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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
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Searching... | 30000010292949 | HD60 M35 2011 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
A social media expert with global experience with many of the world's biggest brands -including Nike, Toyota and Motorola-Simon Mainwaring offers a visionary new practice in which brands leverage social media to earn consumer goodwill, loyalty and profit, while creating a third pillar of sustainable social change through conscious contributions from customer purchases. These innovative private sector partnerships answer perhaps the most pressing issue facing business and thought leaders today: how to practice capitalism in a way that satisfies the need for both profit and a healthy, sustainable planet. Mainwaring provides case studies from companies such as P&G, Walmart, Starbucks, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Nike, Whole Foods, Patagonia, and Nestlé as well as a bold plan for how corporations need to rethink their strategies.
Author Notes
Simon Mainwaring is founder and President of We First, a brand consulting firm that helps companies use social media to build communities, profits and positive impact. An award-winning advertising creative director, influential blogger and international speaker, he is a member of the General Mills Digital Advisory Board, the Advisory Board of the Center for Public Diplomacy at the USC Annenberg School, Ad Age's Power150 and is an Expert Blogger for Fast Company .
Reviews 2
Publisher's Weekly Review
Can big business be socially responsible? Brand consulting expert Mainwaring certainly thinks so. He believes new technologies aren't merely making life easier, they're making us better: in allowing us to connect with each other across geographic, cultural, and language barriers, the Internet and social media might very well be increasing our capacity for empathy. His "We First" ethos proposes cooperation between governments, philanthropies, and capitalist corporations to achieve meaningful social transformation. Social media-viral, borderless-is the perfect vehicle to promote "contributory consumerism," and Mainwaring has fascinating suggestions for technological innovation and systemic change: he proposes a "Global Brand Initiative": an association of corporate brands and their advertising partners and competitors that willingly work together (Coke with Pepsi, Greenpeace with WWF, the U.S. with China) to advance corporate social responsibility and charitable donations. Tall orders, all-but the author's enthusiasm and evidence make an excellent (and counterintuitive) case for big business's ability to make major strides in creating a more equitable world. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Choice Review
Mainwaring (founder, We First brand consulting firm) describes a new business model--"contributory consumption"--in which people's purchases help to make the world a better place. The goal is for businesses to combine sales profits with a social purpose, leading to a shift in thinking for both companies and consumers from "me first" to "we first.. Mainwaring believes that online social media are helping to bring about a positive change in the way business is done, giving customers more say in business decisions and making information available to all via networking sites. Henry Jenkins, an authority on communications who is quoted in the book, notes that the public, rather than the institutions themselves, now "controls the storytelling" about companies and products. In effect, there is a new transparency. Mainwaring identifies some issues that businesses need to examine more closely with respect to corporate social responsibility: executive salaries, dividend payouts, tax write-offs, government lobbying, quality controls, and global environmental factors. He cites Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has pledged most of his fortune to world charities, as the role model for this new era. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division and graduate business students, faculty, and practitioners. P. G. Kishel Cypress College
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. v |
| Prologue | p. 1 |
| 1 Transforming the engine of capitalism | p. 7 |
| 2 Redefining self-interest from me first to we first | p. 23 |
| 3 The future of profit is purpose | p. 43 |
| 4 Creating sustainable capitalism in five ways | p. 61 |
| 5 Instilling we first values into capitalism | p. 77 |
| 6 Why the world needs a responsible private sector | p. 91 |
| 7 How brands build their business and a better world | p. 115 |
| 8 How consumers build responsible brands and a better world | p. 149 |
| 9 How contributory consumption creates sustainable social change | p. 183 |
| 10 The global brand initiative, the future of the private sector | p. 211 |
| Epilogue | p. 231 |
| Resources | p. 233 |
| Reference Guide | p. 234 |
| Notes | p. 236 |
| Index | p. 245 |
