multinationals increasingly use principles of being socially aware to give the idea of development and cultural sophistication? Do companies spend more time bragging about their environmentally friendly practices than in fact practising them? According to Joan Bavaria, president of the Franklin Research and Development social investment firm, the business world can no longer be divided strictly into ‘bad guys’ and ‘good guys’, “we are entering a new era in the world of socially responsible managing and investing”, a “world of complex systems and internal contradictions”. This essay will attempt to review how the socially and environmentally ‘responsible’ image is communicated to the public through advertising and branding, and will also consider whether companies that do carry out the actions they promote or whether there are ulterior motives for their endorsement of worthy moral causes. It will also show how manufacturers tackle different subjects such as death and sex, and how brands and photographers alike, constantly surpass the border lines of advertising, that until now had been limited to information and art.
A brands trait is how it communicates the brand proposition to the target audience it that it doesn’t refer to the personality of the consumer but refers to the personality that attracts the right people, such as the Body Shop whose large profits come partly because of their ethical principles.
Corporate branding originally came from capitalism, which leads to commercialisation, this became apparent post World War 2 period, when the influence and consumption of media began to develop. Branding was defined in the 19th century after the industrial revolution, and it became increasingly important for manufacturers to create identifiable names and symbols to make their products stand out from their competitors.
When economy began to recover in the early 90’s after the recession, corporations pushed the promotion of their products, which lead to a percentage share of the industry via aggressive marketing, although the economy was on the increase, consumer spending was outgrowing the economy due to this use of forceful marketing, so much so that advertisement costs reached $125 billion in 1991 and increased to $150 billion by 1994, therefore making branding inevitable for making products stick within the minds of consumers.
Consumers brands and brand values are a way to make the product part of their own personality, identifying themselves with the products attributes like attitude, so that often the main reason a consumer will choose one item over another is the perceived values of the brand behind the product, living in what anthropologist John Sherry refers to as ‘brandscapes’. With brands and branding playing a vital role in our everyday existence the pervasiveness of a brand allows it to become undistinguished and therefore the extreme nature of it’s existence means their nature and function is rarely questioned. Social and environmental consumerism has captured the minds of many global brands offering the general public a chance to be part of an immediate democratic.
In 1994 around the time of the introduction of this change of branding in society a MORI survey showed that 45% had bought products in recycled packaging, 52% had purchased products made from recycled materials, and 42% said they had chosen to consume one product over another because of it’s environmentally friendly packaging, advertising or formulation, emphasising the importance of environmentally responsible branding not only to the consumer, but to the brands in order to conform to this lifestyle.
BP – Revolutionising the brand
The last twenty years has seen major mergers and takeovers linked to the oil industry, resulting in changes like, Exxon (Esso) and Mobil becoming Exxon Mobil, BP and Total joined forces but remained trading under the BP name, as well as Chevron and Texaco merging and trading under the Texaco name.
Most of these mergers and takeovers of these dominant companies in the industry changed with only minor modifications, which resulted in the continued trading of a very similar style. However later in 1999, the BP brand reformed later that year with a completely new style and image enabling the brand to conform to society in a world where social responsibility was now highly regarded, this change modified the appearance of BP and presented the company in a whole new ‘light’.
The familiar shield stayed with the company for 80 years until this major transformation which was in effect a complete brand reformation including the replacement of the shield logo represented in figure 1, as this was an iconic feature the new logo design, which was created by design agency. Ogilvy and Mather had to represent the companies ethos it was imperative that the change represented the companies new purpose as a ‘global energy group’ and had to typify the attributes it wanted to hold, those being environmental, performance, leadership, innovation, and progressive thinking, which spurred the idea of a twist to the brand to rename itself as a corporation that now looks ‘Beyond Petroleum’.
This change, which according to Sir John Browne “ saw the opportunity to represent the company in a compelling, modern way as part of a good business in a fast changing world”. The new logo saw the introduction of the Helios (after the ancient sun god of Greece) a green, yellow and white sunburst, which represents ‘dynamic energy’, despite this change BP decided to maintain strong colour associations with the previous BP identity, this may have been due to the fact that BP’s success as a brand before the brand reformation was still extremely strong, and BP even before were recognised as a major leader in the oil industry.
Internally the result of the rebranding proved to be very effective, with 90% of BP’s team agreeing that the BP transformation was positive, overall they recorded a 40% increase in profits throughout the whole of BP Plc and an external increase in shares of around 40% between 1998 and 2000, displaying BP’s acceptance and dedication to provoke change for the better as a positive in the minds of consumers.
The focus of BP’s advertising campaigns is on, Bio fuels, alternative energy, and carbon footprints, their ‘Biofuel’ and ‘Alternative energy’ advertising campaigns focus on their apparent commitment to future development of these fuels, and their ongoing tasks, and future plans to contribute towards a sustainable future, and provides information about their partnership working with Dupont University in developing fuels that will lower overall production of greenhouse gases.
In 2007 BP released a press statement, which displayed an example of their ongoing commitment to a sustainable future, announcing their commitment to spend “$500 million over the next ten years to establish a dedicated biosciences energy research laboratory attached to a major academic centre in the US or UK, the first facility of its kind in the world”.
It was BP engineer John Rodgerson’ task to commence research with “several universities both in the UK and US to identify which could host the BP Energy Biosciences Institute”, with the ultimate aim of improving the proficiency of existing transportation fuels.
As part of their new image BP also embarked on the ‘Jatropha project’, this was about “BP’s investment into non-food crops, conversion processes that deliver greatly enhanced bio fuel performance and represent the next significant opportunity to meet the growth in demand for environmentally responsible, renewable transportation fuels”. This project aided the introduction of the Jatropha Curcas seed, which is a raw material used in the industrial manufacture of sustainable fuels. The Jatropha seed holds many benefits over similar forms of oil, including the ability to grow at a faster rate than soy or rape, as well as it’s ability to adapt to many different climates, the Jatropha Curcas seed from which the seed grows can be grown in different tropical and subtropical areas as well as is adaptive nature to many different types of land, including waste land, which will also never effect the production of arable crops, and can be used to make BP’s environmentally ‘Biodiesel’ using a sustainable style of production, other benefits of Jatropha are the production of oil seeds which are not fit for human consumption, placing no risk on food shortage.
BP claim that the “project will seek to cultivate 8,000 hectares of jatropha (equivalent to 20m saplings) and will install all the necessary equipment to process the crop into biodiesel”, and “will invest close to US$90 million of a total, JV investment of US$160 million over the next five years”. BP will aim to farm Jatropha on around 1 million hectares in all over Africa, Asia, and America.
Alongside the re-branding of BP was the introduction in 2003 of the BP Ultimate brand, with the promise that the new innovation of fuels would result in ‘better engine performance’, whilst cutting emissions of carbon monoxide, particulates and nitrogen oxide as well as improving fuel efficiency. Surveys undertaken by BP marketing showed that BP Ultimate fuels are used by people all over the world “who want to get the most out of their car and do their bit for the environment”.
The print and TV based advertising claims that the fuel provides an extra 28 miles per tank and lower environmental damage, appealing to the consumer almost instantly, and recorded a revenue increase of 68.5 million and which exceeded targets by 50% according to figures recorded by Landor Associates agency.
Ultimate was originally introduced as a competitor to the Shell Optimax brand, but BP captured a niche in the market, with a fuel specifically created to be environmentally friendly and performance enhancing.
Oil companies are clearly recognised as being the most justifiable sectors of the business world in terms of being expressive about responsibility as their core business creates environmental damage and deviation to mention a few. However some oil companies argue that “people want oil”, trying to keep their damage to a minimum, to project the message that oil that oil is in demand and these companies are in control.
Another part of BP maintaining it’s green image is their acquisition of existing producers of solar energy, according to John Rodgerson who is in fuel development at BP, “they now own 17% of the global energy market”.
However although the company was rebranded as a global energy group, with the £100 million brand change Greenpeace highlighted the issue that in 2003, BP Spent more on their new logo this year than they did on renewable energy the previous year.
Others were still sceptical of this brand reformation, such as Interbrands Brandchannel claiming that the “world’s second largest petroleum company tries to hide from it’s main product”, BP also admits that it extracts 570,000 m tonnes of CO2 a year, this according to the Guardian is the same as the UK emits a year.
The Guardian also state that “BP’s rebranding has been so effective that you could be forgiven for believing that it had become an environmental pressure group”, and even BP admit that “their profits from petrol are basically non existent”, In 2000 Petrochina offered BP a 20% buy in, “BP bought about 20% of the $3.1 billion stocks” of a company accused of profiting from human rights violations in Tibet due to the building of a major gas pipeline, which has enabled China to benefit from Tibet’s mineral wealth.
“The directors of BP cannot pretend to be ignorant of the genocide that their Chinese business partners and the Chinese government are engaged in both in Tibet and Sudan “, as the problem remains that BP still maintain a the percentage of their profits in the unsustainable oil business. In BP’s case investment in solar energy “is still less than 1%”.
The companies’ claim to change their policies and branding does not appear to be accepted by many. BP is now the largest retailer of Gasoline in the USA market as well as AMOCO in the East and ARCO in the West, In 2006 BP expanded their oil exploration by moving into the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve along side their other project being the Prudhoe Bay exploration only 130km west of the Reserve, and has been responsible for 104 oil spills in the region within a year of exploration in Prudhoe Bay and affected wildlife all over Alaska, more recently in 2006 BP faced criminal charges for allowing 270,000 gallons of crude oil to spill across Alaska, in “one of the worlds most sensitive habitats”.
Honda - Environmentology
Honda cars were founded in 1948 by Soichiro Honda in Japan, and in 2005 showed their ongoing commitment to the environment by developing their products under their Environmentology brand. It was promoted as a guarantee to consumers, claiming that their products were ethically more compliant with “results including world changing advances in fuel economy, low emissions and alternative energy sources for the future”.
Brand public awareness of the Honda brand was highlighted with the production of the original Honda Civic, a car that proved to be far more ethically compliant than it’s rivals, it incorporated the first engine to meet the 1970 US Clean Air Act, which set a benchmark for environmentally responsible motoring, continuing today with the most recent Civic Hybrid winning the 2006 green car award.
The Honda website provides consumers with, an abundance of information regarding the energy efficiency savings made when purchasing the latest Civic Hybrid. Honda claims that a driver of the new Hybrid will save up to 30% on fuel as well as, exemption from congestion charge and benefiting from a reduction on road tax as the car runs on a combination of petrol and battery.
Their advertising agency Wieder and Kennedy produced their latest campaigns and were hired after Honda was underperforming in car sales in the UK market.
Honda past sales figures
Wieder and Kennedy, their advertising agency announced that “one of the most striking reasons for their underperformance was their recessive image. They were seen as dull but reliable”.
The development of the new image by Wieder and Kennedy bought around an increase in sales for Honda, with a global “increase of 11%” in 2006.
The recent hate something, change something advertising and promotion for Honda’s first ever diesel, highlighted the issues of how unethical the diesel engine is, or was. Weider and Kennedy’s idea behind the campaign was to change the outlook of hate and create something positive, changing the key the fundamentals that create negatives about diesel engine, making it quieter, more powerful, and cleaner. With the introduction of the Euro 1 standards in the early 90’s, enforcing tighter emissions regulations, the Diesel became economically more viable.
The initial idea of the campaign was mainly due to Honda’s chief engineer Kenichi Nagahuiro having a dislike for the Diesel engine and research by Honda which discovered that more than 50% of new car sales in Europe are Diesels, Honda’s introduction of a Diesel with a high pressure fuel injection system, combined with a newly developed emission treatment system, is “one of the most clean, refined diesel engines on the market today”, which again added to the increase in sales by Honda.
Honda’s feedback from critics e.g. What Car, Top Gear and many more was very positive, when analysing sustainability and power.
In the 2007 Formula 1 season Honda re-branded their Formula team, and decided to change the standard exposure in Formula 1 in a straight return for sponsorship revenue in order to produce a positive message in association with the sport, the Honda F1 Racing Team made a dramatic change to motor sport by replacing all of their sponsors with a more ethical style of branding, which has allowed Honda to be able to use it as a suggestive style of marketing by replacing the advertising and corporate sponsorship on the Formula 1 cars, with an image of the earth as an attempt to “raise awareness of environmental issues facing the planet”, in an attempt to change normality for the better in terms of publicity in the media, while drawing attention to one of the key concerns in a global sense, being climate change and displaying Honda’s ongoing commitment to environmental responsibility.
The new formula 1 car and its image was simplified, using no corporate colours to associate the car with the Honda brand, no advertising and no logos apart from the map of the names of people that have pledged to change something in their lifestyle, which will consequently lead to their contribution to preserving the environment.
This was a more ethically compliant stance for Honda compared to their previous F1 cars, sponsored by the likes of Lucky Strike the cigarette manufacturers making Honda “the most commercially exploitive user of F1 as a sponsorship”, taking account of the fact 2.5 billion people view the sport annually.
The change to their style of branding bought about many positives for Honda including the positive response from the environmental group European for Transports and Environment, and whether or not this was Honda’s original intention is an unanswered question, but they are still promoting a social message, although this will constantly be under scrutiny by environmentalists and critics alike, it will at least allow some increased awareness of environmental issues, despite this the idea was still greeted with an element of scepticism by environmental group European for Transports and Environment as Honda were “far from reaching it’s EU efficiency target from new cars sold”. Honda is the largest car manufacturer in the world like all Motor manufacturer Honda have government emission targets set for them, it is reported “that Honda is highly unlikely to be able to meet European targets by 2008/09 as they have been challenged to do”.
"Vehicle emissions are the single most rapidly growing source of the carbon emissions contributing to global warming, yet the federal government and automakers have refused to act”, according to state Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
The enquirer an online forum concluded that “there is a slight difference between an electric car powered by the energy created by thinking nice thoughts about fluffy kittens and a 200mph racing car that’s hard pressed to do more than three miles to the gallon”, “Come off it Honda if you’re serious about going green, you don’t run a bloody F1 team”. Although this can be observed as hypocritical because “Honda has a 13% market share for passenger cars in the United States a country where the average gas mileage for new vehicles sold has moved from 23.1 miles per gallon in 1980 to 24.7 in 2004 - a paltry increase of slightly less than 7% over the 25 year period”.
Dove
Dove is a company discovered by Unilever in 1957 and originated as a beauty soap bar currently possessing over 25% of the market. Unilever believe their “success is due to their agility, innovation and focus”, that they have spent refining the brand this is quite evident through the Dove advertisements, considering that for over 40 years, they have been displaying what Unilever describe as ‘real women’ in their advertising campaigns, they are describing their vision of an ‘everyday person’ without the glamour and no ‘re-touching’ to remove reality and create a false impression.
In the late 90’s Unilever made a decision to re-brand the Dove Products, using major design consultancy Ogilvy and Mather, which was described as “a clever piece of branding by Interbrands Brandchannel”, boosting the brands sales by 700 %.
Ogilvy and Mather carried out a series of market research surveys and found that an overall consensus showed that although “consumers respected and trusted the brand, emotional bonding with the brand was weak”, this initiated the idea for Ogilvy of creating the ‘campaign for real beauty’ which became a uniform promotion for any Dove product, in all forms of media advertising. ‘The campaign for real beauty’ was designed at a time when beauty was almost imperative because of the great deal of pressure being placed on women in the western world to conform to society. Dove were seen as a company that passed this level in society, looking to diminish peoples current and maybe false perceptions of beauty and “enabling you to celebrate your beauty”, rebuilding women’s self esteem this has re-branded Dove as a ‘niche’ in it’s market and according to Ogilvy and Mather, this re-branding has formed Dove as “an iconic brand like Nike or Apple”.
The advertisements display everyday women feeling happy with themselves even though they do not depict a ‘body beautiful’ woman, the women appear more than satisfied with the idealism of normality.
The print advertisements include quotes in relation to the image like “tested on real curves”, and “fat or fab?”, enabling women to feel at one with themselves and feeling confident with their body.
The website www.campaignforrealbeauty.com, promotes Doves ‘self esteem fund’, facts about depression with women who are not satisfied an area of the site which looks deeper into helping younger girls develop and reach their full potential without the drawback of lacking confidence, it uses photographs by Anne Lebowitz a notable woman photographer who has gained world wide acclaim through her clever photographic collaborations with the photographer and the subject, all in an attempt to change “the status quo and offer in it’s place a broader, healthier and more democratic view of beauty”.
The self-esteem fund also provides women with an educational series called ‘body talk’, a body workshop guide, with factual information and imagery in an attempt to boost ones self-esteem.
According to Dove the workshop has been created because “today there is more pressure than ever on young girls and boys to look physically perfect”.
A UK teen body survey reported that “Despite the fact that only 19 per cent of teenage girls are actually overweight, a staggering 67 per cent feel they need to lose at least half a stone”, so the Self Esteem leaflet provides viewers with shocking facts in order to bring these issues to light.
Throughout the leaflet activity sheets are provided in order to build the confidence of the younger generation displaying imagery of celebrities airbrushed with unrealistic body shapes and showing teenagers how this has been achieved so they can appreciate the false reality of the situation.
However like many idea’s and advertising campaigns Unilever have been criticised for using this approach to market their products, for example in their 2005 campaigns, one of the posters show a headshot of a 96 year old lady, using the slogan ‘Wrinkled? Or Wonderful?’, implying increasing age contributes to increasing beauty.
The first advertising campaign, shows six women in underwear. To the viewer this is an unusual image displaying ordinary women to promote the product, masking the fact that this campaign is promoting Dove firming lotion. The Guardian newspaper argues publically that, “If the women shown were that happy with their bodies they wouldn't need a skin-firming lotion”.
A similar issue becomes apparent with the advertising of the products relating to younger age groups and the ‘body talk’, questions were asked in relation to this by critics, about promoting beauty products to girls as young as eight. The guardian commented that “if girls as young as eight are concerned about their appearance, they are also ideal targets as the new generation of beauty product consumers”.
Unilever like many of the multinationals appear to face much criticism for their supposed unethical practices relating to animal testing, pollution and promoting consumerism, in addition to this Unilever, clearly spends a lot of money on marketing and currently has the highest rate of expenditure for marketing in the UK. Unilevers marketing of consumer products all over the world is due to their global product base and the more developed areas being established in terms of product choice, so Unilever are apparently looking “at maximising the production process, which means adding value to ‘improve’ products and then charge more for these products”, exploiting poorer regions of the world (e.g. The Southern Hemisphere), due to the potential development in these countries. According to corporate watch “If the income of the poor rises, there is a big change they will spend the money on food products. Unilever is in a unique position to exploit this”. They prioritised their market share in the South, in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia. Products ‘from the west’ are often very popular in the Southern Hemisphere due to the association of a more luxurious lifestyle, and according to corporate watch “If people in the South start consuming the same amount of products and services as people in the North, the natural environment will definitely not survive”, due to the ecological costs involved.
“Unilever and other multinationals are main actors being responsible for the ongoing trend in the opposite direction!”.
As recognised earlier, Unilever posess large marketing budgets areas that Unilever along with other multinationals control in the way of production allowing for domination in poorer regions of the world, areas like Hungary where currently external debt has increased from 24.5 bn € in 1995 to 66.3 bn € in 2005 and is also very high in relation to the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) being about 75%.
According to corporatewatch.org Unilever and Procter and Gamble being the most dominant forces in central and eastern Europe and “ have basically divided the CEE market for personal care products between them, shutting down national companies in the process”, due to the incapability of competing with large corporations as they are unable to benefit from access to cheaper labour, the latest technology, and greater and more effective advertising.
In 2001 Unilever’s Asian brand Hindustan lever were also criticised for their participation in the dumping of toxic waste mercury thermometers for export, mainly to the United States a country with a high percentage of wealth and sufficient space and money to carry out safe production of hazardous chemicals, in to a site with many residents within close proximity, however Hindustan Lever claim that “its policy is to exercise the same concern for the environment wherever it operates", " No hazardous wastes have left the factory site". However corporatewatch.org reported that there was never any protection offered in the factory from the mercury spills and several workers have complained of health problems which, they allege, is caused by their exposure to mercury in the workplace, highly poisonous material and exposure to even the small amount through air, water or skin, exerts severe effects on the body.
Benetton S.P.A
Benetton clothing is the global clothing brand founded by Luciano Benetton in 1965 and since the early 70’s Benetton have worked with the Eldorado advertising agency. A corporate decision was made to promote Benetton, without using a fast moving consumer good technique, to do this a photographer by the name of Oliviero Toscani who worked for Eldorado was allocated to work on the Benetton advertising campaigns.
From the beginning Toscani was given enough scope by Luciano Benetton to choose his desired path when promoting Benetton, he initially implemented a ‘multi-racial’, theme discarding the use of clothing from their campaigns to capture the sincerity of and racial harmony of the issue, at a stage when imagery and social issues surrounding this type of subject matter were still sensitive, showing Benetton’s social awareness and understanding of issues, and aided the coming together of nations using ethnicity as a moral path for Benetton to follow when representing the companies ethos, “By definition, Benetton means colours, so to convey this idea of colour we showed a group of people made up of different coloured skin”, this idea carried for many years and additions were made to show diversity within the company.
Benetton’s success with the ‘multi racial theme’, displayed a key marketing strategy, building the Benetton brand with global consideration by understanding and stressing local difference and designing a deliberately multicultural identity and emphasising the global nature of their business.
However in the early 90’s their advertising although extremely controversial, took on a whole new meaning, with Toscani’s use of ‘reality advertising’.
Toscani used print based media in the form of photography that depicted the harsh reality of humanity in raw and brutal communications. The posters advertised scenes including AIDS sufferers, the bloodied clothes of a soldier killed in the war in Bosnia and a nun and a priest kissing.
These overtly political images caused major controversy among viewers to the point where Toscani triggered furious debates over much of his work for the clothing line, his work of a priest and a nun kissing, caused major controversy within the catholic church, as well as major catholic organisations including the catholic league for religious and civil rights, they said “every catholic priest, religious or as person is furious about this”. The furious protest and disagreement led to a ban on the advert in Italy after a protest at the centre of the catholic religion in the Vatican.
Benetton argued this, claiming that “it was a joke, to show that habit doesn’t make the priest”, and although major upset was caused through this image it still won the Eurobest Award for Creativity, proving it’s success among a percentage of the public, and how people can actually grasp the concept of Toscanis advertising.
Another image that caused major controversy was the image of a newborn baby girl, Giusy covered in claret with the ambilical chord still attached. The advert was banned in at least four countries, and proved to be one of the ‘most controversial’ pieces of Toscani’s work.
Although many critics believe that this was just too far it had a negative effect on Benetton’s sales of almost 50%, however Toscani’s belief was that one can never go too far, a clear sign of Toscani’s pure determination to raise public awareness “going further than some of it’s franchises could stomach”, and whether or not they were disliked by many still has Benetton widely recognisable for their ‘reality’ advertising and ‘internationally acclaimed’ campaigns, seen by many as a political campaign to capture peoples imagination, showing clear defiance by moving away from the use of ‘square imagery’, showing people from all different situations, displaying a philosophy of unity and equality.
Toscani’s shock advertising reflected people’s attitudes towards advertising however Luciano Benetton claims “their advertising communicates social issues, giving them the publicity they deserve”.
However Benetton’s advertising campaigns show more depth than advertising to the consumer working in more depth with the issues that surround the work that that they promote. Benetton are recognised for their aids work across continents giving Toscani’s advertising campaigns more purpose and justifying the stance that he took towards his subject matters.
In the early 90’s AIDS or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome was just beginning to hit the world and has killed over 25 million people since it’s initial impact on society in 1981, society was not as informed as it is nowadays and people with AIDS were seen as recluses, mainly due to peoples misinterpretation of the illness.
Toscanis images were highlighting the main issues surrounding HIV, due to the fact that they were made commercially visual, which invited us to to take an understanding of an illness of which we was apparent in society but maybe incomprehensible, David Kirby’s parents (see fig 5) commented “David’s speaking much louder now that he is dead” highlighting the emotional benefits they have gained from Toscani’s imagery of the family.
Although it could be argued that the images are a mockery of these issues should these belong to issue related programmes such as the news, as the shock advertising could be used to capture the eye of consumers as the Benetton logo that is placed on all of the campaigns and brings to light that this is in fact a corporation potentially gaining profits from there advertising and promotion of the Benetton brand, therefore minimising the importance “or tainted by their association with the realm of commerce” .
Although this is a concern and caused distress for many, alot has been socially acceptable in society, this to many viewers could have been looked at as an opportunity to publicise and bring the realities of the world to the attention of the people that are separated from today’s society whether people agree or not, which may bring justification to Toscanis work.
The image that finally saw the end of Toscani and “the end of an era in advertising”, for Benetton was the adverts of convicts on death row, this advertising negatively affected Benetton’s sales by almost 50%, “causing unnecessary pain and distress to the families of innocent people killed by the men the campaign intends to ‘humanize’”, this was one step too far, and many thought it showed Benetton’s lack of morality, which is maybe a valid point, If someone had directly brought harm to a friend or loved one, would you condone their publicity?, And described as “images with no apparent aim other than to shock”.
However despite the controversy linked with advertising associated to the Toscani era, Benetton have also faced criticism with the manufacturing of the Benetton line.
PETA the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have criticised Benetton for their use of materials used to create the Benetton clothing, using wool that had supposedly came from Merino lambs and Sheep that have faced extreme suffering or ‘muelsing’ in the process, where Lambs and Sheep are “suspended upside down while farmers used gardening shears to cut plate size chunks of flesh from their backsides”, Benetton’s role was described as “putting money directly into the pockets of producers who mutilate baby sheep”.
Benetton, also faced criticism in 1998 when the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, leaked the news that they had been exploiting child labour in Turkey, Bermuda a company that produces textiles under the Benetton, in Turkey and Turkey like most countries In the early 90’s became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, making tight laws on child labour.
However Benetton clearly discarded this after condoning the work of 12 hour days for children which clearly doesn’t’ promote Benetton in a positive way considering there advertising promotes social responsibility.
The Body Shop
The Body Shop was founded by Anita Roddick in 1976 and clearly focused the Body Shop brand on it’s moral principles through out the whole of the corporation and this never seemed like this was going to change, it all began when the “time in farming and fishing communities with pre-industrial people, and been exposed to body rituals of women from all over the world”, according to Anita “The foundation of The Body Shop's environmental activism was born out of ideas like these”. The Body Shop is recognised specifically for its vegetable based products and became most widely known for its commitment to its core values, which support a wide range of issues around the globe. Its slogans are all sub headed under the ‘Made with Passion’ heading and include Against Animal Testing, their belief in endorsing the end to the use of animals in Body Shop product testing. To ensure testing is not carried out by The Body Shop, The Activate Self Esteem campaign, very similar to the Dove campaign promoting women’s self esteem “about respecting yourself, looking after your body and soul, and being proud of who and what you are”, Defend Human Rights, Support Community Trade and Protect Our Planet and is “the heart of everything we do and come together to create everything we make”.
The Body Shop have become widely known for their beliefs and support of many issues over the years, for example joining forces with political rights activists such as Greenpeace and working with locals from third world areas. “To dedicate our business to the pursuit of social and environmental change.’ We use our stores and our products to help communicate human rights and environmental issues.”
However in 2005 Body Shop made an unorthodox decision to sell out to multinational company L’oreal, harsh criticism followed mainly due to the fact that the Body Shop carried high moral standards and had widespread respect for it’s social responsibility and for the product range being built using a number of natural ingredients in a socially responsible way. However criticism has increased since the takeover by French cosmetics company L’Oreal, a company that she highly condemned in her autobiography claiming that they “preyed on women’s fears. “‘I hate the beauty business, ‘It is a monster selling unattainable dreams, It lies, It cheats. It exploits women”. Due to L’Oreal’s ongoing animal testing and predominantly multinational and apparent socially irresponsible methods, which contradicted the Body Shops core beliefs including ‘Against Animal Testing’ and ‘Protect our planet’ to name a few, resulting in boycotts all over the globe.
Criticism of this takeover led to many different forms of negative response including Anti Body Shop organisations such as www.boycottbodyshop.com were set up to focus mainly on the issues that The Body Shop face now linked with an apparently completely socially irresponsible company like L’Oreal, using cold hard and supposed facts to represent to the people that the Body Shop is now owned by such a large and dominant multinational.
However in 2005 L’Oreal were criticised for using a misinforming style of marketing in relation to their skin care product, which, The Advertising Standards Authority said, “ads for Wrinkle De-crease and Perfect Slim should be banned unless the company can back up its statements”.
TASA said, “both products only caused cosmetic differences”, even though L'Oreal said, “customers had reported high levels of satisfaction with the products”.
The Body Shops core values used to represent the Body Shop as a highly moral company that vowed to defend its beliefs either through its products or it’s campaigning, with such a dominant and influential leader like Anita Roddick, however after the Body Shop ‘sold out’ to L’Oreal the critics believe that the Body Shop abandoned it’s belief system, showing “a betrayal of the brand’s raison d’etre”. According to the anti Bodyshop website www.boycottbodyshop.com, “L'Oreal claim to have stopped testing on animals in 1989, EU Legislation states that new chemical formulas must be tested on animals”, but they also claim that companies such as Lush, Faith in nature and Co-op have produced ethically compliant cosmetics.The Daily Mail reported that L’Oreal “while having banned animal testing of its cosmetics in 1989, still allows ingredients tested on animals to be used in them”.
“3% of L’Oreal’s annual turnover goes to Research and Development. L'Oreal develop over 4000 new chemical formulas every year”.
L’Oreal & Nestle
L’Oreal owned 25% by Nestle a multinational food company founded from Switzerland and ‘one of the most boycotted companies’ today for their production of non ethical produce, whether it concerns the ingredients or the apparent exploitation of child labour involved with the manufacture of it’s products and general unethical practises, also portraying a negative image for any consumer that is aware of the link between L’Oreal and Nestle.
Nestle who are known for their sale of cocoa products like Milky bar, Milky Buttons, and owner of one of the worlds most valuable brands (Nescafe), report that most of their cocoa is sold in “farming communities in the developing countries. Nestlé is committed to ensuring the right conditions to guarantee high quality coffee and cocoa beans in these communities and to that end promote sustainable farming practices”, however foodanddrinkeurope.com, the International Labour Rights Fund had apparently started with legal proceedings against Nestle on who were illegally shipped in Ivory Coast in order to work on cocoa plantations.
The problem of illegal and forced child labour is widespread in the chocolate industry, because Western Africa possess more than 70% or €3.6bn of the world's supply of Cocoa, a country that the US State Department estimates “had approximately 109,000 child labourers working in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms”. In 2001, Save the Children Canada reported that 15,000 children between 9 and 12 years old, many from impoverished Mali, had been tricked or sold into slavery on West African cocoa farms, many for just $30 each.
"It is unconscionable that Nestle, ADM and Cargill have ignored repeated and well-documented warnings over the past several years that the farms they were using to grow cocoa employed child slave labourers. We had to go to court as a last resort," said ILRF attorney, Natacha Thys.
Conclusion
When it comes to influence, brands like Benetton and their social significance, seem to be more vocal, in the case of many brands it is their contribution to personal and community well being like Toscani through the development of socially beneficial advertising and the link between the AIDS campaigns and the AIDS epidemic.
The brands like Benetton take serious crticism when trying to tackle these issues through their campaigning however society might need to accept reality and understand these issues for what I think they are trying to represent.
Campaigns like Benetton however could have been more decisive in what issues they chose to tackle. When facing the Toscani campaigns like the nun kissing the priest play on the idea of mixing religions, which to a percentage of it’s audience is clearly offensive, which to some may have stepped the boundaries in advertising and given Toscani other campaigns the same benchmark, as an insult to society.
Socially responsible brands and ‘supposed’ socially responsible brands appear to carry their social worth through campaigning stands like, by trying to persuade the public of their honesty and commitment to ethically related issues, and with this raising awareness of important issues, they make vital contribution to tackling those issues whether this is the sole intention of the brand or not, and whether this is by incorporating social needs in the innovation process commercial brands will be probably be more influential on social and environmental issues than other organisations can due to the fact that they are covering social issues through the production, and brands are well placed to help tackle these challenges, since they are presence is widespread, creating closer links between sectors enabling people to gain from these brands in some form.
With the increasing interest of consumers in the social and environmental sectors, the successful brands are the ones that are likely to be those that embrace corporate social leadership as a core component of their strategy, thereby adding a powerful additional dimension to the social value of brands.
It is obvious that brands will be present and play a major role in the economy with branding for the foreseeable future, due to consumer demand and with out these brands the economy would be hard pressed to survive, however I believe that brands in order to maintain some kind of social worth should take responsibility, in order to increase their purpose in society and give a little bit back. Environmentally responsible brands like BP and Honda clearly seem to be making many steps with their work on the environmental issues that face them, however I think the need to represent the company in a different way opens my mind to think that maybe the whole re branding process maybe just a marketing tool to persuade the consumer of something that isn’t really apparent with the mind of the company and only the face of the brand in order to make a diversion of the actual situation, or maybe just too much hype for very little effort, and as far as Honda is concerned representing an environmentally responsible brand in motorsport would not be the best direction to take and has not convinced me and probably many more of the audience that take any understanding of what they are trying to represent.
Although brands like Dove and now the Body Shop since there takeover, have adopted this style of a socially responsible branding, and showing an understanding of society and stepping towards the boundaries of marketing, they appear to be attempting to make a positive contribution to society, however taking the negative effects of consumerism aggressively and taking advantage of their dominance, multinationals like the Body Shop and Unilever, all efforts of these companies to to be responsible can only be seen as multinationals and main stream companies trying to create a positive public image however using social environmental irresponsible methods in their methods of production.
Overall branding appears to be based around the idea of promises, and what I have discovered is that the most successful brands like L’Oreal and Unilever are the most inconsistent with their friendly practises, and use large amounts of capital to discard their practises by investing large amounts of cash into areas that may discard them from their sole purpose which appears to be reasonably unethical using the friendly brand to represent discard a whole network of crime, it is obvious that brands will be present and play a major role in globalisation with branding for the foreseeable future, due to consumer demand because without these brands the economy would be hard pressed to survive due to their power and influence in society, however I believe that brands in order to maintain some kind of social worth should take responsibility, in order to increase their purpose in society and give a little bit back.
Find out how a custom written essay can help you
Click hereAll of the essays in this section were written by students and then submitted to us to publish and help others. Thanks to all of the students who have submitted their essays to us. You should not hand in our essays as your own. We do not condone plagiarism! If you need custom essays on your exact essay questions, then have a look at our essay writing service.
