Corporate Social Responsibility

The idea that most Americans have lost the ability to speak civilly to each other in these uncertain times may not be Robert Reich’s alone, but he offered an imperative specific to the 2,500+ communicators at the international PRSA confab—in an age when people don’t know how to talk to each other, or how to listen, it’s communications pros who must act as stewards and promoters of civility. “You are people who set the tone very much for what we and how we communicate,” Reich says. “And there is now a vitriol, and anger in the system. We are not communicating.”

Brands make sustainability commitments all the time. Some gain headlines and go viral. Others receive little or no coverage. A veteran of sustainability communications, FleishmanHillard SVP Bob Axelrod, offers four tips to ensure your sustainability efforts and other CSR work will receive the coverage it merits.

Goldman Sachs offered a blanket denial to the reporting from a story published earlier this week in the New York Times, which accuses Goldman of dismissing claims from a top executive who used the firm’s own whistleblower hotline to call out a litany of ethical violations he saw from the inside. Goldman’s statements on the matter call to question why transparency and accountability remain so difficult for the bank to put into practice, and its statements similarly raise more questions.

LG Mobile has partnered with actress Aubrey Plaza to bring $200K worth of LG G7 ThinQ smart phones and service to aid recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, which is still recuperating from the aftermath of the 2017 hurricane season. Plaza announced the initiative on Twitter, and LG sent her to Puerto Rico to hand-deliver phones with the non-profit The Hispanic Federation.

From a business perspective, many people thought CVS was crazy to remove tobacco products from its shelves back in September 2014. Today the country’s largest pharmacy chain doubled down on its bet, announcing it will pledge $10 million to the American Cancer Society in an effort to help people lead healthier lives. Whatever else you want to say about CVS, it knows how to do CSR.

In each edition of PR News we highlight takeaways from select articles as well as additions to the PR News Resources Center, available to subscribers only. This edition highlights a new report from Yum! Brands and a short but terrific template for editorial submissions.

“First we eat, then we do everything else,” the preeminent American food writer M.F.K. Fisher once proclaimed. We can all agree that food is an important part of our lives. So when the CEO of… Continued

More than a hollow and cookie-cutter corporate document, “Toward a Vision for Racial Equity & Inclusion at Starbucks: Review and Recommendations” reads as a realigning of perspectives and priorities. This is the work of a brand that has taken a hard, honest look at itself and is ready to share what it has learned.

Conventional wisdom held that brands should avoid weighing in on politics or social issues. But as research reports and surveys show, consumers now want brands to stand for something beyond goods and services. That said, brands wade into the political world on several levels, although they do so at their peril, and sometimes their motivation is unclear.

As we know, brands must stand for something beyond the products and services they offer. This means they can no longer remain silent in the face of an attack. They also need to admit when they make mistakes. Margaret Hoerster, a senior partner at Finn Partners, and Ameet Sachdev, a VP at the firm, argue timing, messaging and relevance play important roles when brands decide they should address an issue publicly.