Milton Friedman famously said, “The business of business is business”. So why are big brands queuing up to help Haiti? Are they genuine good neighbours, or just jumping on the help-Haiti bandwagon? Who cares, if the result is positive. Here are some of the ways they’re helping. In response to requests from relief agencies, Google has released a new layer on Google Earth showing pre/post earthquake satellite images. Google has also set up a person-finder service (and donated $1m to relief agencies). Zynga, the games developer behind MafiaWars and FarmVille, has over 40m daily users. By integrating donation into the gameplay, Zynga has so far raised over $1.2m and counting to the UN Food Programme There are already dozens of ways to donate online, but Apple has made it made it one-click easy by allowing donation through iTunes.

COCA-COLA
Coca-Cola can bottle water on a mass scale – a real lifeline. Its bottling plant in the Dominican Republic is providing water to Haiti, and the company has also donated $1m to relief efforts.

T-MOBILE:
T-Mobile has received a lot of coverage for its announcement last Thursday of free calls to Haiti.

ASTRAZENECA:
Big-pharma companies stand accused of exploiting the developing world through drugs-trial programmes and the high price of patented AIDS medication. Against this background, AstraZeneca is providing supplies of antibiotics and respiratory medication to the relief effort.

VODAFONE:
Vodafone has long-standing partnerships with Oxfam and Telecom Sans Frontiers, providing emergency telecommunications for disaster relief – and teams of telecoms engineers are currently in Haiti.

So why are these brands helping Haiti? Of course, there’s bound to be individuals within these organizations who are genuinely moved to help. Ultimately, however, it has to pay back to the business. There are plenty of ways that it pays to be a good neighbour, not least the positive affect it will have on their brands: consumers will approve, and employees will feel warm and proud. Being a good corporate citizen impresses government regulators. In some cases, such as the Vodafone example, helping out in challenging conditions like this can really test their expertise. Whatever the reason, it’s clearly positive and has to be encouraged.

Thanks to Jon Miller for this story. Jon is allergic to Leicester.

Image Credit: Antidote

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.