Emptying The Ocean With a Teaspoon

Apparently the hugely publicized “Product Red” campaign fronted by Bono and other celebrities spent $100 million on promotion but only brought in $18 million last year. Something of a flop! The idea behind the campaign was to raise money (and awareness?) for AIDS treatment in Africa through a partnership – participating multinationals aiming, by showing their caring attitude, to attract consumers willing to buy “Red” branded products of all kinds. Let’s be gracious and give Bono and the other celebrities the benefit of the doubt and assume their intentions were purely altruistic. They wanted to use their personalities positively to motivate people to give and make a difference.

Corporate Watch monitored the whole affair and scathingly commented on the debacle thus, “Capitalism failing to help the world’s poorest people AGAIN then, Bono? . . . . . Shopping isn’t the solution. Just give directly and bypass American Express, Gap et al.” (Is there a tinge of altruism here too?) But no thanks to the punters who (misguidedly) supported the campaign and no guidance either as to what they could do other than shop less and contribute more directly to charity.

What needs to be pointed out to both punters and Corporate Watch is that charity has its price too. In this capitalist world just how much of your donation is used for what it was intended and how much is swallowed up with administration, wages, and transportation costs etc. etc? How much charity from how many individuals for how many more years will rid the world of its inequalities, starvation, health epidemics and poverty? Faced up to the answers are stark. The statistics are available for all to see. No amount from growing numbers of donors for ever and a day will put an end to the ever increasing disparities. The one and only answer is a total system change. Has Corporate Watch considered looking into that?

JS