Caterpillar's Jose "Pepe" Brousset

Making dollars while making friends

If you have a successful global brand, you have instant recognition and almost certainly many friends. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that you probably also have many interested in tarnishing your brand. The equalizing and empowering nature of the internet makes it easy, potentially viral and difficult to undo.

That was one message at WorldCity’s first Marketing Connections event on Thursday, one of six events series the company hosts for the multinational community in South Florida.

“In today’s world, bad news spreads fast,” said Jose “Pepe” Brousset, Regional Director for Latin America for Caterpillar, and the first speaker in the series.

As is true with celebrities, success comes with a price tag for the globally well-known company, as those attending from Baxter, Chevron, Nortel, Medtronic and Caterpillar know full well.

Baxter’s heparin blood thinner and safety, Chevron and high gas prices, Nortel and bankruptcy, Medtronic and pacemaker problems, Caterpillar and environmental damage.

A&E’s Cesar Sabroso

“Every time something bad happens, everyone in the world knows it,” said Cesar Sabroso, vice president of Marketing for A&E Ole Networks. “When something good happens, it stays in the room. At the end of the day, we become our own victims.”

Companies have many and increasingly more elaborate tools at their disposal, including relatively new ones such as search engine optimization to make sure google queries turn up their message, and not the words of those interested in tarnishing their brand.

Enter social responsibility campaigns, the theme of the event.

Such campaigns can build brand, help grow business, and ease the pain and limit the long-term impact of negative news, when it occurs.

LAN, Diageo, SafetyPay and others shared their programs.

Caterpillar, for example, wasn’t trying to counteract bad publicity when it established its Think Big program a decade ago in the United States and six years ago in Latin America. It had a business need, the need for more skilled technicians to operate its increasingly computerized equipment, Brousset told the group.

Unlike in the United States, which has vocational schools, Latin America did not have a readily available means to train future Caterpillar employees. So, the Illinois-based company, working with its dealers, began program to offer scholarships to train potential employees so they can sell and service more equipment.

“We try to make the point that our machines build, not destroy,” said Brousset, who began working with Caterpillar in 1976 and has risen through the ranks to lead marketing efforts in Latin America and, more recently, take on a larger role for the Miami operation.

Doing the right thing and the best thing for the business can line up, agreed Barbara Montero, the Chief Marketing Officer for SafetyPay. The Miami Beach company discovered a situation where “teachers weren’t getting paid in rural areas of Peru.” It was complicated because the teachers generally didn’t have banking relationships. “SafetyPay set up a system specifically for them. You can do social responsibility and business,” Montero said.

LAN became a bridge between Un Techo Para Mi Pais (A Roof for My Country), a Latin American version of Habitat for Humanity, and Breakaway, a spring break program for U.S. college students interested in social outreach to those in need, explained Bertha Merikanskas, marketing communications manager.

It offers free flights to those volunteering in Chile or Peru (and soon Ecuador), many of them not yet familiar with the Chilean airline’s brand. The opportunity, beyond doing good: Future customers who develop an emotional affinity for the airline.

“The stories of those you have helped are 100 times more powerful than yours,” said Alejandra Slatapolsky, director of Marketing and Communications for Bulltick Capital Markets.

For Western Union, it focuses on education, entrepreneurship and immigration advocacy through its Our World, Our Family initiative, according to Juan Pablo Valdes, Hispanic Segment Integrated Marketing Communications. These are issues important to Western Union’s primary customer base for wire transfers and remittances between the United States and home countries, whether in Mexico, Central America and elsewhere around the world.

Medtronic has Mission in Motion, Nortel was involved with One Laptop Per Child. Employees working for Crowley, a shipping and logistics company, do a lot for their communities, from working with children with AIDS to orphans. But it largely focuses its communication of that inside the company, said Tony Menendez, director of Sales and Marketing for Crowley Logistics. “Is that something expected of us?”

Another advantage of companies reaching out and doing good is the impact on the employees themselves.

Chevron’s Ryan Oettinger

“I am proud to be at a company that really does believe in the environment and the communities in which we operate,” said Chevron’s Ryan Oettinger. “People see our brand as favorable to the community.”

“Fundamentally, people want to work in responsible businesses,” said Ed Pilkington, the marketing director for Latin America and the Caribbean for spirits company Diageo.

Diageo, whose brands include Johnny Walker, Smirnoff, Guiness, Tanqueray and others, knows its globally known brands can also be tied to with problems with alcohol and chooses to make its case through association with Formula One racing — one way to attack drinking and driving.

“Consumers want business to do this, to do the right thing,” he said.