Upon researching for an English essay, I stumbled upon quite an interesting article relating the ever so popular social media to cause marketing.

What caught my eye were these statistics

• 71% of consumers are giving as much or more now as they were before the economic downturn.
• 87% of consumers would switch brands based on association with a good cause.
• 50% of consumers would pay more for products from brands that support causes.

now based on that research, wouldn’t most companies want to hop on the bandwagon and follow along to supporting a good cause? But then again,

is that really ethical?

Simply trying to promote a cause so that consumers will favour your brand, and thus bring you greater profits? It’s not much of a secret that most companies have ridiculous mark ups on the cost of their items, and simply stating that you’ll donate “5% of all sales to saving …. in the world” seems to be an easy way for companies to continue to make incredible profits, while seeming like a hero to consumers for supporting a cause.

I guess this is the difference that sets social enterprises apart from traditional companies, one creates their organization based on a cause, and the other creates a cause based on the organization.