11% doesn't warrant a ticker-tape parade!

You would think that Cadbury expects a ticker-tape parade if you read the recent story in The Globe and Mail, about it becoming the largest candy manufacturer in Canada to sell fair-trade chocolate. Wow...you want to set off the fireworks and send in the marching bands! Finally a big corporate behemoth is embracing its role as a leader in social responsibility!

At least that's what you think until you read to the bottom of the second paragraph of the story, wherein it states "In total, 11 per cent of the Cadbury products sold in Canada will be certified."

Now I'm not the greatest mathematician in the world, but doesn't this mean that for 89% of their products they cannot certify that they are fair trade? I don't enjoy being the cynic (ok, maybe a little bit)...but this isn't even close to a glass half full scenario -- bascially 9/10ths of the glass is empty here...and this warranted a press release?

I wrote about this almost exactly a year ago on a entry entitled Corporate Social Responsibility -- Statistically Speaking. In this blog entry, I wrote about how statistics can be massaged greatly by corporations to make themselves sound as they are doing significantly more than what is truly happening. Because you see these sound bites that we get don't give us the measurements/metrics and the meaning. Specifically the blog a year ago addressed some of the statistics that Starbucks was heralding regarding their "commitment" to fair-trade.

Now don't get me wrong...I believe that every move, no matter how infinitesimal is better than none at all. My issue rests with corporations giving themselves "atta-boys" and expecting others to put them on a pedestal because of 11%. I mean a company spokesperson for Cadbury even has the audacity to say "Companies should be responsible about where they source". I guess they mean only 11% of the time.

This is just marketing spin...hoping that we are stupid enough to go out and buy because of the halos on these corporations' heads....luckily I can read between the lines.

So it's Sunday morning, so I guess I'll start by making the world a better place by going out and getting my Starbucks coffee and a Dairy Milk bar!! Hmmmm.......