From I to Them to We: The Revolution of Brand Engagement
There is a real revolution going on right now among serious branding organizations. It's popping up everywhere, from many of the presentations at Brand Manage Camp (which I attended a couple weeks ago in Vegas) to yesterday's Harvard Business Review blog by Howard Schultz, President and CEO of Starbucks. It goes like this, to borrow a key quote from the Schultz blog: "It is no longer enough to serve customers, employees, and shareholders. As corporate citizens of the world, it is our responsibility - our duty - to serve the communities where we do business by helping to improve, for example, the quality of citizens' education, employment, health care, safety, and overall daily life, plus future prospects." From BP to Walmart, Starbucks to Southwest, the most well known branding companies have implemented Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives to either support reputation management or improve on their reputation capital. And it's not only good