From the Cin Chili Website: Hello Cindy, my name is SPC Stoner and I never go into combat without my Cin Chili! Thank you for the packages. Good to know people still remember us. See you at the Chili fest when I get home! Thanks.
Last month I attended the Food Marketing Institute’s Seminar on Consumer Affairs, Communications & Social Responsibility in Baltimore. Not surprisingly, there was a lot of talk about websites and social media from luminaries such as Phil Lempert, expect more on that in my blog soon, but what I really want to highlight in this post is the Social Responsibility angle.
Lane Bailey, President of Global Public Affairs from GolinHarris shared some very interesting statistics and ideas about trends in corporate responsibility, especially for the food and beverage industry. 74% of people surveyed by GolinHarris indicated that they felt strongly Corporate Responsibility should be a high priority for business.
So even in this rough economy (or perhaps because of it) people expect more from companies in the community. This fits in so well with the “altruistic impulse” to participate in groups on line discussed by Li and Bernoff in Groundswell (p.61).
Today, during my routine daily linkedin searching, I came across a company associated with one of my linkedin groups, “Food Events, Festivals and Sponsorship”, that is doing some good for our brothers and sisters in the Armed Forces protecting us everyday: Cin Chili. Through the web you can send chili care packages to a loved one in the service: for free!
I was particularly touched by this because as it turns out,
today (I learned through a facebook message), one of my Basic Training Battle
Buddies is on his way to Alaska
so I’m going to send him a Cin Chili care package. That should help him stay
warm.
I’m very proud of Keith Colbert (pictured here with his
lovely wife Karen) who has been in the service since 1992 when we ate MREs
together in the foothills of Ft. Sill,
Oklahoma as trainees. Now he is a First Sgt. if not a Command Sgt. Major (correct me if I’m wrong Keith after you
get off the boat at Dutch
Harbor, Alaska :).
There’s a streak of brilliance in what Cin Chili is doing.
If you’ve ever eaten an MRE you know they taste better with a little hot sauce.
I can recall trading the small bottles of Tabasco the way prisoners use cigarettes as
capital when I was in the field. So it’s
an excellent place for the Cin Chili brand to be sampled.Here is what they are doing (www.cinchili.com/ambassador.html):
But Cin Chili goes a step beyond just sending the care
package by sharing a small piece of their lives through the web. Spc Stoner
wrote: “Good to know people still remember us.” Need I say more to explain the power
of the gesture?It’s not even
5 minutes of fame but it’s a warm stomach and a nice thought we all can appreciate
as a community which is what the web is great for. More importantly, we can all
share the moment. It’s great to see the photos and read the clips from the
soldiers.
We should expect to see more and more of this kind of
sharing through the web and especially through social media. We should also see
more of this kind of corporate responsibility around food, because food is
about family and friends. The smell of food reminds us of good times with good
people; and heck, what better than a little chili to warm a homesick soldiers
soul – even if he or she is in Iraq.
It’s also a good way to create fans of your brand. I will
certainly be telling everyone about this program. And if you look at the
caption with the picture Sgt. Kyker of the 345th Infantry, it tells us
that he and his troops will be spreading the word too when he says: “We are enjoying the diversion from
our "Job" as Cin Chili spokesmen.”
Thanks to all the soldiers.
I salute Cin Chili, and its leadership for taking corporate
responsibility seriously here and for spicing things up for the troops. I guess
a little chilli goes a long way. And I’ll finish it like I started with an
Oklahoma OOOOOSHAAA!
PS - If you are interested in supporting our troops and vets
through your regular shopping routine or if you are a business looking to get
involved in this kind of corporate responsibility, I encourage you to check
out: www.beyondtribute.com as well.
PPS – Keith, let me know if you can really see Russia when you
get there.
