Design 21: Social Design Network

OF COURSE it's a marketing campaign.

This clever marketing campaign so far brought $20 million to Global Fund which they otherwise would not have had to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in 136 countries, and it's greatly raised awareness for these illnesses amongst the population that otherwise would not have known or cared much about this issue.

It's shown companies a better way to use their marketing power.

What's so horrific about that?

I don't think anyone's pretending that this is all charity. They are simply saying, "If you are going to buy it anyway, choose the one that also benefits this cause." (They are promoting aid under the guise of consumerism, not "promoting consumerism under the guise of aid"!)

We have to support the notion that we - as individuals, companies, or non-profit, or whatever - all do what we can. Don't be swayed by small-minded people who like to criticize. Often the other side of their criticism is ignorance and arrogance. (Good example of this is that the blogger Mark Higginson that Marco Siebertz refers to writes on and on about how cool the new iPhone is in the subsequent blog. If there are are 2 versions of iPhones offered - one with a donation and one without - I suppose he would choose the one without, just out of his principles. How petty, how sad.)

The only thing that counts is that we do good work.

You are writing that »the only thing that counts is that we do good work«.

Well - it's difficult to define that. I think it's not the best solution to rescue poor people's life by buying stuff. That's quite decadent as it - by logic - means: if we buy a certain product (one of the red ones), we save the life of helpless people in Africa. So in reverse it means: if we don't buy red products, we let those people die.

Making people's lifes a product of commerce is really awfull I think. Of course they generate money through this campaign - but wake up: at what point of capitalism are we now that it has gone so far?! Buy = live, don't buy = die. No... I'm against this.

Doing good work in my opinion has to be a bit more sustainable. This problem cannot be solved my marketing campaigns - on the contrary: marketing is one of the problems! Patent politics that make treatment unaffordable for those in need, exploitation of the continent for centuries, bad education... . That's where we have to start.

Even Bill Gates said to the campaign: »Well, we can only hope that people don't stop buying stuff!«

I agree that it isnt good to base someone's wellbeing on whether or not I buy a shirt. I don't know if Bono is naive or trying to promote himself or both. I remember a joke was going around that Bono was trying to become the new leader at the World Bank. Well anyone is better than Wolfowitz.

Oh and speaking of Bono and clothing, here was another shirt with a message he was promoting before the Red Campaign.

Coexist

this has alwayse been one of those issues that is difficult to decide upon, :) but here's my opinion anyway...

the red campaign is definetly just a marketing campaign, i know that it gets millions of dollars to the poor people in Africa but i think it does it in a really weird way. im just saying weird because i cant find a word to describe it. it's just a weird model to utilize - using capitalism/consumerism to help other people. i mean the people who bought RED products, most of them dont purposely buy Product RED so they can help these people, they bought RED because it looks cool and different. and the mentality behind is what makes this drive sick. so does this mean that the poor people are dependent on how we spend money on luxurious stuff? i mean if these company really wanted to help they wouldve given half of the product cost to the fund... why just a tiny percentage?

and imagine the marketing budget they give to these products, the marketing/advertising budget is way way higher than the amount they "share" to the poor people. and when you analyze this you realize that these products are just limited edition gadgets/accessories that benefits the companies and not the poor people they wanted to "help".

there are people who will argue ( a lot of them do) that it doesnt matter if they intended to donate or not, the fact that it produced millions of dollars for Africa it's all good. now this statement is really wrong because it defeats the "purpose" (if they really had one) of the campaign - which is to bring awareness to consumers about the state of the 3rd world country and whatnot...