David Cameron’s (leader of the Conservative party) speech at the Hugo Young lecture at the Guardian may be seen as a cynical ploy (at worst) or radical attempt (at best) to reduce the  burden on the state for delivering services such as schools and the police.

In the speech there is also top-line encouragement of social entrepreneurship and community involvement. We applaud this encouragement, irrespective of political positioning.

However, it is very top-line, and we think companies are in a better position to influence social change than political parties. It’s our view that the efforts of companies, through their brands, have the potential to make more of an impact than political rhetoric.

We call on companies and brands to seed socially-progressive attitudes and behaviour at a grass-roots level using their myriad of everyday touch points. There is a significant opportunity for brands to capitalise on speeches like this and on policy shifts to become the first to market new social ideas put forward by politicians and other public figures.

Watch the speech on BBC