Tapped is a movie about water. The kind of water we drink in bottles that we throw away. Water that in many cases is free, municipal tap water that Coke and Pepsi repackage at a huge profit. Yup, Coke and Pepsi sell you water you can get for free from a faucet. We feel good drinking bottled water, but we're just helping Coke and Pepsi keep their market share. Those who drink their sugary products put money into their corporate pockets, and we who drink their watery products are doing the same. Tapped sounds like the kind of movie that should play on Planet Green. But the producers of Tapped found out that Planet Green won't show the movie because it might upset Planet Green advertisers like Nestle, Coke and Pepsi. You know, the people who are selling us all that hugely-profitable bottled water. Planet Green brands itself as an environmentally green network. Looks like they care about a different kind of green a lot more.
Capitalism sucks, right?
Hold on now.
Causecast is a group that is using the engine of capitalism to drive social change. (RED) is a cause-driven marketing campaign that has raised millions of dollars, using capitalism to divert corporate marketing budgets to address HIV health issues in Africa. Creative Visions Foundation supports creative activists worldwide. LivingHomes uses a for-profit capitalist business model to build healthy, green, sustainable houses. The people who founded or manage these companies were on a panel event in Santa Monica this week called Changing the World IS My Business co-hosted by The Writers Junction, Smarty, and Causecast.
The message was simple. You can do well by doing good. Making money is okay. Social movements can start online and then be heard in the corporate boardroom.
(RED), for example, is a for-profit business that hired a talented marketer named Julie Cordua. She signed on big brands like Apple, Gap, Converse, Dell, Starbucks and Nike and got them to buy into the idea (literally - the corporations pay license fees to participate) that a shopper's purchase would benefit The Global Fund. When you buy a (RED) branded shirt at GAP, Gap sends 50% of its profits to the Global Fund, and in turn the Global Fund uses all of that money to finance HIV health and support programs in Africa, focusing on women and children. We feel good about GAP (even though GAP sometimes does bad stuff, too) and we buy more.
Causecast informs you about causes and encourages you to help. Its founder and CEO, Ryan Scott, created "opt-in" email marketing and made a bundle, so he knows about capitalism.
(Causecast also manages this section of the Huffington Post.) Capitalism, as everyone on the panel pointed out, is a huge social driver. Why not use it to drive social change? Ryan cited a study that showed that corporate values matter to buyers. According to the Cone 2007 Cause Evolution Study, 83 percent of Americans say that companies have a responsibility to support causes and 92 percent say they have a more positive image of a company that supports a cause they care about.
It's good for business if a company's values include supporting a worthy cause.
It's good for your company if you filter your actions through a clearly-defined set of values. Steve Glenn, for example, said that every decision his company LivingHomes makes about materials and methods arises from an examination of its values. He finds that the homes he builds change the people who live in them. Green as a way of life.
So what's up with Planet Green, the somewhat greenish network? Spurred on by Stephanie Soechtig, the director/producer of Tapped, people are friending Planet Green's Facebook page to tell them to act, um, a little more green. Facebook as an engine of social change? Not surprising. Another Cone research study has it that 62% of Americans believe they can influence corporations by sounding off on social media platforms.
Big companies may act like infants sometimes, grabbing at an advertiser's money at the expense of their stated values. Do we really have to be the parent here? Yes, we do, when it comes to helping corporations remain true to their stated vision. Online voices keep corporations real.
Hold Planet Green to its values by going on Facebook and telling them to live up to the environmentally green part of their name. Join Planet Green the Group = Planet Green Washing on Facebook.
Editor's Note: HuffPost Impact is a collaboration with The Huffington Post and Causecast.
Follow Lee Schneider on Twitter: www.twitter.com/docuguy
As for the rest of your article, I liked what you wrote about Causecast and social media. I also agree with your statistic about the important role social media can play in holding corporations (or politicians) accountable. However, I think it's worth remembering that social media tools are powerful weapons that are best used responsibly. Starting a social media movement is sometimes a good way to let a corporation or network hear your concerns or demands (f ex: Betty White on SNL and Nestle using destructive palm oil), but when a movement is based on a false accusation, participants can become unwilling tools in a smear campaign. Organizers must be honest and participants should be skeptical enough to make sure they put their social media efforts towards worth-while causes.
Unfortunately, you've been misinformed about why we passed on buying Tapped. Possible concerns of advertisers played no role. The truth is, we're pitched many films and can only choose a small fraction to show on-air. Although Tapped wasn't one of the few we chose last year, we promoted it in blog posts on both of our sites. We have a post on TreeHugger entitled "Go See Tapped Tonight" and on PlanetGreen.com we reported on the exact accusation the filmmaker is now throwing at us.
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/feature/instrumental/jack-johnson-bottled-water.html
In that article we wrote, "According to the film makers, in the documentary Tapped, practically no one in the entertainment industry would appear in the film because they feared the backlash of the three biggest bottled water manufacturers - Nestle, Coke, and Pepsi."
Why would we report on that if we were concerned about offending those companies? It makes no sense.
I think if you look at the films we've shown and those that we have scheduled it's clear we're showing powerful films with strong messages. You can see a list of some of the films we'll be showing here: http://corporate.discovery.com/discovery-news/planet-green-announces-14-acquisitions-at-miptv-20/ And here's a list of those we've already shown: http://www.facebook.com/PlanetGreen?v=app_10467688569
I hope this is useful. Email if you have any questions.
Yes. Big corporations do many dishonest things out of line with their professed values in order to make money. Certainly, tv networks depend on their advertisers for their livelihood and cannot antagonize them. That's the way our system works. Instead of patting corporations on the back for the good they do or condemning them for the bad, we should police their behavior and hold them accountable to the kinds of laws to which we hold individuals?
The fraud isn't just the false statement that Coca-Cola's bottled water isn't tap water. It's also the statement made by the 'health and nutrition' industry that bottled water is better than tap water. Then there is the 'green' industry's promotion of costly and wasteful recycling processes that may do more damage than they prevent.
There are a wealth of frauds involved... up to and including the big pat on the back being given to corporations for contributing to worthy causes. I was just reading about Nike's charitable activities, extolling their children's charities while ignoring their funding of abusive and socially destructive systems of child exploitation.
Everything I read today seems connected to everything else. Very surreal.