The Product (RED)
campaign is sweeping the world, thanks to some heavyweight backing from celebrities
(Oprah, Bono) and brand names (Apple, American Express, Armani). It's a great cause,
because for each (RED) branded product or service sold, a part of the profit goes to the
fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Africa.
Some prominent Web brands are getting behind it too - MySpace and AOL are the two media sponsors currently listed as "donating space on their various platforms".
Also the (RED) website itself is a great example of how the Web can contribute. For example the YOU page asks people to submit videos detailing what (RED) means to them:
"In the coming months, we will be launching a "video wall" that includes streaming video of people talking about what (RED)™ is. Some of the people featured will be world leaders, others will be people involved in creating some of the products, and others will be passionate people like you!"
There is also a (RED) blog, hosted on blogger.com. It's an interesting blog outlining the seemingly normal lives of RED's core team. Well, I say *seemingly*, because how many normal bloggers are able to write something like this...
"I heard news that the Oprah taping the day before was amazing, received a phone call from Bobby about the important encounter with President Bush at the airport (see previous post (RED) Force One), readied our servers for the influx of launch-day web traffic, sent newsletters announcing the U.S. launch of (RED) to everyone on our mailing list, and exceeded my tolerance for caffeine many times over – things were in order."
...you know, hum-drum blog stuff like being on the Oprah show and meeting the President.
So an excellent cause and very nicely done too with the website and blog.
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Yep - a great idea given the fact that the red products cost the price as the normal ones. I for one am going for red ipod nano and the amex card.
Posted by: Philip Wilkinson | October 16, 2006 3:24 AM
I dunno, to me this looks ridiculous. Absolutely insane in an very american way. Wanna help africans? Just help them. Screw the bullshit about being "great power of first-world consumers", that's nothing more that ingnorant self-indulging jabber.
Don't mean to offend anyone, just my POV on this.
Posted by: Sergey | October 16, 2006 3:49 AM
Sergey, I think you are being way too harsh. This is not a simple problem to solve and this solution is clever, elegant and most likely will work!
Alex
Posted by: Alex Iskold | October 16, 2006 5:25 AM
Thank you, Richard. This *seemingly* normal blogger appreciates your insight and feedback about (RED). Now how many bloggers can say I commented on their blog? Just 1 - you're the first!
Seriously, thank you for posting about (RED)!
Colette
(RED)
Posted by: Colette | October 16, 2006 7:03 AM
Great post, Richard!
At adaptiveblue, we released new special blueorganizer collection focused on raising people's awarenss of the Product (RED) campaign. We blogged about it here:
http://blog.adaptiveblue.com/?p=73
Lets all join and help this great cause!
Alex
Posted by: Alex Iskold | October 16, 2006 8:21 AM
Alex, the problem with this kind of "solutions" (sorry, can't use it without quotation marks) is that people don't care about actually helping anyone, they don't feel good because they helped someone (because they don't know if they did, and they don't care), they feel good because it's THEM who are so nice to buy a (RED) iPod or whatever. This is a complicated matter, no question about it, but this "solution" is amazingly hypocritical.
The fact that it requires all this kind of marketing and the website that presents the matter as cool or trendy, puts a lot of (filler) around it and otherwise yanks the readers' feeling of self-importance is obnoxious.
If you really don't understands what's so awkward about it, think about this: the whole campaign obviously treats being "the great power" as more important matter than actually helping anyone.
(RED) gives a certain kind of people another way for to show off (check out the blog) and that's pretty much all there is to it. Sorry if I ruined it for you.
Posted by: Sergey | October 16, 2006 10:17 AM
It's tempting to pick apart the good intentions of people like BONO in this case, but he's for real and at the very least brings awareness to what I see as the issue of our times; that being, the increasing illumination (thanks to modern technology) of the juxtaposition of the desperately poor and the comfortably wealthy in this world.
Perhaps, this is the genesis of something bigger than all of us and if hearts and minds can be awakened to the cognitive dissonance that resonates within our souls we may just keep the terrorist at bay before they further enlist the disenfranchised of the world to destroy the mechanisms of freedom.
With freedom comes responsibility.
John P
http://www.sundayreader.com/
Posted by: John P | October 16, 2006 11:44 AM
I think this is real. I agree with Sergey in general, as I am personally very selective with charities, but this one is real. It also does not matter that giving makes people feel good. What matters is that there is real help.
Alex
Posted by: Alex Iskold | October 16, 2006 11:58 AM
John, I really think this kind of campaign that accomplishes nothing is worse than nothing at all. It gives a false feeling that situation is improving while it's not. Unfortunately the problem can't be helped with just this and in the end (RED) is just a way to shrug the problem off.
If time will prove me wrong on this, I'll be happy to admit it, but unfortunately my opinion is based on facts and experience.
It's not about hearts or awakening, it's about people who are actually dying, awake all you want they still die and will keep dying. Cruel reality you know. It takes more than fancy marketing to fix this, much much more (I wish it didn't!)
Posted by: Sergey | October 16, 2006 1:00 PM
Colette, I'm honored to be the first blog you've commented on :-) Seriously though, keep up the excellent work!
Sergey, I see your overall point but I too think you're being overly critical. RED is definitely achieving something, so I think you're 100% wrong with this statement: "this kind of campaign that accomplishes nothing...".
It's better to be doing something, anything. You are right that it is a huge problem, but the RED campaign is giving awareness to it *and* helping with money.
To be honest, I don't get all this "the great power" stuff you're talking about...
Posted by: Richard MacManus | October 16, 2006 1:06 PM
Richard,
"All things being equal they are not. As first-world consumers we have tremendous power..." -- those are first words on the joinred frontpage. I'm not making this up, that the catchphrase, the most important message that RED tries to spread (you know the laws of marketing), so that's what I'm talking about. As of money, unfortunately that changes nothing, gives some workplaces for the charity workers, and that's nice. Not much more. Achieving something.. they know how to make it look like that, these guys ARE good in marketing, but what about the facts?
You think that giving awareness is good, well, but it's just a marketing ploy, make consumer feel somewhat guilty, then compliment her with being in power to fix the wrongs of the world (lie) and then propose the easy way to do it -- buy this red iPod and forget about it, well, maybe this T-Shirt and and Amex card too. What kind of awareness is that? Gives you another reason to buy some more unnecessary stuff.
Sorry for all the offtopic.
Posted by: Sergey | October 16, 2006 1:19 PM
It's not offtopic at all Sergey and I appreciate your comments, as always.
I see your overall point and it all makes logical sense what you're saying... but I just feel it's overly cynical.
Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with promoting a good cause in this way, in fact I applaud how they've raised awareness and money through the RED branding and associated campaign.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | October 16, 2006 1:28 PM
Sergey - I agree with you, the real purpose should be to push you to consume more and more... But I think there's no problem with that unless some corruption is being made by the middlemen. At the end, you arguably save less but help people in Africa. And I see absolutely no problem in seeing this featured in R/WW.
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | October 16, 2006 2:09 PM
Erme, I don't mind this at all, I just felt that my opinion was quite contrasting to the writeup so I voiced it, that's all. I don't oppose the campaign in any way and was not trying to prove anything, I was explaining how I see this matter just for the sake of giving a different point of view. Maybe it feels too skeptical, okay then, it's just that my personal "cognitive hygiene" is avoiding wishful thinking at all costs.
Posted by: Sergey | October 16, 2006 2:47 PM
We've got a talk going on about this via Crowdstorm Talk on Product RED. Lots of people have mentioned to me that they would go for it if they could specify the charity they wanted the money to go to via a Product RED account.
Posted by: Philip Wilkinson | October 17, 2006 7:33 AM
To Sergey's view of the RED campaign as a marketing ploy I would like to say that I agree that it probably will not produce a kind of humanitarian awakening in the average American. I think you miss the brilliance of what the organization has done. They have done the market research and have read the American public well. We are a Capitalist society. The fuel of our economy is consumption. What is evident to Bono & company is that America has and always will consume voraciously and frivolously. It seems to me that he has found a great way to allow Africa to benefit from this fact. As for enlightenment and raising awareness and pleading for the higher ideals of justice and compassion Bono seems quite committed to doing that in U2's music, performances and speaking engagements. The problem of poverty and AIDS is deeply complex and requires a multifaceted approach of which Project RED is one.
Posted by: Deri Ricard | October 17, 2006 11:36 AM
I was skeptical about (RED) at first. Just an excuse to consume even more I thought. Now I realize that if people are going to buy these products anyway they might as well do some good with it.
I believe that the Global Fund can achieve results. It can't solve the problem of poverty but it can help keep people alive. As with every charity, a percentage of the funds go to administrative costs, but I believe that the percentage for the Global Fund is relatively small.
Posted by: Arden | October 17, 2006 12:01 PM
Interesting discussion. I agree that if folks are going to spend their $$$ anyway then have some of the profits go to the people and places hardest hit by poverty, HIV and AIDS rather than in the pockets of individual CEO's. I'm wondering Sergey, and others who feel (rightly cynical) - if you have any suggestions for addressing/participating in remedying the problems of poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa/elsewhere? Lend some solutions while exercising your right to be critical.
Posted by: Michele | October 17, 2006 2:06 PM
Michele, in my opinion problem of such a huge scale has no chance of being solved with charities, it's an economical and political problem that needs a lot of planning by some brilliant minds (not me :) and a thoughtful execution. It's about changing the climate of international economy and other such actions of global scale. A shopping spree accomplishes absolutely nothing.
American charities in third world are a joke too. Money used to pay for ridiculously overpriced AIDS treatment will come back to US corporations holding the patents.
I know how American humanitarian missions in Eastern Europe worked, basically the funds are given to anyone willing to do whatever the mission is about but on condition that certain kind of positions will be held by consultants selected by the humanitarian organization. Needless to say those consultants cost hundreds thousands of US dollars. The result is that all the money supposedly flowing into the economy actually return back to US. And only part of those funds were american in the first place, so the actual money flow is going outside of the country; this is "balanced" by aquisitions of whatever valuable properties are located in this country receiving the help. So when all this is factored in, cash flows into the country but when everything settles most assets belong to outside investors, and that means the growing economy also gives most profit to those investors too. It's a simple scheme that was repeated many times over in the past years.
The earliest similar case I know of, is Marshall Plan that was about rebuilding the Europe after WW2 "for free" but actually at a price that rebuilt local economies were tied into certain American industries. This is not a conspiracy theory nor a secret of any kinf, you can easily look it up.
If you think I'm anti-American or something like that, I'm not. This is a business plan, and I can only marvel at how clever it is. What I do find obnoxious is how ignorant the public is going all happy about being fed bullshit on such a massive scale. People really don't know what money are being spent on, and to reiterate my earlier point -- noone cares. It's not about helping anyone, it's about showing off, period.
Posted by: Sergey | October 17, 2006 2:47 PM
Sergey:
You are obviously misunderstanding the point of the (RED)campaign. You keep saying that it is selfish and people don't care about other people, they only care about themselves. That is EXACTLY the point.
The campaign is 100% trying to tap into that selfishness. It is designed for people to be self indulgent, selfish consumers, yet at the same time they are still helping someone. Get it?
It is not for people who would rather write a check to a charity or volunteer their time. People will always be consumers, that is why this campaign was created. In the hopes that consumerism will make the campaign sustainable, so that money will CONTINUALY flow to Africa, rather than just get there in spurts when someone decides to write a big check.
And (RED) is absolutely NOT about showing off. The (RED) team has spent months and months and months developing this campaign because they truely BELIEVE in it. Granted, it is built around the selfish desires of consumers, but why not? If we can filter the money from this selfishness to people who need it, why not do it?
I have read all of your comments and I hear you complaining, but I don't hear what you are doing to try to help. Maybe I overlooked that part?
You are entitled to your opinion, but before you start talking about people you don't know (the RED team)and how you think they feel and think, maybe you should have all of the facts.
Posted by: Jen | October 17, 2006 10:05 PM
Jen, please don't misrepresent my point, I wasn't complaining and I didn't say a word about people behind the RED, or the celebrities who are involved. If you actually read my comments you certainly understand that I also believe writing the check does nothing to help either. The whole situation is so corrupted that it just doesn't work. If product-red is special is such a way that it does help, seeing an entry in their blog about it would be nice, what I see happening is that the question of actually helping anyone or not is being ignored. So I just assume that they do have the best intentions that still won't work. That's what comes across as cynisism but actually it's a conclusion from experience.
Why I think you're wrong is that you argue something is true without presenting any evidence, for ex. "money will CONTINUALY flow to Africa", did you actually read my comments? Don't you see this is not that simple?
Posted by: Sergey | October 18, 2006 3:53 AM
Well, until some brilliant minds step in and do some brilliant economic and political planning, as far as I understand, people are still dying in Africa. I would love to hear their opinion of this discussion. I have bought as many product red items as I can. If that makes me a gluttonous consumer, so be it, but, if even a percentage of a percentage of any of that money goes where it needs to, that's better than nothing, which is what a solution like brilliant political and economic planning has brought thus far, unless there is some "evidence" that I am unaware of. That seems to be an idealistic answer to a real problem. I don't pretend to know or understand the complex workings of Africa, it's social, political or economic issues. But I do understand that a check to a charity, a product red purchase, any of these things is better than nothing, and somewhere, somehow, at least ONE person must be benefiting from it in SOME way. That's not nothing, that's enough of a reason to do it now and consider the political, socioeconomic ramifications as I sit warmly wrapped up in my Gap Product Red sweatshirt later:)
Posted by: A.S.H. | October 19, 2006 8:20 AM
Well, until some brilliant minds step in and do some brilliant economic and political planning, as far as I understand, people are still dying in Africa. I would love to hear their opinion of this discussion. I have bought as many product red items as I can. If that makes me a gluttonous consumer, so be it, but, if even a percentage of a percentage of any of that money goes where it needs to, that's better than nothing, which is what a solution like brilliant political and economic planning has brought thus far, unless there is some "evidence" that I am unaware of. That seems to be an idealistic answer to a real problem. I don't pretend to know or understand the complex workings of Africa, it's social, political or economic issues. But I do understand that a check to a charity, a product red purchase, any of these things is better than nothing, and somewhere, somehow, at least ONE person must be benefiting from it in SOME way. That's not nothing, that's enough of a reason to do it now and consider the political, socioeconomic ramifications as I sit warmly wrapped up in my Gap Product Red sweatshirt later:)
Posted by: A.S.H. | October 19, 2006 8:20 AM
Listen. People who don't want/need these products in the first place could just take the sum of their charitable money and GIVE it. It might be, it WILL be, it CAN be more than 10% of some RED products profits channeled through one of these sponsors accounting departments.
The minute Apple sells an iPod, it is destined to make money off of it's music sales. The minute AmEx sells a credit card, it is destined to make money off of it's interest. The minute the GAP sells a shirt, it is destined to make money of it's advertising. On and On. Cynical? Me? No.
Posted by: Kevin | October 19, 2006 10:56 AM
Of course it's hypocrital to buy a Red Amex. or ipod. or Armani. Armani for Africa! it is seriously ridiculous.
But- WHO CARES? I think it's perfectly reasonable to take the money of materialistic people who would rather have a trendy phone to show off that to save someone's life by making a small donation. We need to solve the AIDS drugs problem BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY! So we appropriate the greed of this generation. They don't care if we take advantage of them in this way. They love it. We're telling them what's cool and hip. They'll eat it up. It's us and them, baby. And we're smarter. Play along, and lives are saved. Whine from your comfortable, healthy, affluent first-world little environment about the guilt you feel buying stuff to save people, and it all falls apart.
Posted by: cheri | October 19, 2006 12:24 PM
Ditto What cheri said.
People are going to buy stuff anyway, so they may as well buy red stuff.
In Australia (not sure about rest of the world) money is raised for Breast Cancer research using the colour PINK. Pink lids on water, pink hairdryers, soap, t-shirts - whatever. It is an effective campaign to raise awareness (sorry this IS important sergey) and if people are aware they might even care and that might even lead to action which is better than no-one having any idea in the first place. :)
Posted by: Nickel | October 20, 2006 11:33 PM
Cheri, the point here, and I think Sergey would agree, is that the whole thing is profiteering disguised by marketing magic. I for one, DO care. I care deeply when ethics are breached and I'm afraid this is the case with product(red). Just because consumers love to play along doesn't make it right.
If I buy a (red) iPod, it will be marked up to a higher price, Apple takes no loss, on top of which I'll still be paying taxes.. and I sure as hell can't write my purchase off at the end of the year as charity, remember (red) is a not 501(c)(3). In the end, as Sergey already pointed out, the money flows right back into US pharma companies that own the drug patents. The economics of this are mind boggling and not as simple as the (red) manifesto makes things seem.
I would suggest to product(red) that they drop the pr speak, and instead offer consumers more transparency.
Posted by: chris | October 21, 2006 6:58 PM
Whilst it is a nice idea, it is merely another way of attempting to appease your conscience and ensure that you still purchase products.
Example - the concept of Fair Trade... did you know that Fair Trade Products account for 0.003 percent of World Trade? For products like Bananas or Coffee, it's about 3%.
Products, markets and consumers have lifecycles. Each lifecycle starts with a sharp incline and gradually tapers off. The challenge for organisations is to keep finding ways to re-invigorate products/brands to make them more appealable to consumers.
One psychological effect post 9-11 (sorry for the crude reference, but that was a huge catalyst for socio-cultural change), was that it caused people to question who they are, what they contribute to society, and what it means to be a human in the 'Global Village.' Fears of Global Warming are compounding this questioning.
Thus, marketers realised that products and brands could be re-invigorated by appealling to these psychographic/subconscious drivers (see Maslow's Hierarchy of Need), and saying to people 'Buy this product, and you're doing your bit.'
Hence, buying RED products is probably better than not. Similarly, buying Fair Trade will give a 'little' extra to the producers of the goods.
But the reasoning behind supermarkets selling these fair trade products is simple. It makes them more profit. The additional money that you pay for fair trade gives more profit to the company selling them than traditional products.
So, if you think you're REALLY changing anything buying RED, I'd suggest you spend a little bit more time finding out how the World works, and take your head out of your Grazia magazine.
However, if you realise what you're doing is making a small contribution, within the confines of a capitalist environment (whose key focus is delivering shareholder value within the confines of stakeholder expectations), then hats off to you.
I say buy RED, but don't lose sight that you can do so much more as well - the developed countries of the World are in a stronger position to make a difference to the World as a whole. Please don't think that RED is the final solution.
peace all
x
Posted by: David from London | October 23, 2006 12:37 PM
Realistically speaking, we cannot cure aids; and we cannot prevent it either. No matter what it will continue to spread, and the only way we could stop it is if we were to divide the positives from the negatives. That however leads to discrimination and would easily result in conflicts beyond repair. Yet, not all is lost. Like this project, we can simply help those that are unfortunate to lead as normal lifes as possible. I believe however, that we shouldn't just focus on giving these people pills; but a solid education system. With education you cannot go wrong.
Posted by: ceca | October 31, 2006 8:08 PM