Spending to Make a Difference, Shopping for a Cause...

When women wield so much power in making household purchases, making dollars count is a way to act beyond the family in caring about the larger world.  But women, be smart about this!

Pink is now representational of breast cancer and affiliation with the color makes a statement of caring, support, suffering or support of a cause.  Who is profiting from products selling these statements?  Be wise, be careful.

Cambell Soup sales increased from 3.5 million to 7 million when Cambell soup can sales supported Kroger's annual Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation October fundraiser, an AdAge article noted, also highlighting this as well: "According to a 2004 survey on cause marketing done by Boston brand-strategy firm Cone, 91% of 1,033 consumers say they have a more positive image of a company or product when it supports a cause and 90% will consider switching to another company if it's aligned with a cause."  The double sales figure will bring money to the company and 3.5 cents per can sold to the Komen Foundation.   

Macy's is selling Pink Guess Watches and Guess will contribute $12,000 to Komen.  Komen has a host of other corporate partners.  I saw the NYC Stuart Weitzman store on Columbus Circle this week with pink ribbon displays and promotions for their "Bid For A Cure" with shoes designed by famous models and auctioned online to benefit breast cancer research.  Are they giving to the cause? How?  Which one? All window dressing? Polaroid has a pink digital camera and Polo has a pink polo tee. There are even Pink bras for the cause (which I find to be an oxymoron in a weird way). You can specifically go to stores to shop pink at Cafe Press or the Cancer Society or segmented Pink products at Target.   

Products with a purpose are becoming increasingly popular, especially PINK products!  October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Do purchasing these products actually help cure breast cancer? Are women being fooled by gimmicks? NewsTarget has an article on consumer awareness with this: Peggy Johnson, former president of the Mid-Kansas Susan G. Komen chapter, advises consumers to exercise discretion when shopping for pink products. "If it doesn't say who it's going to or how much is being donated, don't buy it," Johnson said.  Sandy Fernandez writes that Pink is a red herring, but I watched women suffer in silence before Nancy Brinker started the Komen Foundation in 1982 to fight against the disease that took her sister, Susan Komen.  The lonliness of women (they wouldn't even put breast cancer as a cause of death in the obituaries) in facing this disease was changed by Brinker and I see the benefit my mother has had with the social support all the years she has lived as a bc survivor.  In 1991 Estee Lauder came up with the cause logo -- the Pink Ribbon. Our Bodies, Ourselves has more to say on pink as a the color cause and asks how a pink Barbie aids the breast cancer issue and has a link to a book about the corporatization of causes and the politics of philanthropy.

Think Before You Pink is a site that has a lot of information to educate consumers about corporate marketing gimmicks so women don't fall prey to thinking they are helping fight breast cancer through spending.  I found this link from a blogger, Green LA Girl, who asks why it is cheaper to buy the hype than to take action about the real thing.  Mamacita, always funny, found that a Texas sheriff discovered dressing prisoners in pink reduced re-offenses 70%.

Gap has connected artistic iconic figures to simplicity and style (The Audrey Hepburn Pant is the latest reincarnation of the idea) as a marketing tool historically.  Gap will release a new book, Individuals: Portraits from The Gap Collection October 17.   But there is something different about it.  Proceeds for the book go to benefit (Product) RED.  (update 12/13/07: Gap (RED)  has raised over $51 million in just over a year but many are now seriously questioning embedded giving.) But other products?

Red to be for HIV/AIDS in the same way Pink is for breast cancer?

On October 13, Gap launches it's (Product) RED Collection "designed to make a difference in Africa."  Gap is  aligning itself to give-back and make a difference.  Gap has partnered with (Product) RED, an initiative founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver to help fight HIV/AIDS in Africa.  The Individuals book is a (Product) Red item, which means 100 percent of the funds from the sale of the book go to the Global Fund to help fight HIV/AIDS in Africa, primarily benefitting women and children.  Current (Product) Red partners are: American Express, Armani, Converse, Gap and Motorola. MySpace.com is the first media sponsor. 

Update 8/13: Oprah and Bono hit Chicago on 8/12 to promote the cause and $12 million has been raised so far, according to an AP article.

Spending and buying for philanthropy... Beware of and be wise about products being sold to make you feel good rather than actually helping a cause. 

Photos:   left AdAge, right, Guess watch  

  The original site for this content is MotherPie.

Comments

[naomi dagen bloom]

yes! show me a particularly outspoken woman in the public space who is not demonized in some way. seems to cut across political line from bella abzug to phyllis schafly.

by the way, for some reason you'd disappeared from my blog's list. is it type pad or me? have to fix that!

(above posed at found around nyc where i still could not read the letters in the little gray box...trying again here)

[SkylarKD]

I agree, many people can be taken in by the hype, thinking, "This has a pink ribbon, I'm giving to charity!".

I write about the topic earlier this month; you can check out my post at: http://skylarkd.blogspot.com/2006/10/pink-for-october.html