Nicholas Buse’s blog post about Chevron being fined for an oil leak brings up an interesting topic. Oh wait— wasn’t this the topic of conversation just the other day it seems like, but regarded BP instead?  Company’s producing oil leaks seems to happen much too often, so the question lays with why aren’t the regulations deterring the company’s from being careless and disregard public safety? If these big corporations were actually scared of the fine they would get from the governments they could perhaps be more inclined to further their precautions, since it is understandable that mistakes do happen.

A non-governmental Organization which lobbys for more punishments and reparations is Peta. With their influence that should be enough to deter companies from risking the offchance of spilling. PETA has a strong following, and if PETA were to do a campaign about boycotting a corporation that hurt animals, that would surely ruin that corporations brand. However, from what I’ve seen in the past, this boycott only lasts so long, and eventually people forget the harm that company caused, that is until they make the same mistake yet again.

In response to Anastasyia’s blog post

I found this strategy very interesting. The best marketing campaigns sell not just a trivial product, but an entire lifestyle. That’s obviously what Molson is striving to achieve, but one wonders if selling an ideal that does not include your product is in fact productive. Obviously those with healthy lifestyles will in fact enjoy the cool, refreshing taste of a quality beer, and probably switch to Molson after that because it’s cheaper, but these are exceptions, flaws in an otherwise wholesome program.

Grassroots marketing is a good idea because a company can then take another angle in the market. However, I am curious to find out how successful it actually is. Understandably, it improves a brands image, and puts them on a the ‘socially responsible’ map-but realistically does Molson sell more at the end of the day? Does seeing Molson programs supporting community healthy lifestyle increase profits? I know that as a consumer that might not necessarily go out an buy that product, what I would do is talk about it, thus promoting the product for free.

SInce its foundation, Nike’s brand strategy has more or less been limited to adopting the most dominant athletes in the world and aggressively promoting their talent and dedication, contributing considerably to the phenomenon that is celebrity athletes. Having spent the last decade learning the painful lessons of celebrity, Nike shifted its focus towards whole teams, and particularly dominant collegiate ones. Considering the deep ties that Nike has with the University of Oregon, the brand having been forged on the asphalt track of Hayward Field, Nike expanded its already massive visibility, introducing the Pro Combat line of football equipment and issuing Oregon’s teams the most distinctive and progressive uniforms in sports. While this worked brilliantly for a while, with Oregon’s team becoming the national darling, filling the role USC previously held. However, 2011 has proved to be something of disappointing year for the football team, and an absolute disaster for the running program, with perhaps the most prestigious quasi-amateur running team in the world faling to qualify for the NCAA Cross Country National Championships and the absolutely flashiest football team in the world suffering a disappointing loss to USC and dropping from 4th in the nation to 9th and losing any shot at the BCS final. This raises the question, is sports marketing essentially gambling? Is the policy of only selecting a few, albeit extremely talented athletes and teams dangerous to an entire brand? Is Nike’s new practice, that is, issuing multiple teams with the prestigious Pro Combat gear a safer bet? Or does it simply dissolve the power of such endorsements? Does it reflect a crack in Nike’s extremely well designed and lightweight armour? Is Nike’s infallibility dependent on the teams it endorses?

In other news, the Stanford Pro Combat jerseys are coming on to the open market soon and I’m definitely getting one.

The article “Making it to the top 1%, with a little help from dad“, from the Globe and Mail caught my attention because I have seen some version of this-maybe not the top 1%- in my life. This article brings up the fact that some children are just given a position in their parents company, resulting in them receiving a high salary and a big title. However, this also brings up the fact that some children do have to work just as hard as anyone else to get somewhere in their family’s company and are not given a ‘free ride’. What because troublesome here is that children then have to fight the people who assume no matter what kind of  effort that is put in, the child will get way more than anyone else, despite their levels of productivity or effort. This adds even more pressure to the child, however, if the pressure hits him or her the right way it could add as motivation to do even better in the workplace-proving all those nay-sayers wrong, which in the end improves the company as a whole.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Vision Critical is an online market research company that exploded over the past 10 years, making it one of the top tech/market research company’s in Canada, and even the world. My brother-in-law founded the company due to the hole he saw in the market for market-research, and not the annoying telephone calls at dinner time kind of market research, the innovative kind. After reading the article I saw a link between his company and how they  indeed do focus on Social responsibility (and of course the company’s bottom line too). Being a “social entrepreneur” and a conventional capitalist entrepreneur do have their differences, however I see how a large company such as Vision Critical which has over 500 employees around the world, still stays involved within the community, and is consistent with their work. Large organizations should have the conscious to be involved within society to benefit others, such as Vision Critical does with Children’s Hospital and Variety. It is important to stay on top of the market as well, but equally as important to be socially responsible.

http://www.visioncritical.com/

A quote from the article:

”

Social entrepreneurs look for
a long-term social return on investment. Social
entrepreneurs want more than a quick hit; they
want to create lasting improvements. They think
about sustaining the impact."