Brand Evaluation

In the show Pinky and the Brain there is 2 mice that join together to try and take over the world. The idealism that 2 mice could take over the world is a bit of a fallacy no matter how brainy the brain is or pinky the pinky is. For instance there is 7,262,900,000 humans and counting on this world and therefore the mice would encounter a few issues unless they had some really good mice propoganda or have alot of influence already

But each person can influence the world. Much like a ocean wouldnt be the current ocean without each drop. Although it is apparent that the drops in the ocean is highly dynamic with the effects of evaporation, rain, flow from rivers that occur all the time.

So if 1 person can influence the world slightly. A group of people with congruent effort can have a larger effect (think a ripple). Which is why collective groups can be quite useful. And a country of people with a congruent belief can have the effect of wave. Especially if there is a swing in belief from view to another over time. (Which is why i guess alot of change campaign do tend to target awareness although awareness creates no action)

Now diverting attention to companies, a company has a similar structure to a country in that there is a representative of the company (CEO). The direction a company takes can impact the moral of its workers and also the society at large. So what represents a good company. What values do we expect. What type of industry do we expect. How should they get customers. How should they attempt to get new customers. Are they actually benefiting society from an overall perspective.

As consumers do we spend enough time actually evaluating companies we buy from. As a case example there has been a focus on for instance fair trade products as a way of making companies more accountable but ultimately that just lead to a niche market targeting a particular clan of consumers rather than a fundamental shift in the industry. Why doesnt the industry change ? Well there is a enforcer of accountable to society at large in most industries. The media can encourage in most multinational bad practices to be investigated. There many examples of this including live export of animals by ship, slave labour etc.

So why do companies think or want to get away with bad practices. Well one of the main reasons i feel is because they know they generally can. What is reported about a company to the stock exchanges is generally financial information combined with fairy floss picture of where the company is going and what they are doing well or not. Although companies have a set of values the overaching goal is to keep ones job and to maximise profit.

There is two way that maximise profit and benefiting society can be more aligned in the current structure. A shift in a company aligning their practices to only designing and developing products that benefit society. Although this is noble this will create an undersupply of the bad stuff that people really want ie. fast food, fizzy drinks, smokes, 4 wds. The undersupply will create attractive market conditions for any competitor or new entrant and so the noble company has just become more noble but basically created a void to be filled as the next not as noble company.



The other approach is for consumers themselves to change their spending behaviour to focus more on only buying things that benefit society. This will result in a reduction in demand for the bad stuff and so the market will need to adjust and make the society better or be caught in the dust. The only way that a consumer can make better spending decisions is actually researching and critiquing the company rather than falling for general advertising tricks etc.

What are some of your favourite companies do they meet the test. More important as stated what is benefiting soceity entail (cheap goods ?, employs people   ?, follows law  ?, embraces change ?, vision ?, R & D ? and puts back meaningfully in the communities it operates in ?)