Learning a few things from TOMS social responsibility

Brands nowadays are very concerned about their reputation and standing. They give it a considerable thought on how to project and portray a considerably socially responsible image. But despite a certain amount of planning is involved in it, many such ventures still end up looking contrived and artificial in the corporate social responsibility programs. It can be due to the fact that many of these initiatives are dressed up in such rhetoric that’s so far-from-original and having a negative impact on the cause.

So if you plan to form an organization with which you intend to do some genuine good things, it is advised to take some lessons from TOMS Shoes, founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie. The company started with a single product that was shoes. Now it has extended its venture by including another product i.e. eyewear. But the formula behind both the products is that same, and it couldn’t be simpler “One for One”. That means, when TOMS sells any of its product whether footwear or eyewear, it donates the one of the same kind to someone in the developing world against each of its sale. Sale of shoes goes against donation of pair of shoes to a child in poverty, and the sale of eyewear goes against the sight restoration to someone in despair.

Salient features of TOMS social responsibility

Here below we try to streamline and explain this inspiringly simple program adopted by TOMS shoes.

• The essence of TOMS social responsibility is so intermeshed and interlinked with the core competency of the company that it is virtually indistinguishable.

• Only with a glance you see that there happens to be an inseparable and transparent kinship between what TOMS is selling out and the holistic sense of world health.

• The best thing about TOMS doing good is that they are simple and basic.

• Whenever making a purchase at TOMS, customers can actually feel that they are directly attached with a cause.

• TOMS carries out the responsibility itself, they are part of the actual giving in case of the shoe program, not just a donor.

Having explained these, now let us have a look at the corporate social responsibility associations and affiliations which you can aspire for your own brand. What you should do at first is to streamline your brand with a sense of directness and relevance. It is very obvious that many firms want to give their brand a socially responsible look, but in reality it is not just anything more than a look.