G&B managed to "infect" Cadbury and got it to incorporate a lot of their ethical smarts into their own brand. Now with Cadbury being purchased by Kraft, many are questioning if the American company has what it takes to maintain the progress made by these two brands.
In a recent article in The Guardian, one of the founder's of Green & Black's was somewhat optimistic about the prospects. On a side note, it's interesting, he points his finger at consumers for not demanding organic and Fair Trade from brands, of course, this is a little chicken and egg because it often takes a company to lead consumers, as we've seen with Wal-Mart.
"A brand is like a child. It is born into this world, fragile and in great need of parental care and attention. Eventually you send it off to school and university, entrusting it to the care of others. Then it embarks on its career. Green & Black's, to follow the analogy, was nurtured to maturity and eventually got a good job at a big multinational.
It's still our baby. The fact that it can now look forward to continuing its career development with another multinational with a different name (and most of the same shareholders) is not a great cause for concern.
If Kraft screwed up with Green & Black's it would damage their reputation and cast a shadow over their competence. But there is no reason to expect them to goof. They have converted US household names like Oreos and Ritz crackers to organic and even do an organic macaroni-and-cheese dinner.
Every successful organic product represents another welcome step forward in the vital process, whereby the GM dependent climate-destructive industrial farming model gives way to sustainable, organic and fair ways of producing food. Successful corporations identify and follow these deeper underlying trends and would be betraying their shareholders' interest in trying to reverse them.
Frankly, it's the consumers who don't buy organic and fair products that upset me the most. Consumers have a choice, companies don't, they only sell what customers buy. Kraft and Cadbury are on the right track and I am confident the new entity will continue to pursue this.
I have no idea if Kraft will ask me to stay on as president, but if they don't that could be your canary in the coal mine."
Kraft's indirect purchase of Green & Black's follows a familiar pattern of ethical companies falling into their hands of giant corporations- Ben and Jerry's at Unilever, Howies at Timberland and The Body Shop at L'Oreal.
Many of the ethical companies start out with the belief that it's possible to change the world and when purchased may still harbor idealistic notions of this dream because of scale. However, for the acquring company to radically change it's operations, brands etc to all be in-line with the ethical company, is highly unlikely because it's just simply too hard to do.
What's more likely is a token response where the ethical brands sit in limbo and nothing really changes. They can grow because they can distribution muscle, but beyond that, they can't do much.
Posted by Ed Cotton
(1) With the environment becoming such a big issue, the area of corporate responsibility is going to be under the microscope even more than in the past.
The problem is that there's very little performance measurement and comparative auditing between companies.
There are surveys and polls, but it's hard to find anything else that challenges and compares company standards.
It was therefore interesting to be send a press release from Covalence in Switzerland, who have been measuring and ranking companies on the their ethical performance for the past 3 years.
The company tracks performance by examining a variety of sources including the companies themselves, news media and non-profit organizations.
Covalence has just released its performance data for 2007 and there are some interesting findings.
The company provides three rankings.
1. Best Ethical Quote Score (positive minus negative news)
2. Best Ethical Progress
3. Best Reported Performance (How the company presents itself)
It's interesting and something of a challenge for US companies to see the foreigners, Unilever, Toyota and HSBC leading the way, with HP, Alcoa and Starbucks trailing in their wake.
On a cynical note, the US companies do a rather good job at talking up their own performance with Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola emerging as the leaders in that category.
Covalence also found that in 07, the environmental impact of production, eco product innovation and anti-corruption policy were the leading areas of ethical responsibility.
In addition to the annual report, Covalence provides real-time tracking of ethical peformance.
Useful if you manage an ethical funds or work in the CSR or PR department.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, audits and quality standards are going to emerge as an important issue for the environment and corporate ethics this and its good to see someone attempting to provide some comparative data.
Posted by Ed Cotton
There’s often something about the ubiquity and success that brings out the haters, Coca-Cola, Levi’s, Starbucks, Nestle and The Gap have all found themselves targets.
However, fast-food giant McDonald’s has had a disproportionate share of lawsuits and vicious attacks. As a result, McDonald’s spends most of its days living on a PR tightrope.
In recent years, it’s been the movies that have threatened McDonald’s most, last year there was the potentially worrisome Fast Food Nation (an adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s 2001 book), but it took nothing at the box office and wasn’t a threat. Before, Fast Food Nation, there was Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, an attack on the life threatening characteristics of fast food with a special focus on McDonald’s.
In 2002, a couple of years before the documentary’s release McDonald’s was in a slump, suffering from what many analysts considered to be a trough that Ray Kroc’s lovechild was never going to dig itself out of. With some smart insightful leadership McDonald’s did the improbable, turned itself around with a line of premium salads being the catalyst for this transformation that started in April 2003 and has continued ever since. It’s stock price has quadrupled in four years.
It’s even become very adept at managing its image, the Make Up Your Own Mind web effort in the UK, is quite simply one of the best examples of corporate transparency in recent times. On the site, users are invited to ask the company any question they like and they mean it. The company responds to everything, including allegations that its burgers contain horsemeat.
What’s fascinating about McDonald’s is how to so desperately wants to appeal to two contradictory constituencies; it’s hard-core loyalists and those occasional wannabe healthy mom visitors. It launches premium salads in 2003 and almost immediately after, the McGriddle; a syrup infused breakfast pancake.
Now, after urgings of it promised to give up on Supersize drinks and meals, in a way it has remained true to this, the recently launched oz drinks maybe aren’t called Supersize, but that’s the only difference, as the new Hugos weigh in at 42 ounces and contain 410 calories.
With ethical issues becoming more important and the environment coming to the fore as a bigger consumer issue and a money making opportunity, what’s a consumer to think about the belief system of a corporation that produces hybrids and gas guzzlers, or one that has an eco line of clothing and a non-eco line and another that challenges the morals of the beauty business while at the same time making a living from the same business?
Brands and corporations have thrived on giving consumers seemingly choices; skillions of flavors of spaghetti sauce, or washing powder of toothpaste to cater for different needs and audiences and there’s nothing wrong with that.
The new challenge is that environmental and health issues are now so big and blindingly obvious that they aren’t going to remain choices for very long, they are going to be “the choice”.
At the moment, companies are treating both issues as SKU opportunities and forcing themselves into a corner where they can easily look schizophrenic and worse, opportunistic.
The reality is that the issues of health and the environment are now so big companies are going to be forced to take a stand. In food, just look at the movement against trans-fats, a critical ingredient of many of the things we eat.
It appears we are at the cusp of a twin revolution that is going to force companies to radically overhaul their product lines, making them as environmentally responsible and as healthy as they can possibly be. As a consequence, there will be no confusion where they stand.
For all the schizophrenic corporations out there, time to start altering your mission statement.
Posted by Ed Cotton