Branding And Social Responsibility: Where Do You stand?

This week in Kiev, Ukraine we (The Blake Project) will be delivering a presentation on Branding and Social Responsibility to a wide range of business leaders and marketers at the 2006 Brands Point Conference. While to many in western markets a link between branding and social responsibility has become an expectation, in emerging markets’ it’s a very new concept.

Where do you stand on this? Should companies have responsibility to anyone other than their shareholders? Is it right to trigger people’s deepest fears to sell them things? Is it a company’s role to sell people what is good for them rather than what they desire? Are people willing to pay a premium for socially responsible brands?

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Comments

[Bill Day]

Sounds as though you and Keith Ferrazzi might have something to say to each other (see, e.g. http://nevereatalone.typepad.com/blog/2006/11/kristen_silverb.html#comments".

[Derrick Daye]

Thanks Bill. I'll jump over there and learn his thoughts.

[rhonda page]

This is a really loaded topic. Something that I have a special interest in. I have recently become aware of LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) LOHAS is a group dediated to "conscious capitalism"

I think that "conscious capitalism" is a terms that needs more attention in business circles. The corporations are the ones who really have the ability to change things in a major way by creating and branding more responsible products. Many companies walk the talk but not the walk.

Consumer awareness is increasing especially in light of the recent Al Gore movie "An Inconvenient Truth" I think that corporations need to step up to the plate and really become truly conscious ie. less toxic chemicles (house hold cleaners for starters) the list goes on. We will probably reach a time when consumers will no longer put up with products that are not responsible. I think that Al Gore said we have a 10 year window to repair some of the damage to the planet.