Another Form of the Good Will Marketing

In January 2007, I wrote a sharing with a title towards the good will marketing which combines the marketing and public relation strategy. This sharing outlines how to be a good company within the society by being a philanthropist and how the good will actually increases the awareness of the society towards the company. Moreover, this practice will allow us to give back to our society since we are living in the society.

I March 2007, I revisited the good will marketing with another approach. I believe that all manufacturers must have a good will towards their distributors and retailers. They always try to keep the good profit margin by creating the healthy competition in the market. They would not allow people that will sell at discounted price to enter the market easily since this would kill the rest of the network. Moreover, they would also kill the positioning and the branding of the products.

For the third time I would like to point out the importance of the good will marketing within the business. Have you heard the name Enron? Have you heard the name Arthur Andersen? Hermawan Kartajaya stated that business has to be conducted in honesty in order to be sustainable. I personally believe that true honesty, good wills, and great management skills that would create a sustainable business.

Enron employed around 21,000 people (McLean & Elkind, 2003) and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications companies, with claimed revenues of $111 billion in 2000. Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years. It achieved infamy at the end of 2001, when it was revealed that the reported financial condition was sustained mostly by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud. Enron has since become a popular symbol of willful corporate fraud and corruption.

Arthur Andersen was once one of the so-called "Big Five" accounting firms (the other four are PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG), performing auditing, tax, and consulting services for large corporations. In 2002 the firm voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the U.S. pending the result of prosecution by the Department of Justice over the firm's handling of the auditing of Enron, the energy corporation.

It is so amazing how giant companies like Enron and Arthur Andersen abruptly disappeared and bankrupt because of merely not being honest to the public. This example really shows how a leader in one situation does not mean an eternal leader. Their bankruptcies really affect the global business climate. After the September, 11 attack the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) suffered bear market for a month. However, when Enron case happened it suffered a three months bear market. How many people being redundant after the falling for these giants? The answer is too sad to be true.

Comments, opinions, and questions are greatly appreciated

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst