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Thursday Apr 20, 2006
Poor old McDonalds
The Observer published an interesting article last weekend on the Ethical Index published by The Fraser Consultancy. The index surveyed over 1,300 consumers, asking them to rank UK and overseas brands according to their 'ethical profile'.
To my mind there weren't any great surprises (although, interestingly, Camelot came in at number 8), with McDonalds topping the list.
As The Observer points out, the Index suggests that public perceptions are often based on past controversies, rather than current initiatives and efforts by companies to change the way they do business.
I'm strongly committed to consumers encouraging (forcing?) companies to adopt ethical, responsible business practices, but I also think it can be all to easy to blame the 'usual suspects', without looking into what these companies are doing to change.
For example, the McDonalds CSR blog doesn't exactly seem to be packed full of challenging comments from consumers. Is this because we can't get past thinking it's all spin, or because it's just easier to take a pop at evil Uncle Ronald without engaging in open and honest dialogue with them?
(Or is it just the slightly scary Terms and Conditions of the blog - they don't exactly encourage open debate!).
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 12:41 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]