Oct. 2008 Issue of The Advertiser
Responsible to Whom?
By Andrew Susman

There has, of late, been quite the buzz around the issue of corporate social responsibility and its close cousin, socially responsible advertising. Perhaps this is because of the election season, or the publicity surrounding the global warming issue, or perhaps just a product of the times. Buzz aside, however, social responsibility in advertising is not a new idea.

Old-timers will remember how Bill Bernbach refused to take a cigarette account back in the days when cigarette accounts were the most lucrative business an agency could get. Coca-Cola wrapped its entire brand in the feel-good gauze of teaching the world to sing "in perfect harmony" as the globe was seemingly coming apart at the fault lines back in the early 1970s. Even the Vatican, not particularly renowned for its trove of literature on business, put out a paper under the auspices of a "Pontifical Council for Social Communications" on the issue in 1997 (not surprisingly, it came down squarely in favor of messages that promulgate its own views).

No doubt some of the buzz has been generated by the International Advertising Association, which just this year issued its first Global Responsibility Awards. They were created "to stimulate the advertising industry's commitment to responsible communications and demonstrate the powerful contribution this community has already made toward worldwide issues of environmental and social responsibility." The winner of the top award, dubbed the Grand Prix, was TBWA\Paris for its film "Signatures" for Amnesty International.

There are good business reasons to jump on this bandwagon. Just last year, Millward Brown, the marketing research company, found that in many cases delivering on the promise of social responsibility provided a significant boost to brand value.

But who defines what constitutes social responsibility? There are those in government and politics who would harness the power of brand advertising to help further their agendas. Unfortunately for them, this is unconstitutional, in the U.S. at least. So they jawbone in an effort to convince companies to incorporate social responsibility into their day-to-day operations and their advertising.

The danger for advertisers and their agencies is that one person’s concept of social responsibility might differ greatly from that of another. Should a company risk alienating potential customers in order to convey a message that has nothing to do with selling its products?

To paraphrase the late journalist A.J. Liebling's famous observation on the press, the role of advertising in our society is to provide financial support to media; its function is to sell products and services. Similarly, the role of the corporation (the advertiser) is to produce those goods and services; its function is to make money for its shareholders.

Bernbach could refuse tobacco accounts because he owned the ad agency. A CEO of a publicly held agency today could face shareholder lawsuits, perhaps even unemployment, for doing the same.

Beware, then, the siren song of enhancing brand value by embracing social causes. Coke had it right with its sing-song campaign: No matter where you stood on what issue, it was difficult to dislike that ad and the product it sold.

Andrew Susman is president of New York-based Studio One Networks (StudioOneNetworks.com)