Vulcana Wedderburn

Wal-Mart’s mission statement: “In everything we do, we’re driven by a common mission – Saving people money so they can live better” -- by focusing on their four core areas of philanthropic work: Community, Opportunity, Sustainability and Health / Wellness.

Take a closer look at the “Opportunity”-- Wal-Mart has pledged $3million to CARE to help promote the “empowerment of women” to develop new skills in India, Peru and Bangladesh. Hmm?

Wal-Mart’s intent is admirable; however, Wal-Mart has a history of consistently contradicting its message with actions. Wal-Mart is sending the message that they want to create opportunities for women in developing nations; instead, Wal-Mart should create opportunities for the hundreds of female employees that are suing them in a class action lawsuit, alleging wage discrimination and pervasive unfair policies companywide that adversely affect the promotion of women. Although Wal-Mart seeks to save people money so that they can live better, their actions towards their own employees is dubious and has caused backlash among the media, consumer groups, regulatory agencies, etc.

On the other hand, starting in the 1980’s, Nike was accused of outsourcing to countries with lax labor laws and low wages. In 2008, Nike was embroiled yet again and accused of forced labor in Malaysia, violating minimum wage and overtime laws in Vietnam and violating child labor laws in Cambodia and Pakistan. As a result, Nike’s reputation was badly damaged. However, Nike was able to redeem its image and brand by aggressively taking the initiative to address the allegations and implementing such programs as the Nike Environmental Action Team, creating the Corporate Responsibility and Compliance Department, developing Nike’s Code of Conduct, Labor Practices and Cross-Cultural Awareness, and creating a Safety, Health, Attitudes of Management, People Investment and Environment (SHAPE) program, to name a few. Nike’s deliberate actions to correct questionable corporate actions, have not only redeemed their corporate image, but have ensured that their “actions” support the message(s) they seek to convey.

Linking the message with the actions of your firm is vital in today’s global economy and more importantly in today’s information age which is driven by technology. Technology enables global citizens to communicate information about your firm (good or bad) around the globe with a click of the mouse and if the information is the latter; let’s just say that good news is great but bad news travels even faster. Corporations can ill afford to launch global campaigns (due to the expense), only to be caught in the act of questionable business practices: the backlash is not worth it and oft-times cost more to do damage control than the actual marketing campaign.

In the end, even the best and most thorough campaigns can run afoul in the global market (but not with the intent of doing harm).When developing marketing campaigns for the global economy, ensure the message promoted corresponds with the actual behavior of your firm or business: how your firm does business will greatly assist in how your firm’s brand is perceived in both the short and long-term.

How do you feel at companies that say one thing and do the opposite?

Graphic Credit:
animationfactory.com