The (Product) Red campaign seemed a bit odd to me from the start, using celebrity endorsers telling us to consume luxury consumer goods so that Africans with AIDs could have a slice of their shopping spree. Participating companies, offering ‘special’ red coloured products including the red iPod, red AmEx card, and red-logoed Armani accessories, painted the North America press red with a massive spree of product and endorsement ads featuring the likes of Steven Spielberg , Christy Turlington and Bono. The message is basically ‘consume more: help the poor,’ and that comes across to me as being plain wrong.
Apparently the target audience is wary of the idea, too. Sadly, AdAge reports that (Product) Red marketing spending has dwarfed the actual donations generated for beneficiary The Global Fund (which in itself appears to be a relatively well-run and well-intended NGO).
The failure of Red to really take off actually seems more just than would its success. In the greater scheme of things, the campaign would never have been likely to appreciably increase the overall aid money incoming to African nations. And its success would be founded on making un-thinking consumers of luxury items equate their consumerism with philanthropy, and that is misguided.
A friend (whom I won’t name here) cynically quipped that they should have Red-branded a broader range of consumer goods:
“Save the starving: eat red meat.”
“Save the planet: drive an SUV.”
Clearly marketers looking to find profitable means for corporations to contribute to charitable goals need to work a lot harder than this to make something meaningful and workable.