Cause related marketing, is it truly an expression of a corporations social conciousness?
second but focused primarily in Oregon, which is where the Nike world headquarters is based, and across the USA.
If you were to unassumingly browse through these sections of the Nike website it would be quite easy to believe that Nike are a company with great morals, excellent employee relations and a strong social conscience. However as with any company you must look through their marketing and discover the reasons behind it. Its interesting to note that the first two causes that are effective globally, were only introduced in 1997, and 2001, specifically their cause that focuses on the development of their employees in countries such as South East Asia and Pakistan. 1 year prior to these causes been implemented a report was released by the Vietnam Labor Watch that exposed the working conditions and wages of sweatshop workers employed to manufacture Nike Products. The report found that employees were receiving 20c per hour and averaging $1.60 a day when the cost for eating 3 simple meals a day was $2.10.
· Employees could not go to the Bathroom more than once per 8 hour shift and were not allowed to drink water more than twice per 8 hour shift.
· It was a common occurrence for workers to faint from exhaustion, heat fumes and poor nutrition during their shift.
· Verbal abuse and harassment is frequents and corporal punishment is often used.
· Women workers have complained about sexual harassment from foreign supervisors.
· At the Sam Yang factory that has 6000 employees, only one doctor works 2 hours a day, but the factory operates 20 hours a day.
· While Vietnams wage laws say the maximum yearly overtime is 200 hours. On average Nike factory workers are forced to work in excess of 500 hours overtime per year.
· Almost all of the workers interviewed said they had lost weight since working at the Nike factories.
· Other non-Nike shoe factories visited in Vietnam paid higher wages and had much better working conditions.
After this report was released Nike received a Moral hailstorm from the public and their corporate image was in serious trouble. They took steps to rebuild their image by employing a team of PR experts and 1 year later had implemented cause related marketing schemes to improve their public reputation by appearing to have a social conscience.
It is obvious in this case that Nike’s cause related marketing is not truly an expression of their social consciousness, but rather an attempt to improve their public image. If the conditions of Nikes factory workers were never revealed to the public eye then Nike would not have had to implement these cause related marketing schemes, and the situation of their factory workers would not have changed.