Fostering Good Will

http://www.jnj.com/connect/caring/patient-stories/environment/

Above is the website for Johnson & Johnson's website where they share what they do to help the communities around them. I like how they didn't call themselves a green company or give misconceptions that they don't do anything wrong to the environment. On this page they really just focused on letting people know that they are taking active steps toward being less harmful to the environment. I also liked that they took the time to give examples of things they are doing around the globe and not just in the United States. I think that helped with establishing global good will with all their customers around the world. The hybrid transportation cars and solar paneled work sites were impressive changes for me that many companies could and should emulate.

Balancing Good News with Bad News

Today I was looking at the Mc Donald's website and I decided to look at their corporate press releases. I noticed that the first story was about them voluntarily recalling their Shrek Forever After glassware. I opened up this story and found that while a recall can be bad news for most companies, Mc Donald's had chosen to spin it into a good thing. They talked about how they followed all federal and state requirements in regards to the glassware and there was also a third party independent company that was over seeing the manufacturing of the glassware. While a company like Toyota had a recall situation this year the outcome was completely different. Mostly because it was not a voluntary recall and a tremendous amount of information was hidden from the public for quite some time. Mc Donald's also had the support of Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) vouching for them stating “When the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission approached McDonald’s about cadmium in their current movie-themed drinking glasses, the company responded quickly, agreed to cooperate fully and acted on the side of caution,” said Scott Wolfson, Director of the Office of Information and Public Affairs, CPSC. This showed the company's concern for their customers well being. I liked the way they mad it a point to address the issue instead of waiting for it to possibly become an avoidable disaster. That to me was a good example of maintaining good will and resolving a problem. Here is the link for the website:

http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/media_center/recent_news/corporate/Shrek_Recall.html

BP'S OIL SPIL

I was reading an article from the Washington Post about BP calling them self a green company, only to turn around and be responsible for a disastrous oil spill. Here is the link for the article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/05/AR2010050505022.html?hpid=topnews

In the Washington Post article it tells how the company is trying to separate them self from the issue without denying responsibility. I thought to myself how do you do that? Then I went to BP's website and began to read and even watch a video clip done by their spokes person. Here is the link for the BP website.

http://www.bp.com/bodycopyarticle.do?categoryId=1&contentId=7052055

The interesting thing or trick I should say that he did was when he spoke about the spill almost in third person. While the President and most other people call it the "BP Oil Spill"; BP on the other hand refers to it as the "Gulf of Mexico Response". Then there is a link for a video where the representative goes on to talk about all that they are doing to prevent this spill from getting worse and asking the public to judge them on their response and not the accident. I thought this was a creative strategy, but I still would not consider them to be a green company. What do you think?