Save water, drink Pepsi.

I recently bought a copy of
National Geographic, not a magazine I read unless it’s in the dentist’s waiting
room, but this issue is dedicated to water, one of my top eco subjects.
Predictably it’s full of well written articles and amazing photographs but what
left the biggest impression was actual an ad for PepsiCo.

It wasn’t a great ad, it was
really more editorial from the US CSR team but I was impressed with what they
are doing across their many brands that include Walkers, Pepsi, Gatorade,
Tropicana and Quaker. Untill now I didn’t know most of it. This is a syndrome
many big brands  suffer from,
because they don’t know how to marketing their ethics (traditional ad agencies
haven’t  a clue) many fear talking
about it and prefer to say nothing.

I recently sat in a meeting with
a well know big cosmetics brand trying to convince them to tell their story,
most were convinced except a financial director who kept rattling off the same
ignorant statement that ethical advertising always backfires. Why are finance
guys so blinkered? I tried to explain that if I was running the finances it’d
backfire, but when he runs it it is successful because he knows what to do. If
you employ experts, I remarked, you get good results. Employ fools you get
disaster.

Many brands have no idea how
profitable their good CSR can be as a marketing tool. Consumers want to like
brands, and like people, people who do good are more liked. No one likes nasty
people or nasty brands. Brands that keep getting bad press, like Nestle, are
bottom of the list.

The web has been a great tool
for revealing how loyal people are to some brands and has created the term ‘fan
brands’. These are the brands that people love enough to join a brand’s
Facebook group, like the 5 million fans who love Starbucks. This then becomes a
powerful group to tap into for feedback, and to act as brand ambassadors. It’s
interesting to see how fans will defend their brand against criticism, so
saving the PR department the trouble.

I was sent a confidential
document while I was researching my book from an unknown source that
highlighting PepsiCo’s commitment to selling products that did you good not
just made you less hungry or less thirsty. Reading it was the best ad ever.
Certainly PepsiCo have endured a few rough moments, Walkers crisps came under
fire by a House of Commons group looking at obesity and Pepsi has had to face
similar attacks that Coke endures.

But this is an organisation that
is now really committed to change, thanks to the leadership of Indra Nooyi, a
woman noted for her sharp business sense as well as her sense of humanity. Born
in India, she has championed their Performance with Purpose policy,
which is essentially a version of the Triple Bottom Line, balancing business
with people and the environment. The balance has made PepsiCo very successful,
proving business ethics and business works well. (Nestle please note.)

The problem with most CSR
documents is they promise the world and rarely deliver but PepsiCo seem to be
hitting targets. They aim to return I litre of water back for everyone taken,
which they have already managed to do in their India plants. In the UK Walkers
factory they have reduced water usage by 42% by using the moisture that
evaporates from the potatoes. In the US they now clean Gatorade bottles not
with water by purified air. Their Frito-Lay’s factory in Arizona now recycles
80% of water used. And a this ethical change also saves them money.

Amusingly, one of Coke’s great
straplines, when translated into one of the Chinese languages, reads ‘ Bring
your dead back to life’. Now, more seriously, brands like Coke, Pepsi (and many
other mass distributed products) could soon be the new saviours, preventing
millions of deaths from water-related illnesses

Now I will excuse you if you
feel I’ve just recycled PepsiCo’s ad in my blog but the point here. When brand
giants like Coke and Pepsi make even small changes, doing the walk rather than
just the ethical talk, the scale of that change and effect is massive.

More than one billion people
don’t have access to clean water, many people have to walk up to 4 miles a day
to get water and over 5000 children die a day from drinking dirty water. While
small charities run around trying to raise funds it only takes a big brand to donate
a small percentage of sale to save lives. Pepsi and Coke are both now well
involved with water projects around the world. As worthy as many small ethical
brands are it’s the big ones that really make a difference.

The other way big differences
can be made is via the web. What starts as a small group can soon become
massive, stretch across the planet and so influential big brands have to
listen. One example is ColaLife, created by Simon Berry.  It all started as an idea on Facebook,
and exploded. Berry has been trying to get Coke to use their vast distribution
network to help deliver life-saving medications and information in developing
countries. This concept, ColaLife, could help save hundreds of thousands of
people see  www.colalife.org .

Quoting Simon Berry: ‘Our idea is that
Coca-Cola could use their distribution channels (which are amazing in
developing countries) to distribute rehydration salts to the people that need
them desperately. Maybe by dedicating one compartment in every 10 crates as a
life as the “lifesaving compartment”? ‘ Gives new meaning to Coke’s famous
straplines ‘Life tastes good’ and ‘Coke adds life’.

Simon’s campaign has gathering a mass of
supporters by using the power of the web and social networking to spread the
word and create a digital community of activists. (Almost 4,000 joined the open
group on Facebook, with over 2500 on it’s fan page).

This case illustrates how one person can
very quickly gain enough momentum to be as powerful as a major charity in
applying pressure to large corporations. This is a new concept of David and
Goliath. Whereas the old model placed charities as the champions of a
particular issue or cause, now any passionate, driven member of the public can
soon gather a force behind them and push for change. There is some evidence
that issue websites are gaining more followers than traditional charity sites
in the States. Could common causes replace charitable organisations as the main
influencers in the future?

H2O Walk for Water, Walk for Life
is an open platform site (recently launched) that champions the cause of
supporting African water projects. It provides a powerful fundraising idea and
collateral to any charity or groups that wants to use it. The campaign fundraising
idea, Walk H2O, is simple – a sponsored walk between any place beginning with H
to a place beginning with O, hence H to O. Home to the office, Holborn to
Oxford Street, Highgate to Oxford, Horse and Hounds to the Old Ship pub. The
cleverness of the idea is that the public can pick their own route, which is
consumer engaging. Katey Corda, Project Co-ordinator, commented “we aim to get
over a million walkers within 2 years, far more than the Marathon.” The
campaign is non partisan, so not aligned to any charity, which means people can
pick their own charity to donate to and the site links to online giving
schemes.

This is a fairly unique approach but
offers them a chance to work together rather than apart, a big issue in the
charity world – there are almost 30 charities listed working in this area. By
using the same fundraising model they 
build a stronger overall fund raising campaign. If charities can get
over the politics, they can all gain which means less children die.

Both ColaLife and Walk H2O have been set
up by individuals but using the web both offer a better vehicle for the public
to embrace a cause than many traditional charity ideas. And unlike charity
campaigns, they aren’t compromised by committees, petty politics and red tape.
Consumers want to embrace causes more than brands.

The web now allows an individual to do
what a big charity could only do once. In America one water charity, The
African Well Fund, has been set up by U2 fans and works with schools and people
across a large geographical area. Run by volunteers, charities like this can
work as a virtual group and be just as effective as traditional charities with
offices and staff.

The future for fundraising may well be
between issue based groups and corporations, after all it’s a lot less
political working with a non partisan group like H2O Walk than linking with
just one charity and have to ignore the rest.