COMPANY: Diageo
PR AGENCY: Westhill
Partners
CATEGORY: Corporate Social Responsibility/Community
Affairs
BUDGET: N/A
TIMEFRAME: 2001-2004
When it comes to liquor giant Diageo's global commitment
to social causes and civic involvement, you might say it all comes
down to a hill of beans.
"A major staple of the diet in the Dominican Republic is red
beans, of which there are four grades. But only Grade A is
permitted for food, even in a disaster. If you don't know that and
send Grade B, they sit in a warehouse and don't get to the people
who need them," says Guy Smith, executive vice president of
corporate relations at Diageo North America, whose drinks portfolio
includes Smirnoff, Guinness, Johnnie Walker,
Cuervo and Beaulieu Vineyards.
Why that's a rule -- or a law -- Smith has no idea. "But in the
middle of a disaster you don't have time to argue, because it's
their country, and you've got to do it," he says. "They don't want
poor quality dumped on them, whether it's a disaster or not.
There's usually a good reason, but it's all about the details."
Helping Diageo tell its Grade A and Grade B beans apart is
The Bridge Foundation, a non-governmental organization (NGO)
that helps facilitate such humanitarian projects.
Five-year-old Diageo, consisting of several companies, including
Guinness, Hueblein, Pillsbury and Burger King,
has a history and policy of social responsibility and civic
involvement. For some time, though, water-based projects have been
important.
Prior to 9/11, unless a specific facility of the company was hit
with a disaster, Diageo focused more on such corporate civic
activities as providing fresh water to third- world regions like
Africa or Asia.
After the first attack on the Twin Towers, Diageo sent bottled
water to the devastated area. Then it established a million-dollar
matching fund for emergency workers to supply "tough-book
computers, the kind you can role a truck over," Smith says. "Our
employees kept saying 'do more.' So we provided a special camp for
9/11 victims to help with trauma."
Following 9/11, the company decided to expand its efforts
globally, launching the Diageo "Spirit of America," relief fund. In
December 2001, it launched the first humanitarian airlift to
Afghanistan, delivering more than 100,000 pounds of food to 800
orphans in Kabul.
"We decided we'd go from Ground Zero in the United States to
Ground Zero in Afghanistan," Smith says.
He adds: "We put together a team of New York City firefighters
and cops from Ground Zero, and flew in food and supplies. We also
took pieces of the towers and of airplanes from Ground Zero and
buried them in a special ceremony, which was very emotional and
covered by the world media. It's important that we don't send a
check. We take supplies to those who can benefit."
Working with such local organizations as the World Food
Program, in May 2003, just after formal hostilities in Iraq had
ended, Diageo transported a cargo-load of food, medicine and school
supplies to Baghdad via the same team of firefighters, cops, and
employees.
Invariably, Smith says, disasters happen in places with no
infrastructure. For example, the island of Hispaniola was
devastated in June 2004 by torrential rain, flooding and
earthquakes. The death toll was in the thousands.
"The supplies had to be put onto boats in the airport at Haiti's
Port Au Prince, because there was very little road structure in
outlaying areas," Smith says. "Then, using mules and people's
backs, we trekked 20 kilometers inland. So you need to work through
complex issues."
Diageo's corporate-relations department is staffed with people
who have led disaster missions to more than 70 countries for Diageo
and for other organizations. "When a disaster strikes, we have a
critical mass of talent skilled in working with NGOs and
governments," Smith says. "If we have a business in the affected
country, then we work closely with them."
Not that Diageo just goes to where it has established
businesses. "Our products are not sold in Afghanistan and never
will be," he adds. "The return is the feeling and the pride that
our employees have in their direct ability to touch specific
locations and people we do work with."
Deciding on which disaster to address became a major issue after
a tsunami hit Southeast Asia on Dec. 26, 2004. "We do business in
all the countries struck, so you have to husband resources
carefully and make choices," Smith says. "It's based on what we
think we're able to do and on a case-by-case basis."
Why does Diageo do it? "It's a very effective way of being able
to immediately and positively touch a community harmed either by
nature or man," Smith says. "Our employees are very involved,
offering everything from ideas and suggestions to their own money,
which the company matches."
For instance, when the main sponsor pulled out of providing the
annual 2003 Thanksgiving dinner for the Connecticut Food
Bank, employees heard it on the news and asked the company to
take action. The result: 12,000 turkeys delivered, feeding 72,000
people.
From a PR standpoint, the aim is to facilitate such efforts,
says Rachel Rosenblatt, an executive with Westhill Partners
who has worked with Diageo on such projects for several years.
"We're just a part of the team here, and it ranges from the
logistical side, coordinating with The Bridge foundation, to
dispatching via e-mail an hourly update of how the mission is
going. People like it because they can vicariously participate,"
she says.
Rosenblatt also emphasizes that the aim is not to get media hits
or press clips. "Sometimes we put out a press release, but we
didn't, for example, on the Afghanistan trip because we took media
with us. We were all over them, and we got a lot of reflected
sunshine on that."
Not that they are unaware of the image aspects.
"We like to be seen as a corporation made up of families who
care," Smith says. "We like to have a value system that matches our
employees' value systems.
"We have consumers, distributors and retailers, many of whom
contribute and give us positive feedback," he adds. "Obviously, we
track the media in all our products and brands, but we don't, as a
rule, count specific hits on anything."
Adds Rosenblatt, "We hope that by seeing the work that we do,
other companies will get the idea in their head that this is
something they can also do."
As for results, Diageo says that, since 2001, it has coordinated
humanitarian missions to seven countries, hand-delivered more than
338,999 pounds of aid, and fed nearly one million people.
"I can't tell you how proud of our people I feel. I was on
elevator one day and two employees I didn't know said, 'What are we
going to do in Darfur?'" he says. "The day the tsunami hit, we
started getting e-mails asking, 'What are we gonna do?' That's just
cool."
Contacts: Guy Smith, 203.229.7755, [email protected]; Rachel
Rosenblatt, 212.279.4410, [email protected]
'Every Little Detail Matters'
Logistics often present Diageo with its biggest problem --
whether it's flying in and out of a hurricane, landing in
Afghanistan without its plane being shot down by either the Taliban
or the U.S. Air Force, or getting supplies from Kabul to an
orphanage where the bridges have been blown up. Then there's the
bean problem. "We often discover within hours of our departure that
there's no Grade-A beans in the state of Florida, and the only
place we can find them is in the state of Colorado and, so, how do
we get them there?" Smith asks. "Every little detail matters."