The Big Advertising Boycott: How Companies Can Effect Change

Dear Community,

I have not yet written in depth here about marketing, but today, I feel this is due: Something is occurring that reaches far beyond marketing. We are seeing what can happen when companies act as responsible members of our society.

Three years ago, I suggested the concept of a Corporate Media Responsibility and encouraged companies to consider this. My thesis: Companies have enormous marketing budgets. When they allocate money for advertising, their very first consideration is the effect. Ads have to be worth it; they should generate business or bolster a certain image. And, along with that, companies greatly influence how our society is to be shaped.

Who is strengthened through their advertising dollars, and who is weakened? Take for example a platform such as Facebook - or companies and publishing houses that invest heavily in the attempt to come at least a little closer to the truth, to establish facts, to get to the bottom of something. That costs money. Others, though, are less interested in doing this.

For me, it wasn’t about demanding a boycott of Facebook. We at Gruner + Jahr are also interwoven, in a variety of ways, in this network of relationships that has around 2.6 billion members. I am thrilled by the opportunities that social media can open to us when it is truly social. I’m just now getting active on LinkedIn, but I already have the impression that it is a very civilized platform. That is something I’m happy to take part in. But for me it has been very much about ending the irrational exaltation that accompanies the activities of certain individual players, aside from the lively debates in intellectual circles. For me, it came and still comes down to this: Do things consciously. Reflect upon your advertising activities: Are we giving our money to worthy partners? Do they act responsibly? How do they handle their Media Responsibility?

The business’s success depends on the condition of the society it finds itself in.

A debate kicked off, and that was actually my intention. Some voices tried to simplify my argument: They argued I was prompting businesses to decide against their own economic interests for a greater good. Wrong. On the contrary, I want businesses to act precisely in their own interests! The business’s success depends on the condition of the society it finds itself in. Is it conducive to economic activity if our society loses its sense of community step by step? What company can be successful—that is, sell their products—in a society that has rendered civilized discussion impossible, where people have lost their fundamental understanding of one another, stopped listening to each other, or even hate each other?

And now, this! Influential corporations such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Levi’s, Verizon, and Starbucks are following an idea that emerged from a US civil rights movement by scrutinizing their advertising spending on Facebook and other social media platforms. And in Germany, Vodafone’s brand marketing director, Gregor Gründgens, recently shared some sharp criticism of Facebook.

I am not calling for a boycott. I am calling for responsible action that is considerate of society as a whole. A Corporate Media Responsibility must apply to everyone. US businesses are waking up to this in a drastic way. Facebook has yet to learn.

This goes out to entrepreneurs as well as decision-makers: We have power. We have choices! Our actions impact society. It is our responsibility to choose accordingly.