By Leigh Andrews
I’ve noticed this as press releases nowadays no longer merely shine the spotlight on companies that are ‘
doing good’ – instead, they call on their readers to take part and get involved, extending the reach of campaigns that were previously rather small. It’s not just ‘green’ initiatives, like MTV’s
Switch, which are doing so – the recent International Mandela Day is a key example of this.
Previously a South African campaign encouraging the public to emulate Mandela’s 67 years of striving to help others, by assisting someone for 67 minutes. This year, the campaign went
global as the world celebrated the first International Mandela Day. Not just about promoting the CSI spirit of large organisations, everyone was asked to make an effort to improve the lives of those around them.
The
Switch campaign I mentioned previously has also evolved, in that Switch is now looking for bloggers to spread the message, taking the campaign’s focus from the smaller niche MTV-viewing youth group initially targeted through public service announcements produced by different agencies, as well as programmes on the channel, to the greater good in terms of ‘making global climate change a top priority’ by making online resources available on the MTV Switch website. As the
Balancing Act website puts it, ”…the initiative delivers simple tips to help viewers realise that small actions taken by many individuals can make massive differences to the world’s carbon emissions.” Kenny Luna of the
treehugger site notes that this has definitely proven effective in terms of raising public awareness of global problems, as one of his students stated ‘Dude, it’s on MTV!’ Proof that even an American channel previously known for its strong focus on
consumerism and ‘living the good life’ can change its colours and get the world involved through the internet and celebrity endorsement. This is a strong feature of the
1Goal campaign, with the aims of providing every child in the world with access to education.
There has definitely been a change in focus with celebrities and politicians not only endorsing products they are paid to sponsor, but also initiatives they feel are worthy of support and that need to be brought to the public’s attention. Another interesting development is the ‘Causes’ app on Facebook, which allows Facebook members to form groups in support of causes ranging from animal welfare to raising funds for cancer research. The question we need to ask, however, is whether this actually makes a difference, or if '
causes’ have just become a trendy thing to put on one’s social networking page, to show you care – the social networking version of ‘
greenwashing campaigns,’ which I have previously defined as campaigns that simply attempt to ‘paint’ their company initiatives in a green light,
without actually making a real effort – in a sense, they have green skin but their hearts don’t bleed green blood.
The
Media Logic team touches on this growing trend toward ‘moral hunger’ in that it has noticed a marked increase in cause-related ‘do gooder’ initiatives from financial service institutions, in an attempt to generate some good publicity after being slated by the press. They add that sponsorships are “…as old as business itself,” as “companies and institutions have long given dollars to have their names attached to community events and good causes, or support and promote the volunteer efforts of their employees.”
I end off with a further word against
greenwashing, especially as the target market out there is a lot more clued up and savvy in decision-making than in the past, especially with the rise of
crowdsourcing – we no longer merely accept information for what it is at face value, and are quite adept at searching for the hidden meanings and reasons behind certain causes attracting more time in the spotlight.
Have you also noticed a trend towards getting ‘everyone’ involved in campaigns, as opposed to the small focus model of the past? If so, please leave your thoughts on our
blog.