The Edge Coaching

Businesses and organisations that are seen to be making a positive difference often attract customers. This “Corporate Social Responsibility” approach can be a marketing tool, though the focus needs to be on the making a positive difference bit rather than simply adopting it as a marketing strategy.

Think of the Co-Op Fairtrade initiatives or their bank’s ethical investment policy. Even Pepsi Cola have realised that, having spent millions of dollars on their Super Bowl adverts that everyone forgets after a few days, it would be a better investment to fund grants to “people, businesses and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact.” For details of the ‘Pepsi Refresh Project’ see the website: http://www.refresheverything.com/

The Disney Co-operation have also realised the power of campaigns to make a positive difference. They have introduced the ‘Give a Day, get a Disney Day’ campaign. The goal is “to inspire one million people to volunteer a day of service to a participating organization in their communities.” When someone visits the Disney website, they are given the chance to search a list of eligible organizations they can volunteer a day for based on their Post Code. After they find their volunteer opportunity, they sign up with that organization. Once that organization sends verification that they have indeed volunteered, Disney will send the person an email with a voucher redeemable for a 1-day, 1-theme park ticket for them to use, or the individual may donate it to a designated charitable organization.

Not only are these major iconic American corporations giving back to their communities, they’ve also found an excellent way to spend considerably less money on wide scale campaigns, picking up some good karma along the way and garnering free advertising on blogs, tweets and posts worldwide.

It would be easy to dismiss all this cynically as marketing-hype that makes no lasting difference. I’m not so sure, if lots of people are giving something positive back to their communities that has to be a good thing. Time will tell in the end on this.
But this blog post is also inviting you to look at your own personal ‘brand’ whether you work within an organisation or for yourself. What do people say about you? Are they positive about the work you do AND more importantly, the difference you make through your connection with them? Do you really know the truth about yourself and how you operate? It would be worth completing an ‘Impact Analysis’ on your own impact on the people around you - do you give and add to, or do you take and diminish?
Do you have the courage to ask and listen to the responses you get back?