Do you “like” me now?

I was on AM 1377 radio last week talking about corporate giving in times of crisis and brands. Bing Lee got the whole thing rolling with their ill advised, clumsy and roundly criticised socialmedia “a like for a dollar” campaign, but there is plenty of other fodder to go around.

Just a sampling: Reports from a Coles supplier that a letter had been sent from corporate demanding $5k towards their$1 million pledge; A local coffee shop promoting that they will donate $2 for every cup of coffee people buy; the list goes on and on.

Let me start by saying that in my mind you should NEVER use a disaster as a sales or marketing opportunity. End of story.

If you want to donate, then donate, and by all means tell your customers you did. But to expect or ask for some business benefit in return just feels opportunistic and is likely to be perceived as such by more than a few customers, thereby damaging your brand in the process – unless or course you are ruthlessly opportunistic all the time in which case it will be seen as business as usual!

I have also seen many people question how offers like this are any different to McHappy Day, where purchases of burgers contribute to Ronald McDonald House; or Mount Franklin water who donate a percentage of purchases or “pink” water to breast cancer research; or any other of these kinds of campaigns.

It’s a fine line, but they are different. Annual or ongoing fundraising campaigns have a different response than an appeal around a disaster. The impact of seeing and hearing about such vast numbers of people in immediate danger and distress carries an impact and emotional weight that makes our response more extreme.

Companies and businesses need to be sensitive to this and in their desire to help, stop and examine their own motivations and the perceptions they could set.

A quote I read in the comments section of an article about the Bing Lee campaign sums it up quite nicely:

“Rather than forcing people to “Like” them in order for them to be charitable, they really should have been charitable as the basis for people to like them.”

To use the coffee shop as an example, instead of tying their donation to customer purchases, they could have looked at their average Friday receipts and used that as a guide for the donation amount. Then after the fact, tell each customer who bought a coffee on the Friday that their coffee had been honored with a donation to the appeal. Win/win.

I’ve also been shocked by the lack of imagination being used by big corporates in their response. The ‘throw some money at it’ approach is fine, but in reality there are more practical donations banks, supermarkets and goods retailers could make. We know from past example that the money in these relief funds can be very slow to trickle out to those in need.

Just a few ideas in case anyone in those companies are reading:

• How about the banks band together (they do anyway on interest rates) and declare a three (or be generous six) month respite on mortgage payments for anyone effected by the floods, and why not add12 months interest free for good measure (and good will).
• Supermarkets could put together a clean-up kit for every home affected, including trash bags, cleaning products and mops, and deliver to homes or just give them out to the thousands of volunteers who are lining up everyday to help.
• Harvey Norman and other national goods retailers could provide replacement products with proof of insurance and get paid when the householders get their money, rather then them having to wait to get their money before they can replace things.

Now I know, I know, the administration of these kinds of ideas is prohibitive and that is probably just the first in along line of reasons why they ‘can’t’ be done. But why not do them anyway? We are a resilient and resourceful nation, and while ‘Here’s a million dollars’ is nothing anyone is going to criticise – there are many, many more immediate ways that our corporates can demonstrate their social responsibility in times of need.

See you next week.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognise who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.