Little Red Book looks into the Sichuan “Earthquake Coke Boy” story (original stuff with some translated Net comments courtesy of Chinasmack):

Named “Earthquake Coke Boy” by netizens, Xue Xiao became famous when after being rescued from the SiChuan earthquake, the first words he muttered through the pain was “Uncle, please give me an ice cold Coke.”

Coke jumped on this, and the kid ended up with a college scholarship. Here is Rand’s take on Coke’s action:

In all honesty, Coke will likely come out of this the winner. Because once all this controversy dies down, they’ll still remember the Earthquake Coke Boy that went to Fudan (China’s version of Harvard) from Coke’s apparent generosity.

This may be an unfair comparison, but what if some of the victims of the 9/11 attack, when saved mentioned Coke, and then received a college education – how would that be perceived by Western media?

Better perhaps if Coke also helped out the whole city by giving multiple scholarships; that would balance out the PR gain vs. the cost of college education (which is quite negligible when balanced against the online buzz, and “goodwill” generated), and would be seen as a more generous act.

Though it’s difficult for me to praise such a clearly strategic PR move made by Coke that weighs heavily in their favor against a tragedy of the SiChuan earthquake’s magnitude; it’s clear from the comments on Chinasmack that most favor Coke’s sponsorship. This was a great move on Coke’s part – but still leaves me with a cynical smirk; profit motivated generosity is nothing new, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get used to, easy to see, or easy to watch.

First off, and I don’t know where Rand went to school, but I know a whole lot of folks here in Beijing who would scream bloody murder after hearing that Fudan University should be considered the Harvard of China. We have several candidate schools up here that would vociferously claim that accolade for their own institution. Talk about an “unfair comparison”!!!

But I digress.

This was indeed a good move on Coke’s part. I would guess that Coke has already contributed to the earthquake relief/rebuilding efforts, so I don’t think anyone should necessarily expect a broader giveaway here. This was a special case.

Rand seems uncomfortable with this cynical move by multinational Coke. As someone who has been working in the ad industry for some time, he has apparently not yet developed an impenetrably thick skin and can still evaluate these sort of things within the context of genuine altruism. Shocking, but admirable.

I wish I could say the same. I don’t really believe in corporate altruism anymore. I’ve been working on an article on the subject (including my changing views on the whole Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) phenomenon) for a while now. Hopefully if I can ever finish this, it will explain how my overwhelming cynicism on this subject is actually logically consistent with some of my other views on corporate law and economic regulation — this is a somewhat complicated topic.

At this point, I would just say that if you’re happy with any sort of corporate altruism, be satisified with Coke’s actions here and don’t worry about their motives too much. In the end, does it really matter?