The Dannon Company

The Dannon Company is a story of company that did not know what to do with itself. The company wanted to promote its corporate social responsibility (CSR), but did not know how or where to do so. Question arose on whether or not the company wanted to promote CSR communications. Dannon 's management team was at a precipice, but how should the company get across? Michael Neuwirth, senior director of public relations for Dannon, was considering what part the company 's CSR could act, if any, in the company 's advancement (Marquis et al, 2011). This paper 's intention is to analyze both the benefits and risks of communicating Dannon 's CSR to the public forum on a larger scale, as well as the role of the parent company, Danone. Additionally, this paper will suggest a communication strategy which, I would propose, would fall in line with the company 's vision and history of CSR.

This initial setback with dairy products drove Danone to copy in China the alliance strategy used with great success to expand into Italy and Spain in the 1980s. Danone decided to capitalize successful local businesses rather than build its own businesses from scratch, resulting in a strong focus on joint ventures and acquisitions. Unlike most multinationals, Danone gave these acquired local businesses a great deal of autonomy. The joint ventures and acquired firms continued to sell their products under their own brands. Until late 2002, 80 per cent of Danone’s sales in China were under local brands. Furthermore, Danone let the former executives run the businesses and didn’t get involved much in daily operations. In fact, Danone functioned more like a capital investor, linking its joint ventures through capital investment rather than joint products. This expansion strategy in China worked very well. In 2001, Danone had become one of the largest food concerns in China, with $1.2 billion in sales, more than 50 plants and around 25,000 employees.14 Accounting for 9 per cent of Danone’s international sales in 2003, China became Danone’s third largest

CSR is defined as a corporation’s internal policy that directs how it will regulate itself and “fulfill [its] legal, ethical, and social obligations” (Mayer, Warner, Seidel, & Lieberman, 2012, p 1003). Accordingly, Target’s policy and practices related to ethics, social responsibility, and environmental sustainability provides an opportunity to get an indication of how it determines and fulfills such obligations. Subsequently, Target’s voluntary self-reporting and corporate communications include a substantial amount of material that can be evaluated.

• The company should find effective way to communicate about the product in public to boost up the sale of existing product but this plan does not work every time and it can be tricky also.

Stakeholders will generally detect duplicity in CSR motives; intrinsic or genuine motives as well as extrinsic profit-related motives; however, stakeholders will be tolerant of clear extrinsic motives, if the CSR initiatives are rooted in intrinsic values. This leads to the perceived “win-win” scenario, and is one of the driving factors behind company CSR initiatives, as they realize the value of helping society while still being able to focus on the impact to the bottom line (Tonello, 2011). In addition, if campaigns are not communicated specifically around the brands it produces, then a “halo effect” for the entire industry could be the end result, of a poorly executed communication strategy (Marquis et al., 2011) Therefore, it is important for Dannon to construct a carefully balanced communication strategy, which considers the perception of its stakeholders in the marketplace, while also ensuring to highlight the specific impact of its CSR initiatives within the communities it operates.

Being Dannon’s CSR Manager, Binney’s concerns pointed directly to the complexity of using the company’s CSR programs as a marketing message where it will require a carefully structured campaign that can clearly articulate what Dannon has done and distinguish it from its parent company’s contributions.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is something that affects all companies and should be an active factor in the company’s decision making. It is something all corporations need to care about. CSR is when business’ or corporations take part in an initiative or campaign for a cause that will benefit society and/or in some way make the world a better place (Taylor, 2015). Initially, Corporate Social Responsibility started to take shape around the 1950’s, but some say that it dates all the way back to the 1800s, the idea of CSR was seen (Carroll, 2007). One may think that because it is dated so long ago, it doesn’t have an important impact today nevertheless, it is proven that Corporate Social Responsibility is a pathway for entities to self benefit as they are in the process of benefitting society.

Dannon following the Corporate Social Responsibility program will help blend products naturally and the message will be consistent which will increase confidence in Dannon products. The risk with corporate and local level Corporate Social Responsibility communication program is measurability, impact and calculation of return of investment. Corporate Social Responsibility communication does have a positive impact and provides intangible benefits. During the communication campaign, there will be a short-term impact other than few products such as Activia. Depending on the individual Corporate Social Responsibility communication, competitor may take advantage or gain, if the consumer were to confuse about which company's Corporate Social Responsibility initiative. Critics could analyze Corporate Social Responsibility communication and demand is doing more, which will leave Dannon in a defensive position generating disinterest by its consumers (Marquis, Pooja, Tolleson, & Thomason, 2011, p.

The benefit to business of good Corporate Social Responsibility is difficult to quantify as it varies depending on the nature of the enterprise. Some scholars believe that there is a business justification for CSR. That is, what is good for the environment and society will be good for company profitability. And studies have shown a slightly positive correlation between CSR and financial gain (Steiner and Steiner, 2006). However, as Freidmanism claims, the first responsibility of business is to make enough profit to cover the costs for the future. If this social responsibility is not met, no other responsibilities can be (Hargreaves, 2006). Therefore it is critical that CSR activities are included in strategy formulation and that the level of resources devoted to CSR is determined like any other strategy – through cost/benefit analysis. Corporations will not throw money away…they need to see it

So this company is showing mission statement by their action in many way. And they proving that they are not only promising, they actually doing

Exposure to be achieved: this is to ensure that customers are aware of the brand and what the business has to offer to potential customers.

Current approaches to CSR are fragmented and/or disconnected from business goals. Many firms still consider CSR as another generic public relations problem in which media campaigns and CSR reports are used to paint the company as a positive ethical, social and or environmental advocator and supporter. For example, the annual reports discuss a firm’s sensitivities to CSR issues, but completely lack the entire story and offer no further forward commitments from the firm. Further, the ratings and rankings measurements are self-appointed by the firm, not always accurate to validate the work and direct impact to what they are measuring, and the criteria base varies widely and weighed differently in the final scoring. Worst of all the data lacks impartial auditors for validating the data to ensure the ratings have been accurately met, and data is statistically significant and a good proxy for what it is supposed to reflect. This has resulted in reactive initiatives designed to appease vocal

Therefore, corporate’ activities have strong influences to the stakeholders. Hildebrand,D,et,al (2011) argued that under a specific but identifiable situation, a company’s CSR actions are able to satisfy stakeholders’ higher-order and self-related demand, meanwhile enabling the stakeholders to identify with the company. On the other hand, Piercy, N. and Lane, N.(2009) indicated that CSR seems to be the most efficient way for the corporate marketing efforts of most firms. It may enable the stakeholders to be loyal even life-long customers of the companies.

DANONE is one of the largest multinational companies in the food and beverage industry. By the end of 2016, counting from the consolidated companies to the sub-divisions in more than 130 countries, DANONE has 99,187 people as full-time employees (Danone, 2016). Base on the geographical area, majority of the employees, they work in European countries

The significance of this is that awareness may have direct bearing on consumer purchase behaviours, promotion and recommendations of the company, improved perception and loyalty, translating into increased revenue share.