#Orchids&Onions: Ford drives conservation forward, Platinum Life stalls on trust
If you want to really make a difference to the society in which you operate, a cynical European businessman I know says, then make your products more affordable. Take the money you would spend doing good needs for perhaps a small minority of needy people (or animals, or biospheres) and do good across a broader front by lowering your prices.
I don’t think the equation of corporate holiness is that easily solved, though… and there are corporates who, in this country particularly, do good work funding organisations which need it.
Nedbank’s Green Trust was set up in 1990, in co-operation with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). We took it up, donating small amounts off our credit cards… and we still do. Well, at least my wife does because I left the bank some time ago.
KFC’s Add Hope campaign, which has received an Orchid from me previously, has put more than R1 billion into child feeding schemes over the past 15 years – R600 million from the voluntary R2 donations from customers and R400 million from the company itself.
And, while proper CSI should be its own reward, it must been especially pleasing to a brand to see their philanthropy picked up and acknowledged on a global platform.
Driving conservation forward
Such is the case with the Ford Wildlife Foundation in South Africa, which has just featured on CNN’s global Call to Earth programme which showcases some of the world’s most notable conservation initiatives.
In this case, it was a project partly backed by Ford’s foundation which is trying to save the endangered “sandvis” (sand fish) in the rivers of the Western Cape. The fish is in danger from environmental degradation as well as from alien predator species… so it needs all the help it can get.
In a beautifully shot film which ran on CNN’s global platforms recently, researchers are seen capturing and then releasing sandfish into rivers and dams where they can be protected. All the while, in a number of tracking shots, Ford’s Ranger bakkie – donated by the company to the project – is featured.
You can watch the Ford Wildlife Foundation video here.
And why not? Rangers are supplied to around two dozen projects in the conservation space in southern Africa and researchers are grateful for the mobility.
Orchids to Ford and to the researchers. This is what CSI is all about… and it’s authentic marketing to boot.
When cold calls cross the line
The opposite of authenticity is downright lying, which is what Platinum Life did to me recently. For those who haven’t encountered these hard-core phone insurance sellers, they often call you because your name and contact details have been passed on to them by one of your friends. This is in return, effectively, for a bribe of a small gift.
That’s fine ethically – although it must have destroyed many friendships in a world increasingly conscious of privacy.
However, in my case, when I asked who had given them my details, they gave me a name which rang no bells whatsoever and sounded like a rap artist or break dancer. Do I look like I move in those circles?
The cold caller tried to maintain this was the case, and then backed off when I suggested her company was probably illicitly buying data bases.
It’s probably not her fault - she works with what she is given, she said. Then the problem seems to be that someone in Platinum Life is not beyond composing false stories to lure people.
That’s not a good look for a company involved in insurance which should be a business based on trust.
So, Platinum Life you get an Onion from me… on the recommendation of my good mate, Cyril Ramaphosa…
