In an age where you can’t search the web or even walk down the street without being overwhelmed by advertisements, we’re used to seeing brands being associated with something they’re, well, not associated with. Yet, sponsors of the London Olympics, such as Coca Cola, McDonalds and Cadbury, are being criticized for doing just that. Their high-sugar, high-caloric products are misaligned with the athletic, lean image we all associate with the Olympic Games.
Feeling the pressure, Coca Cola – the longest running sponsor of the Olympics – is hoping to preserve its credibility by measuring its positive social impact of its sponsorship at the Games. It plans to launch a long list of social and environmental initiatives in relation to the Games, including a pledge to recycle all clear plastic bottles collected at the events. Over the past year, Coca Cola worked with the independent think tank Demos to create a new model of evaluation that will quantify the social impact of sponsorship activity. In its report Measuring Up: The Social Value of Sponsorship, Demos introduces its new method of measuring the social return on a commercial investment. It believes this process closes the “gap between implementation and measurement [which] will allow businesses to better understand the value of the programmes they deliver and to go further to support and benefit the communities in which they operate.”
Demos examined other methodologies of measuring social impact, including SROI, but found a more wide-ranging and flexible process was necessary to fully examine the scope of sponsorships. The report asserts that “a social value tool aimed at commercial organisations must be simple to input, give credit for all activities and impacts, rather than excluding those that are difficult to measure, and avoid simplification of impact.”
In his article on the subject, Tim Smedley from The Guardian questions whether the motivation behind creating social impact is important. Are these initiatives genuine in their attempt to develop social value or a ruse to appease critics by counteracting the negative effects of their products? Either way, Smedley asks “if social value is produced…why should the motivation behind it even matter?” Hopefully with its extensive reach throughout the world, Coca Cola can do something to counteract the negative effects of its unhealthy products by directing social benefits and influencing others to do the same. And then some.