Ryan recently blogged about the mayhem over releases of Jordan shoes. As he reports, similar headlines appear in a USA Today article; the entire story can be summarized with just a few words: Jordan shoe release, large crowd, fight, injury, etc. Basically, ever since the first release of Michael Jordan’s exuberant shoes, people have been waiting in line as you would on Black Friday. This is part of the hype that makes the Jordan brand so successful and well known; however, this is also where David Silver’s lecture and Milton Friedman’s paper come into play.

Photo from: The Herald

If you read his blog, Ryan obviously believes this is unethical of the Jordan brand to allow this to continue. I agree. I commented on Ryan’s blog, curious to see if he had any suggestions or ideas for them to stop this madness, while still keeping the hype of the shoes and being successful?

Trying to think of a solution, I remember what Dr. Silver said about CVS Pharmacy, and how they thought of a creative way to fix their problem of selling cigarettes. Similar to that, I believe Nike (Jordan’s owner) should continue to keep up the hype of the releases, but find a way to keep people from getting out of control while waiting in line. One way to do this, that I can quickly think of, would be to accept pre-orders from people. That way they’re still excited for the shoes, but they don’t get rowdy waiting in line, because they know they’re is a pair safely waiting for them!

Picture from wikipedia

Recently, Coco Cola announced that since 2010, they’ve donated $120 million to various health research organizations as part of their “transparency” campaign. The donations were received by the American Cancer Society, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

However, Coca Cola believes that people, and the media, think too much about what people are eating, and not enough about how much exercise they are getting. A $120 million donation may seem generous, but in 2013, they spent $3.3 billion dollars on marketing alone. The Street also says that they would consider Coca Cola’s stock a “buy” right now.

 With that in mind, it seems pretty obvious that they made this “huge” donation to health programs to create positive publicity. By giving away a mere fraction of what they spend on marketing, they are applauded and suddenly a company that really cares about the consumers of their sugary drinks. Good for them right? True, what they did is not unethical in most people’s minds; however, I would like to see a bit more work from them to try and actually help obesity in America.

On the other hand, I slightly agree with Coca Cola that people focus too much on the diet of people rather than their exercise. I can eat healthy, and lay on my couch all day long, and I wouldn’t lose any weight. On the other hand, I can go eat McDonalds for every meal and then workout regularly and not gain weight.

Last February, CVS Pharmacy vowed to quit selling any tobacco products. This act by the US’s highest earning drugstore goes against everything Milton Friedman believes in, as stated in his article, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”. According to Friedman, the only social responsibility a business faces is to create the highest possible profit, while following the rules (178). As he makes many interesting points, I agree more with what Ed Freeman states in his video, “What is Stakeholder Theory?”. In this video, Freeman lists all different circumstances of when a business is in decline. One of his descriptions of a business in decline includes: not a good citizen in the community, doesn’t pay attention to quality of life in the community, doesn’t pay attention to issues of corporate responsibility, etc.

I believe that CVS banning the sale of any tobacco products in their stores was them paying attention to the quality of life in their community. Sure, they will lose a couple billion dollars in sales ($123 billion in sales for 2012), but as a company that helps people cope with conditions from smoking, how can they sell products that cause those problems? Personally, I believe a business must maximize their profits, but if they can help with issues in our society, then that must be a priority of theirs as well.

picture from: https://tineis.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/cvs-quits-smoking-for-good/