A few years ago, Con Agra the food conglomerate wanted to publicize "National Pot Pie Day" by giving away free pot pies to a local, young-adult center that works with kids after school.
They had a couple conditions. 1) they wanted to film the kids enjoying the pot pies and 2) demonstrate on the news how valuable of a corporate philanthropist Con Agra was to its local community.
There were several problems: 1) A far more honorable gift would have been just donating the food and not wanting good publicity in return. 2) The pot pies had passed their expiration and could not be sold anyway. 3) The modern frozen pot pie is the bastard step-cousin of the normal t.v. dinner and such schlock maybe shouldn't be even fit for human consumption.
I had some friends who knew about it and were incensed. The whole corporate, 'i'm so good' p.r. campaign that they could see right through.
I asked them, as the film crew was supposed to arrive, to intentionally mispronounce "National Pot Pie Day" as "National Pol Pot Day" on camera....after the brutal dictator Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Just to ruin the filming...
It didn't happen. And I know two wrongs don't make a right.
5 comments:
oddly, when I got this post on my rss feed I thought it said "national pol pot day" until I re-read it.
I've never had a real (and thus non-vile) pot pie. Do they exist?
hmm this seems vaguely familiar...
Should we expect corporations and businesses to hide their good deeds? What about local banks who put their name on coach-pitch baseball uniforms? Can we hold a profit-maximizing entity to the Sermon on the Mount ethic? And if we are trying to hold corporations to account, how will we know unless they are fully transparent?
It does frustrate me how certain industries try to promote things that their business works against 0(like coca-cola sponsoring a health and wellness program for kids).
The same could also be asked of nation-states, which seem to be incompatible with an ethic of nonviolence.
Yes, Adam, thanks for the comment. I would say that I am really idealistic. I feel like it is a corporations' responsibility to give back to a community....so that no kudos or applause are warranted for this gesture. I also hope that giving to a church/non-profit is ideally done with no mind towards the tax deduction. I would say wanting good p.r. for community work, is like a dad wanting congratulations from his wife for watching the kids. Like he was a babysitter and helped the family out so much.
I do, also object to frozen t.v. dinners being considered the solution for our general poverty and poverty of eating healthily.
whoa B, is that a bit of feminism i see sneaking into your comment? excuse me sir, your opinions are showing!
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