Marketing Masquerades as Charity

Question: Where do you draw the line between altruism and advertising?

Dec 1, 2008  

by Fil Fraser

Our focus is to help build sustainable communities, recognizing that they must have solid infrastructure and programming in four interrelated areas: education, health and safety, culture and community, and the environment. Intrinsically, we hold all of our community partners in high regard for their ongoing goals of creating resource capacity in their area of focus, whether it be addressing the needs of marginalized populations and the issue of homelessness, or in helping lessen the impacts of health-related issues, all of which work towards supporting the goal of having vibrant and healthy communities. We believe that the opportunity to profile a not-for-profit organization with whom we partner through the advertising medium, either through a contractual sponsorship benefit provision or through a voluntary agreement, has many mutual benefits.

Ken Chapman: The ethical issue of marketing masquerading as charity will not arise for those enlightened corporations who understand that business is being measured by a different set of standards these days. The traditional financial performance measure of acceptable performance within the law was all that a private-sector enterprise had to satisfy. That is no longer the case with the advent of new, complex moral-actor standards. Now companies have to deliver sustained shareholder returns, quality products and services but conduct themselves as responsible agents that conduct their business in a moral framework.

This new moral framework is not [morality] in the strict religious sense. It is more about exercising moral judgment in how they do business, accept responsibility for good deeds and misdeeds, be aware and responsive to the needs of others as they manage their own values and commitments. That is often expressed in the “giving back to the community” corporate activities at the institutional, management and employee levels.

The issue of advertising versus altruism viewed through that moral actor “giving back to the community” lens becomes a distinction without a difference. Such moral-actor altruism is good business. Altruism that you are proud of and that is embedded in the culture of the enterprise that is part of the orienting narrative of the company will get acknowledged and be talked about. It will get recognized and admired by others as reputations are enhanced and esteem rises as a result.
If, on the other hand, the motivation for “altruism” is pure publicity and name recognition, then the authenticity of the charitable intent comes into question. That does not raise an ethical issue to my mind. It is more of a value trade-off issue. Having a sports arena carry a corporate name is likely pure advertising and marketing. Having a school of business or hospital facility carry a name is possibly pure marketing but it has the possibility of being more altruistic. Having a social-service facility not related to the business mandates would tend to be more altruistic, but is still good marketing.

At the end of the day, whatever the reasons, I see no serious ethical issues between advertising and altruism for commercial enterprises that use charitable relationships and sponsorships for promotional purposes.

The Final Word
So maybe there’s no such thing as altruism in a corporate context and, according to our panel, that’s OK. Still, there are many campaigns, masked by a cloak of altruism, that are purely commercial. This magazine often gets pitches from companies about stories they think that we should cover as news, but that are really designed to put them in a good light. The good news is that most companies know where to draw the line between pure marketing and socially responsible contributions, attaching the fewest strings to their contributions to the most worthy causes. For those that don’t, be careful. In the world of YouTube, the public has developed very effective radar to tell the difference, and to tell the world. If it seems phony, it probably is.

The Right Call is a rotating panel examining issues of corporate ethics. If you’d like advice on a compromising situation (no names used), send details to feedback.

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