Good Works!: Marketing and Corporate Initiatives that Build a Better World...and the Bottom Line

Chapter 13

Summary of Best Practices

Your ads are obnoxious. Sunny is disgusting in them. We swore we would rather sleep on concrete than buy a bed from you because of her ads. But we came because of your role in the community and we stayed because of the service we received at your store.

—Comment card given to CEO Sunny Kobe Cook Sleep Country U.S.A.

Best practices for choosing a social issue to support, and then selecting, developing, and evaluating social initiatives are listed in this chapter for ease of reference and sharing with others. We have also included a summary of the major strengths and weaknesses of each of the six initiatives in Table 13.1.

Table 13.1 Summary of Strengths to Maximize and Concerns to Minimize

As a brief recap, social problems to choose from typically include ones related to basic needs (food, shelter, clean water), health, safety, education, fair labor practices, poverty, employment, the environment, and animal protection. Initiatives may be marketing-related (cause promotions, cause-related marketing, corporate social marketing) or corporate-related (philanthropy, volunteering, business practices).

Choosing a Social Problem to Alleviate:

1. Choose only a few social issues to support.

2. Choose those that are of concern in the communities where you ...