[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_pNPAGZDeM]
The Carrot and Stick theory seems to be working in different ways for different companies worldwide, but in the end, at least it brings us closer to the seemingly Al Gore’s global concept of the ugly truth: stop global warming. Google and Facebook, the Internet giants, are the perfect most current examples for both sides of the theory. Google took on the carrot to provide electric cars for its employees. Facebook, on the other hand, had to be a bit hit by a stick to install solar panels at the Oregon Data Site.
It’s been since at least 2008 that several Google campuses around the world have purchased Prius Hybrid Cars (very much like the render-like Volvo Commercial you can play up here) for employee use. Google allegedly adopted this idea to boost the latest Eco-trend of reducing carbon prints. It’s completely free for employees to use them, and they can take them anywhere they please, as long as it’s about an errand they want or have to do. At the Google garage you’ll find the Priuses plugged in to the roof hanging cables.
Facebook however, had to install solar panels to power up its new data center in Oregon due to complaints made by activist groups. They were stating that Facebook was imprinting a very large carbon footprint on the planet just by trying to sustain such a large facility with traditional power sources. It was just this past April 16th that they inaugurated the source.
So, be it carrot or stick, the companies that seem to be following the Eco-trend to its vast majority are the hipster kind. Does that mean that young=corporate social responsibility? May be it’s because in our generation, we were taught and informed since a very early age. Once you have a philosophy implanted in your system at a young stage, it’s difficult to change it (that explains the Kyoto Treaty Reluctants…).
Is it a good marketing strategy? Well of course you know the answer. Be it carrot or stick…