Within the past few months, I have been unable to turn on the radio without hearing either a Carly Rae Jepson song or a plethora of news stories regarding the rise of consumer-driven corporate accountability campaigns; including the March 6th?Pink Slime? petition and the petition calling for the shut down of Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio. It can be discerned that the establishment of the online petition site Change.org can be seen as both a dream come true and a worst nightmare for the restaurant industry. The obvious advantage of this website is that it gives consumers the ability to communicate with big businesses about what they want and prefer. Concurrently, this same advantage can easily be seen as a fire starter since it gives consumers the ability to critique everything from the aesthetics of a restaurant to what type of condiments that it serves. In other words, petitions can be started regarding everything from the practical to the completely absurd. The rise in petition victories over the past few months has already generated a hailstorm of people desiring to take action by starting new petitions.
As recently as August 23, 2012, a petition started by Los Angeles vegan Ari Solomon called for the popular restaurant chain, In-N-Out, to add a vegan burger to its menu. The petition, which garnered 6,846 signatures, is still currently under review (http://huff.to/PbLvU7). It can be established that the longer In-N-Out waits to make a final decision, especially with so much media attention surrounding the petition, could damage the company?s reputation; Chick-fil-A being a perfect example of this. The president of Chick-Fil-A?s anti-gay statements resulted in a July petition that has already successfully squashed Northeastern University?s plan to open a Chick-Fil-A on campus. In addition to the elimination of a scheduled restaurant expansion on Northeastern University?s campus, this petition can also have damaging long-term effects on Chick-Fil-A?s brand identity and how the public perceives it.
On the flipside, such petitions can also help commend and improve a company?s reputation in both the petitioners and consumers? eyes. A perfect example of this would be 10-year-old Mia Hansen?s petition that called for smoothie chain Jamba Juice to stop using polystyrene cups. Although Jamba Juice at that point in time had already decided to stop using the non-biodegradable cups, it was not until all the media attention acquired by her petition that the company made a formal announcement to complete the transition to biodegradable cups by the end of 2013 and Hansen was asked to serve as a ?healthy communities ambassador? for the company (http://huff.to/PbLvU7). Successful campaigns such as the above mentioned appear to benefit more than the companies themselves; it appears to be bringing social awareness to environmental issues as well. However, not all companies appreciate the feedback; in fact, some of the business executives don?t take petitions seriously because they have no way of knowing how many signatures are actual consumers of their brand. Ignoring such petitions may not be the best course of action especially if such campaigns end up being spread on social media.
With ?15,000 new petitions and 2 million new members at Change.org every month? do you believe such petitions are beneficial for business and the world or do you believe they are bothersome and an excuse for people to complain about anything and everything that ails them? Do you believe this is a fad that will eventually die out or one that will successfully continue to evolve and expand into all industries (http://huff.to/PbLvU7)?
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