Three major companies made headlines and raised eyebrows this week with attention-grabbing announcements.
CVS revealed plans Wednesday to discontinue the sale of tobacco products at its stores in order to establish itself as a reliable provider of health care services. This announcement came a day after AT&T, a sponsor of the United States Olympic Committee, renounced Russia’s anti-LGBT laws on its blog.
And Thursday, Google showed its support for LGBT rights through its latest doodle, which features Olympic athletes against the backdrop of the colors of the rainbow and a quote concerning discrimination from the Olympic charter.
It might seem courageous for a major corporation to risk losing favor with its customer base to become a social advocate for a contentious cause, but it’s not a new phenomenon.
In June 2012, Oreo posted a picture of a rainbow-filled cookie to its Facebook page in commemoration of LGBT Pride Month. Although some threatened to boycott, the post received more than 165,000 likes. That same summer, Chik-Fil-A’s CEO publicly spoke out against same-sex marriage, spurring an impromptu Chik-Fil-A Appreciation Day, which brought record-breaking business to the fast-food chain.
CVS, AT&T and Google also seem to be benefiting from initial reactions to their assertions. President Barack Obama congratulated the pharmacy giant for stubbing out tobacco, and the Human Rights Council called AT&T’s stance “courageous.” Meanwhile, Twitter exploded with praise for the new Google doodle Thursday night.
While CVS, AT&T and Google might spend the weekend basking in the congratulatory afterglow of their announcements, it’s worth keeping in mind that there’s no such thing as altruism, especially when it comes to big-time corporations.
CVS stands to lose about $2 billion from dropping tobacco, but it stands to make a lot more from potential partnerships with hospitals and insurance companies that were swayed by the anti-tobacco deal, according to CNN and other news reports.
Both AT&T’s blog post and Google’s doodle are ultimately empty gestures, seeing as they don’t stand to directly lose a revenue stream from posting them.
Regardless of how you feel about these companies, the commodities they sell or the causes they champion, observe their actions with the due amount of skepticism. No for-profit company does anything for completely selfless reasons, no matter how moral its move might seem.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
