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Site not loading, here's a Google cached link [1] Seems to me there's two separate issues. First, if it were an abstract situation of "Generic Company spends.

by corin_ 6y ago

Site not loading, here's a Google cached link [1] Seems to me there's two separate issues. First, if it were an abstract situation of "Generic Company spends...", I feel that's the wrong way round of thinking about it. All $6.5M came from Generic Company's marketing budget, complaining about only a relatively small % going to charity should be addressed equally at any other company buying a Superbowl ad who didn't spend any of their Superbowl marketing budget on charitable donations. Obviously there are plenty of bigger conversations to be had about the world at large, wealth equality, poverty, areas that charities address that as a species we should be able to just end as problems, etc. but it's not like this case in as example of a company which was expected to do $6.5M worth of good and wasted $5.5M on advertising. DoorDash never claimed to be a charity, nor (as far as I know) suggested they would give more money to charity to any of their funding sources. Unless we get rid of all marketing, or solve all problems so that no charities need donations, shouldn't we encourage companies to donate more even if it's for promotional motives? The second point is about DoorDash specifically and their business doings/ethics. Maybe the fact that it's them, not an unnamed random company, means they should be criticised for being hypocritical in their marketing messaging vs. their actions? But that would be equally true or not had they made a charitable donation and only done very cheap, basic marcom around it. But that makes for a less exciting headline. [1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kArvLbjEL-wJ:https://brokeassstuart.com/2021/02/08/doordash-spent-5-5-million-to-advertise-their-1-million-charity-donation/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kArvLb...

cryptonym 6y ago
Donating in order to make a nice video. Sounds like corporate equivalent of influencer streaming while giving things to homeless people. Charity is a good thing. Trying to benefit from charity is trashy. I have more respect for companies not playing this game.
nwienert 6y ago
People have a disgust response to corporations attempting to subvert our human-focused emotional responses towards their companies. It’s abusive in a sense, the same reason why people get incredibly upset when corporations try and capitalize on children, or martyrs, or movements. It’s because fundamentally they are playing a trick, and they know it. They’re trying to take a far bigger, greater thing than them, and capitalize it. The capitalization of our most dear values is, really, quite disgusting and a very modern phenomenon. While they were figuring out ways to do it all the way back in the 60s, there’s a certain shamelessness to it now that is maddening. Probably because they way they do it today, like in this case, it’s easy to believe that entire ad teams have been raised in such a corrupted moral environment that that actually do not even understand why what they’re doing is reprehensible, and that blindness/greed combo is especially icky (cheapening/devaluing core cultural values for a quick buck, and not even able acknowledge it as such).

by corin_ 6y ago

cryptonym 6y ago

Donating in order to make a nice video. Sounds like corporate equivalent of influencer streaming while giving things to homeless people. Charity is a good thing. Trying to benefit from charity is trashy. I have more respect for companies not playing this game.

nwienert 6y ago

People have a disgust response to corporations attempting to subvert our human-focused emotional responses towards their companies. It’s abusive in a sense, the same reason why people get incredibly upset when corporations try and capitalize on children, or martyrs, or movements. It’s because fundamentally they are playing a trick, and they know it. They’re trying to take a far bigger, greater thing than them, and capitalize it. The capitalization of our most dear values is, really, quite disgusting and a very modern phenomenon. While they were figuring out ways to do it all the way back in the 60s, there’s a certain shamelessness to it now that is maddening. Probably because they way they do it today, like in this case, it’s easy to believe that entire ad teams have been raised in such a corrupted moral environment that that actually do not even understand why what they’re doing is reprehensible, and that blindness/greed combo is especially icky (cheapening/devaluing core cultural values for a quick buck, and not even able acknowledge it as such).