Socially Responsible Advertising, Altruism or Exploitation?

The presentation discussed Cause-related marketing and how it could either be:

Altruism: As in actually supporting the cause , or Exploitation : As in taking advantage of the cause to help promote their company without actually helping.

The presentation raised a lot of questions not just generally but personally, as in what would each one of us do or how would each one of us think when it comes to cause related marketing...

In my opinion if the company really wanted to help the cause, they would simply donate enough money from their profits without making special offers on their products. However, these company want to publicize their good deeds in order to win over consumers and they have a right to that but are they going about it the right way?

As a consumer , I would like to research if the company actually does help first before i buy anything from them, but when i go in a supermarket, i don't have the time to do that.

When it comes to Saudi Arabia, the marketing scene is just booming fast. Our society is a very people friendly society and that comes from the teachings of our beautiful religion ; Islam, and so companies realize that. They realize we are week when it comes to the chance of helping other people in need. Thats why the use of cause related marketing in saudi has spread and is working very well for companies.

They gave really good examples in their presentation of both local and international companies with cause related adds such as , " Body shop, Pampers, Benneton and Al-Baik".

Personally, as a consumer,when i go into a supermarket and want to buy shampoo for example, if i see two kinds of shampoos that i would use but one has an offer that says if i buy it 5 S.R. of it will go to a starving family somewhere than i would automatically go for that one. It wouldn't cross my mind that they might be lying about it just for publicity. However, as a designer, if i had an offer of designing for a cause related company that payed me less than i would research that company first and find out if they are honest enough and if they are i would go for it.So the question is , are companies actually helping the cause? and if so how much?

http://www.unicefusa.org/hidden/pampers-usfund.html