The use of cultural appropriation in marketing and branding is becoming a trend among businesses as stated in Karina’s blog post². Her post discusses Ungava and Urban Outfitter’s usage of the cultural appropriation of North American First Nations. Ungava, a Canadian gin company from southern Quebec, has drawn themes into its marketing from the Inuit First Nations in Quebec. Ungava has used “Asian women dressed in skimpy parkas” as a way of advertising for the gin, along with a random, meaningless mix of Inuktitut syllabics, and Inuit imagery. The vice-president for economic development at Makivik Corp (who represents Quebec’s Inuit), Andy Moorhouse, stated that he was offended by Ungava’s usage of Inuit cultural appropriation.¹ Meanwhile, in 2012, Urban Outfitters has been using the Navajo Nation’s name to brand a whole line of products, leading to a lawsuit that the Navajo Nation filed against Urban Outfitters. Although the Indian Arts and Crafts Act and federal trademarks still stand, the court ruled in favour of Urban Outfitters stating that the use of Navajo is a “descriptor of style rather than origin”, therefore not an infringement.⁴

I totally agree with Karina’s point² that this kind of cultural appropriation could result in false stereotypes of a culture and is profoundly disrespectful to the culture. As Porter has mentioned, companies that create economic and societal value have a competitive advantage.³ Ungava’s indiscriminate usage of Inuit themes wrecks not only the societal value that the company is supposed to have with the Inuit communities, but also the trust between the company and the Inuit communities. With Urban Outfitter’s case, the firm might create a totally different, unrealistic image of the Navajo Nation. I believe that the inappropriate exploitation of cultural appropriation is not only no socially responsible, but also unethical. I see this as a way for companies to exploit a segment’s disadvantage of not knowing a particular culture. Governments should have a way of regulating this because the values within the traditions and themes in culture could easily be forgotten and be replaced with the value the marketers re-attached with the traditions and themes. The new portrayals may also create negative connotations to that particular culture, turning a good image to an evil image, or a serious image to an indiscriminate image.

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References

Hamilton, Graeme. “Inuit Say Gin Maker Needs to Compensate for Appropriating Culture.” National Post, 2 Oct. 2016, news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/inuit-say-gin-maker-needs-to-compensate-for-appropriating-culture. Accessed 13 Nov. 2016.

Kong, Karina. “Why Businesses That Profit off the Culture of Others Are Not Socially Responsible.” Karina Kong’s Blog, UBC Blogs, 30 Oct. 2016, blogs.ubc.ca/kkong/2016/10/30/why-businesses-that-profit-off-the-culture-of-others-are-not-socially-responsible/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2016.

Porter, Michael E., and Mark R. Kramer. “Creating Shared Value.” Harvard Business Review, PDF ed., 2011, pp. 62-77.

Randolph, Imani. “Fashion’s Appropriation of Navajo Culture Has Been Deemed Legal.” Fader, 15 July 2016, www.thefader.com/2016/07/15/urban-outfitters-navajo-nation. Accessed 13 Nov. 2016.

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“Promotional Material from Ungava’s Facebook Page.” Huffington Post, 15 Sept. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/15/ungava-gin-inuit-cultural-appropriation_n_12017002.html. Accessed 13 Nov. 2016.

In his blog post, Catalytic Philanthropy: Innovating Where Markets Won’t and Governments Can’t, Bill Gates discusses the idea of catalytic philanthropy, an interesting concept which correlates with a number of topics in business. The practices of catalytic philanthropy goes further than “just writing a cheque”. Gates describes catalytic philanthropy as investing into new innovations and technologies that bring massive returns to people in need or to the society. He describes that catalytic philanthropy lies in a gap between the government and the private sector because governments are in a position such that a justification for bringing innovations into countries outside of their own is very hard to develop and because the returns for the innovator are too low for the private sector to even consider.¹

I find that the idea of catalytic philanthropy ties in with corporate social responsibility and creating shared value ². Gates mentioned in his post, not enough is being accomplished and the potential is far greater than what we have seen.¹ As Michael Porter has mentioned in his article, Creating Shared Value, the mainstream practices of corporate social responsibility does not seem to create enough shared value.² However, innovation is a key component of catalytic philanthropy and that this innovation creates more shared value between companies (or governments or individuals), charities, and the community. I believe that for corporations, creating value should not only be profit driven. Without innovation, the contributions which we make to charities will not be as effective and society as a whole may not receive the maximum benefits from the donation. The innovation that is generated from catalytic philanthropy can potentially create more sustaining value.

I do not think that it is just wealthy individuals and charities who should practice catalytic philanthropy; governments and companies should also integrate the practices of catalytic philanthropy as one of the core values which all of the bodies that encompasses that entity needs to have their activities aligned with. Our current society does not have a system that is effective enough in providing innovative solutions to our greatest issues. The co-operation between different bodies seem too limited to resolve issues on a global scale and in the long run. Catalytic philanthropy seems to be a way of providing better incentives and collaborating resources more effectively towards engineering solutions to deal with our issues.

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References

1 Gates, Bill. “Catalytic Philanthropy: Innovating Where Markets Won’t and Governments Can’t.” Gatesnotes, 27 Mar. 2014, www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Catalytic-Philanthropy-Innovating-Where-Markets-Wont. Accessed 12 Nov. 2016.

2 Porter, Michael E., and Mark R. Kramer. “Creating Shared Value.” Harvard Business Review, PDF ed., 2011, pp. 62-77.

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Catalytic Philanthropy. Gatesnotes, 19 Sept. 2012, www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/The-Power-of-Catalytic-Philanthropy. Accessed 12 Nov. 2016.

“Catalytic Philanthropy.” Realdania, www.realdania.org/nyheder/catalytic-philantrophy. Accessed 12 Nov. 2016.

In September of 2015, Volkswagen admitted to the installation of a software that may be used to cheat on emissions tests in 11 million diesel cars worldwide. The software detected when the car’s emissions were being tested and modified the amount of nitrogen oxide exhausted. When not being tested, the car emits up to 40 times the maximum amount of nitrogen oxide permitted, although the car seemed to have better fuel economy and better performance. The nitrogen oxide exhausted is a potential threat to the health of the citizens and the environment.¹ The executives at Volkswagen are not sincerely acting in general social interest. To be socially responsible, they needed to have put more money towards designing and making cars that actually meet emission standards since social responsibility is acting for “a general social interest”.³

Although Volkswagen’s executives seemed to balance the interests of most stakeholders, they exploited the trust between them and their customers by deceiving them through false advertising and tried to bypass the laws on emission limits set by the government. The failure to fulfill their social responsibility led to the deterrence of customer motivation to buy their product, leading to the losses of the shareholders as their stock value significantly decreased.³ Volkswagen announced that their profit would drop significantly over the next year and many of their models will no longer be sold in North America.¹ Volkswagen’s losses can be explained through the Stakeholders’ Theory, where a successful company needs to “create value” for its stakeholders.² In Volkswagen’s case there was an imbalance of value generally between the shareholders and the community – more of the value was created for the shareholders.

The company stated it would put aside $7.3 billion to make the cars satisfy the pollution standards, and were willing to work with officials to investigate deeper into the programming of the vehicles. CEO, Martin Winterkorn was pressured to take responsibility and to resign.¹ Though the executives at Volkswagen did make a serious mistake, they are not entirely socially irresponsible as they have made steps towards correcting their error.

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References

¹ Ewing, Jack. “Volkswagen Says 11 Million Cars Worldwide Are Affected in Diesel Deception.” The New York Times, 22 Sept. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/business/international/volkswagen-diesel-car-scandal.html.

² “What is Stakeholder Theory? – R. Edward Freeman.” Youtube, 1 Oct. 2009, www.youtube.com/embed/bIRUaLcvPe8. Accessed 11 Sept. 2016.

³ Zimmerli, Walther C., et al. Corporate Ethics and Corporate Governance. Springer, 2007. ProQuest ebrary, site.ebrary.com/lib/ubc/detail.action?docID=10187339. Accessed 11 Sept. 2016.

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“Car Brand Photo: Shiny Volkswagen Logo.” School Photo Project, Visually Delicious, 2016, www.schoolphotoproject.com/cars-motorbikes/volkswagen-logo-photo2.html. Accessed 11 Sept. 2016.