After Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a common sticking point is the corporate greed and commercialization of the holiday season. People blow up their Thanksgiving family plans to camp out in front of Best Buy starting Wednesday night to buy deeply discounted electronics Friday at midnight. Women fight over bicycles, people are trampled, even murdered trivial items like iPads. But what people fail to see in the holiday season, is that some corporations use their leverage and money to help in the holiday season.
Toys are some of the most sought after items on Black Friday, and Hasbro saw a 10% spike in its profit line after the post-Thanksgiving frenzy. Now the toy maker has passed on some of its good fortune by influencing the affluent and less fortunate alike. Every time someone pledges to volunteer at generationOn.com, a website dedicated to inspiring youth to volunteer their time and “promote compassionate, caring citizens,” Hasbro will donate one toy to Toys for Tots. Regardless of how many children volunteer, the company has a minimum of 100,000 toys they plan to donate. Total cost of what they’re donating: well over $1 million.
While some corporations ship American jobs overseas, or find loopholes in tax laws (here’s looking at you, General Electric), Hasbro has shown that there are good guys in corporate culture.
Target, second only to Wal-Mart in Black Friday profits, spends five percent of its weekly income promoting volunteering, social services and education. That number totals more than $3 million that lands in the pockets of local non-profits and public schools. That number doubles to $6 million during the holiday season in an effort to help the homeless and needy. Nike will ship out over 100,000 pairs of shoes and a little over five percent of its net profits to help international relief and needy children across the world. The Oregon-based shoe company saw a seven percent jump in its stock after Black Friday, and another two percent jump after Cyber Monday.
So this holiday season, if you feel the urge to complain about corporate greed, remember those multi-billion dollar corporations are sharing millions with groups that can really use the money to help the less fortunate. Individuals can do a lot this holiday season, and every person helps. But the money these corporations spend, these profit margins that come from the commercialization of holidays, help those that are less fortunate all over the world.
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jameyer@mavs.coloradomesa.edu