Day 60

Klein, N.

Ever since the large corporations such as Nike, Shell and Monsanto began facing increased scrutiny from civil society—mostly for putting short term profits far ahead of environmental responsibility and job security—an industry has ballooned to help these companies respond. But it seems clear that many in the corporate world remain convinced that all they have is a ‘messaging problem’ that can be neatly solved by settling on the right, socially minded brand identity.

As evidence of the state of corporate confusion, I am frequently asked to give presentations to individual corporations. Fearing that my words will end up in some gooey ad campaign, I always refuse. But this advice I can offer without reservation: nothing will change until corporations realise that they don’t have a communications problem. They have a reality problem.

Guardian Weekly, June 14-20, 2001 p. 21