Seeing Red re (Product) Red

Inside a Gap store. Picture kiped from (Blog) Red.

By now you may have heard of (Product) Red, a marketing scheme meant to funnel funds to combat AIDS in Africa.

What is Red? According to The (Red) Manifesto, “it is not a charity. It is simply a business model. You buy Red stuff, we get the money, buy the pills and distribute them.” According to their boffo ads in major magazines, “red stuff” is usually high-end consumer goods – often, but not always, red in color – sold by a handful of major marketers, including Motorola, American Express, Gap, Emporio Armani, Converse and Apple. American Express will be donating 1% of purchases bought with certain of its cards. The others [from what I can tell] are donating half of the profits from each item they sell that is designated as Red. All “donations” end up going to The Global Fund, which is a well-respected Swiss organization responsible for managing the nitty-gritty charity work.

Both James of The Buddhist Blog and Bill in Integral Options Café blogged enthusiastically about the program, based on initial information.

James wrote,

As some of you know I lived in Cote D'Ivoire [aka, Ivory Coast], West Africa, … for 2 plus years and have a deep connection and bond to the African people. They are a proud and beautiful people who need our help. I saw firsthand the terrible effects of HIV/AIDS there.

6,500 Africans die EACH DAY from AIDS!!!!!!!

Please consider buying one (or more) of these (RED) products to help fight the HIV/AIDS scourge.

Bill saw the scheme ballyhooed on Oprah and wrote,

This is worth doing -- and it isn't a handout, it's buying what we would already buy. And with GAP clothing, many of their products are made in Africa by the people whose lives will be saved.

But two other bloggers have looked into it further and are skeptical of any bonanza of good coming from the scheme. I am persuaded by these others, their analyses, and a look at the numbers that while Red may help many in Africa, it’s possibly a dribble of aid for all the effort and it benefits corporate interests greatly while warping the classic charity-motivated-by-compassion model.

Bobby Shriver, of the Kennedy clan [bro of Maria Shriver Schwartzenegger, California’s First Lady], devised the “cause marketing” effort in partnership with U2’s famed lead singer Bono who is already much celebrated for his humanitarian work.

According to Richard Kim in The Notion, the blog at the website of The Nation magazine, Shriver told the New York Times “Gap in the beginning couldn't understand how they were going to make money. They wanted to do a T-shirt and give us all the money. But, we want them to make money. We don't want anyone to be thinking, ‘I'm not making money on this thing,' because then we failed. We want people buying houses in the Hamptons based on this because, if that happens, this thing is sustainable.”

Retorted Kim, “Aside from the sheer, murderous calculation involved (preserving the perception of corporate profitability at the cost of millions of dollars of charitable aid and thus at the cost of thousands of African lives), it’s the whole notion that sustainability and success requires summer estates in the Hamptons that really rankles me.” Later in his post Kim adds, “Welcome to the gilded age of corporate empire or what its leading citizen Bill Gates calls ‘frictionless capitalism.’ … Shopping is sharing, and the unprecedented accumulation of wealth squares entirely with ‘ending poverty’ -- just ask Gates or Warren Buffet. In their world, fighting AIDS somehow never seems to query how Europe and the US underdeveloped Africa and how the continent’s abundant resources are still exploited by the world’s wealthy.”

Conservative blogger and noted movie critic Michael Medved is another opponent of the (Product) Red idea. He detailed four major objections in a post in his Townhall.com blog, relating to his radio show. The last three of his objections don’t impress me: Medved objects to the phrasing in the (Red) Manifesto; the sexiness of the ads; and the curious construction of Converse shoes. But his first objection if on-target, and it sounds like it is, is a whale of an indictment:

Big companies are using the (RED) association as an excuse to jack up their prices on ordinary merchandise to ridiculous levels, and not all the difference in price is actually going to the charity. Consumers would do far better to buy the regular non-(RED) products and then give their own contributions directly to their charity of choice. For instance, Gap jeans normally priced at just under $50 are now sold as signature (RED) pants for $198. The Gap promises to donate 50% of their proceeds to AIDS relief – so that still means that the company is taking an extra $50 bucks (not for charity, just for profit) from gullible people who choose to buy the jeans. A Gap long-sleeved t-shirt that last week cost $14.50, now goes for $45…. Meaning that the company still gets an extra $8 of your money on an absurdly over-priced piece of cloth, even after giving their share to charity. Motorola is similarly jacking up prices of their (RED) offerings, and the company’s president of mobile devices, Ron G. Garriques, conceded to the New York Times: “I don’t believe it’s giving up profit. What I believe it is, is making more profit.” Sure, hefty profit margins are the American way, but this is taking advantage of people’s charitable impulses that might have been better engaged in direct charitable giving. In other words, the (RED) scam counts on human stupidity, or at least silliness. I hate ruthless exploitations of thoughtlessness – which is why I hate the gambling industry, and I dislike this.

For my part, I dislike making shopping complicated. Let there be nothing other than the tension between supply and demand setting prices when I go to the mall. I don’t want to have to figure out which are The Blue businesses and which are The Red businesses as determinants when I shop. And I don’t want to mix buying a T-Shirt with figuring out if a charity is worthy or not.

When I give to a charity, I want that to be a “pure act” – not faux-compassion with most of the benefit of a purchase coming to me, me, me. And I want to be able to understand the accounting of it all: Is there a real need? Is the organization overburdened with bureaucratic expenses?

I also want my fellow Americans to wrestle with the purpose and implications of charitable giving. I think that they are made better people by doing so; by considering the suffering of others in need. I don’t think that “frictionless capitalism” is good: We need to experience the friction.

Too, I think governments and the U.N. have to take on the major role. Only they can manage the tasks of assessing where the greatest need is. Frankly, with Gates and Buffett and Clinton gathering billions of dollars for charitible causes lately, I don't know if AIDS in Africa doesn't already have a mountain of money in the pipeline to meet the need.

Technorati tags: Product Red, Bono, Bobby Shriver, frictionless capitalism, AIDS in Africa, AIDS