One of the New York Times Magazine’s Ideas of 2006 is “For-Profit Philanthropy” where it looks at companies like Google that are trying to make the world a better place while making money. The NYT says:
Welcome to the world of brand-enhancing, profit-making, tax-paying philanthropy. Its proponents argue that we’ve become so accustomed to the idea that philanthropy has to operate within the confines of certain legal strictures that we’ve lost sight of what really matters: the good you foster, not necessarily how you go about fostering it. As the economist Susan Raymond argued in the journal On Philanthropy in September, “We are beginning to understand that old categories” — commerce, capitalism and philanthropy — “do not serve the new generation of either social problems or market opportunities.” In this spirit, Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin, announced plans this year to invest personal profits estimated at $3 billion in the clean-energy industry. And in addition to Google’s venture, there’s also the work of Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, who has created the Omidyar Network, a charitable venture that finances for-profits and nonprofits alike.
For-Profit Philanthropy – New York Times
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I think it could be usefull to consider ‘brand utility’ as something different than ‘branded utility’. ‘Brand utility’ consists of giving your cultural relevancy a place to call home. It’s providing the consumer with a cause (just like ‘in the good old days’) , it’s translating your intangible propositions into the result of something more basic and usefull for society, it’s making a difference instead of just meaning something. It makes meaning the result of something else than our search for meaning. Susanne Piët wrote about consumers living in the penthouse of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Brand utility is providing windows to those penthouses, so the consumer gets a room with a view instead of just living in a luxury box, walking circles and not getting out. ‘Branded utility’ on the other hand is just advertising through a medium the individual can use to make it less interrupting. (Red) ‘brand utility’ meets P&G Charmin public toilets ‘branded utility’ in the Ikea public housing project ‘brand(ed) utility’, where the idea really gets its swing.
December 11th, 2006 at 10:01 am