Breaking news: I'll be on CNBC TV today at 2:00 pm offering my advice to Toyota on corporate giving. If you miss it, you can catch me on Money Matters tomorrow at 10:20 AM on the Financial News Radio Network discussing the same topic.
Update: The Money Matters spot has been rescheduled to 10:20 AM Wednesday March 7th (probably because of the stock market correction).
2/27/2007
2/24/2007
Toyota and Apple Pie
Toyota is the big business news story these days. Global projections indicate that it will soon to overtake General Motors as the world's largest car company.
No one's afraid of being number one--unless you're a Japanese carmaker and half of your profits come from the U.S. of A. "We constantly need to think about the potential backlash," Toyota CEO tells Business Week in next's week's top story. Fearing this patriotic backlash, Toyota has ramped up its social responsibility quotient: funding literacy programs, dispatching efficiency gurus to local hospitals, giving gifts to neuroscience, and sponsoring environmental awards. Still, the Nascar crowd has no truck with Toyota, Japanophobia rages, and Toyota is gaining no traction in the heartland. Only 15% of Toyota's total US sales are in the Midwest. Toyota has only 5% share of the Texas pickup market and 11% of the Midwest market, despite a 17% national share.
What kind of cause-marketing program should Toyota develop to woo the NASCAR dads? Reducing greenhouse gases will get you nowhere with this crowd, many of whom even think the global warming theory is full of hot air. Toyota's literacy program benefiting Hispanics in San Antonio is great, but it's probably not the Hispanic immigrants who are avoiding Japanese cars for patriotic reasons.
My advice to Toyota: Think Mom and apple pie. Go after the causes dear to these people's hearts. Veterans' and military families' organizations. Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Pentagon Memorial Fund.
Also, get the staff to volunteer in local schools so that they get visibility in local communities, and locals see that the good people of Toyota are the people next door.
Toyota should still maintain its environmental programs, of course, since its image has received a couple of nicks in that area. Support evidence-based research and energy programs in local schools. But most of all, stick to the Mom and Apple Pie formula. Toyota can't cure xenophobia, but it can outpatriot the patriots.
-Steve Adler
No one's afraid of being number one--unless you're a Japanese carmaker and half of your profits come from the U.S. of A. "We constantly need to think about the potential backlash," Toyota CEO tells Business Week in next's week's top story. Fearing this patriotic backlash, Toyota has ramped up its social responsibility quotient: funding literacy programs, dispatching efficiency gurus to local hospitals, giving gifts to neuroscience, and sponsoring environmental awards. Still, the Nascar crowd has no truck with Toyota, Japanophobia rages, and Toyota is gaining no traction in the heartland. Only 15% of Toyota's total US sales are in the Midwest. Toyota has only 5% share of the Texas pickup market and 11% of the Midwest market, despite a 17% national share.
What kind of cause-marketing program should Toyota develop to woo the NASCAR dads? Reducing greenhouse gases will get you nowhere with this crowd, many of whom even think the global warming theory is full of hot air. Toyota's literacy program benefiting Hispanics in San Antonio is great, but it's probably not the Hispanic immigrants who are avoiding Japanese cars for patriotic reasons.
My advice to Toyota: Think Mom and apple pie. Go after the causes dear to these people's hearts. Veterans' and military families' organizations. Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Pentagon Memorial Fund.
Also, get the staff to volunteer in local schools so that they get visibility in local communities, and locals see that the good people of Toyota are the people next door.
Toyota should still maintain its environmental programs, of course, since its image has received a couple of nicks in that area. Support evidence-based research and energy programs in local schools. But most of all, stick to the Mom and Apple Pie formula. Toyota can't cure xenophobia, but it can outpatriot the patriots.
-Steve Adler
2/22/2007
Organic Fare Pairing Fares Well
Fitness, nutrition, and health are three of the nation's chief preoccupations, and now the country's purveyors of granola and tofu, Whole Foods and Wild Oats, are becoming one.
Pardon me for kvelling about a client, but this demonstrates the reach of America on the Move (AOM) , a national initiative to help individuals and communities across the nation make positive changes to improve health and quality of life. AOM is expanding into every community and every household that is interested in healthy eating.
Shares of Whole Foods and Wild Oats had suffered last year when mainstream grocers boosted their organic fare, but today, stock in both companies soared. How do you like them organic apples?
I'm thrilled that the two health chains have teamed up to put more healthy food on our table so we can live more sustainable lifestyles.
-Steve Adler
Pardon me for kvelling about a client, but this demonstrates the reach of America on the Move (AOM) , a national initiative to help individuals and communities across the nation make positive changes to improve health and quality of life. AOM is expanding into every community and every household that is interested in healthy eating.
Shares of Whole Foods and Wild Oats had suffered last year when mainstream grocers boosted their organic fare, but today, stock in both companies soared. How do you like them organic apples?
I'm thrilled that the two health chains have teamed up to put more healthy food on our table so we can live more sustainable lifestyles.
-Steve Adler
2/21/2007
Altria: doing good, or blowing smoke?
Altria has employed massive do-gooding to compensate for its bad-doing. The arts patron formerly known as Philip Morris has given $210 million to cultural groups over the last four decades. As part of its restructuring, Altria will be phasing out its support of the arts, according to a report in today's New York Times. The impact on the arts community will be huge. Next year, only half of the tobacco giant's 272 current arts grantees will be lucky enough to receive the embers of Altria's arts funding. The following year, the funding will be almost completely stubbed out.
This is outrageous. No company needs to demonstrate its corporate responsibility more than Altria, and it has done so as a major arts patron. They are now showing the skin on the other side by turning their back on cultural institutions.
Perhaps the former arts grantees should band together and put on a grand performance--at Altria's headquarters. Something to the tune of asking Altria if all the good they did was purely to influence the stock for its Kraft Foods spinoff.
Shame on Altria.
-Steve Adler
This is outrageous. No company needs to demonstrate its corporate responsibility more than Altria, and it has done so as a major arts patron. They are now showing the skin on the other side by turning their back on cultural institutions.
Perhaps the former arts grantees should band together and put on a grand performance--at Altria's headquarters. Something to the tune of asking Altria if all the good they did was purely to influence the stock for its Kraft Foods spinoff.
Shame on Altria.
-Steve Adler
2/14/2007
Causes Compa(red)
This Valentine's Day, two Reds are wooing the hearts of shoppers: Product Red to fight AIDS, and the American Heart Association's Go Red campaign. While this has the potential to confuse shoppers, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Both are cause-related marketing campaigns to fight disease. The positive exposure Product Red gets can only burnish AHA's brand, and vice versa. (Likewise with negative exposure, but that hasn't happened.) Direct competition is unlikely. In other words, if a shopper buys a Red T-shirt, it doesn't mean she won't buy a Red Dress Swarovski pin.
-Steve Adler
-Steve Adler
2/10/2007
Measuring Magnanimity
As the demand for information about corporate do-gooding has skyrocketed, so too has the number of websites comparing companies' social consciousness. From the Dow Jones Sustainability Index to Do the Right Thing, everyone has a method for measuring social responsibility. Too much of a good thing measuring good things? According to the Harvard Business Review, "the existing cacophany of self-appointed scorekeepers does little more than add to the confusion...The result is a jumble of largely meaningless rankings, allowing almost any company to boast that it meets some measure of social responsibility - and most do." This doesn't mean social responsibility isn't worth measuring. David Cohn at newassignment.net summarizes Harvard Business Review's solution as this: to give the consumers, employees and everyday people the tools to rate a company’s social impact. This is exactly what the CBM Corporate Giving Index, described in my book, does.
-Steve Adler
-Steve Adler
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