CSR - fad or real?

I just found this article (from The Economist) online and since I did some research on Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) last semester, the article caught my eye.

http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15501657

So Pepsi donated its Super Bowl commercials (money) to some charities instead of spending insane amount of money on 30-second ads. How nice(Aaaawwww)! This was replete with a heart warming slogan and all - “Refresh Everything”. According to this article, Coca-Cola produced a similar CSR campaign a couple of days earlier. One wonders if this has become a game where companies try to 'best' each other at charitable giving trivia.

Research show that consumers develop an affinity to companies or brands that associate with good causes and according to this article, companies therefore manage their corporate philanthropy accordingly to get a slice of that pie. So does that make CSR efforts a fad? Do companies really care about the environment and the people who buy their products and services or is this just a ploy to gain market share?

Personally, I think CSR has some merits and is moving in the right direction. The concept of CSR forces companies to realize that their consumers hold them to a higher standard beyond providing goods and service. Society now expects companies to invest in the communities in which they do business instead of only caring about profits. One of the comments following the article implied that (and this is just my inference from the quote) people only do good because they expect something in return. Well, that may be true sometimes but I'd rather we all pretend doing some good deeds rather than perish in ignorance:)