There is a GREAT new interview with Bobby Shriver which has just been printed in Contribute Magazine.
I don't have a direct online link for the article but here is the magazine's link:
http://www.contributemedia.com/magazines.php
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Contribute
December 25, 2007
A profitable approach to fighting AIDS
Product (RED) co-founder defends a new model for raising funds
Bobby Shriver, 53, a former journalist and the son of the founder of the Peace Corps, met
Bono when the U2 lead singer created a song for a Special Olympics fundraising album
being organized by Shriver in 1987. The two became friends, but it wasn't until 2002 that
Bono contacted Shriver to help him create DATA, for Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa, which
works to eradicate extreme poverty and AIDS in Africa.
Stymied in their efforts to get
corporations to contribute money to keep HIV-positive mothers in Africa from passing the
virus to newborns, the pair then organized Product (RED) to engage mainstream
consumers and major brands to give more at the cash register to stamp out AIDS.
Is it working one year out? CONTRIBUTE Editor-in-Chief Marcia Stepanek caught up with
Shriver — a Yale-educated lawyer and the nephew of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy — to talk
about the evolution of the (RED) project since it was unveiled at the World Economic Forum
in Davos in January 2006. What follows is an edited transcript of that conversation.
Why (RED)?
SHRIVER: After a couple of years of DATA, we got the feeling that we weren't getting to the
soccer moms; we weren't really getting into the pig roasts. Somebody said one day to
Bono that what we needed to do was become more like the GAP — they're in the malls.
They advertise all day long and they tell a story to (mainstream) consumers. That's how
stories get out in America — via advertising. We realized that if we were going to convince
any company to work with us, the only way we could make it sustainable is to enable
companies to make money on it. So we had to make up a brand. We had the idea of (RED),
which is the idea of an emergency. The fact that there are 5,500 people dying a day (of
AIDS) is an emergency. We came up with a brand and a logo and a marketing program,
and that's how it all came about.
Then it took off.
SHRIVER: Well, I wouldn't go that far. You're talking about a start-up with no capital. After
two years of work, we launched the first single product, an American Express card in the
U.K. Then, in the fall of last year — God bless Oprah Winfrey — all the products launched
in America. And then, due to her genius and Bono's great reputation, (RED) finally did take
off, yes.
How does it work?
SHRIVER: Every relationship with our partner companies is a five-year contractual
relationship — which includes auditing, business relationship contracts that cover rights,
non-rights, and so forth. So all of that is very specific. And the trademarks are registered
all over the world and defended all over the world. And each partner relationship is a sort
of startup in and of itself. GAP (RED) would be a startup. Armani (RED) would be a startup.
Converse (RED) would be a startup. And each company, depending on its business model
— Motorola (RED) would be a startup — would have to figure out how this project would
work into its business. A cell phone is a very different business than scarves, and scarves
are a very different business than shoes.
We knew there would be hiccups, as there are in any startup. We only wanted people to
stay the course a little bit on this. We didn't want the thing to be a one-off promotion,
something people would do for just a week or a month. People, once they start to take
AIDS medicine, can't really stop. It has to be steady. You have to have companies that are
steady.
What's been the reaction from companies so far?
SHRIVER: I think some have been ecstatic, while for some it's been pretty good — and
some have struggled, which is exactly what you'd expect of something new. But I think, at
the end of the day, the $47 million speaks for itself. It's way beyond what I ever would
have thought possible. Overall, (RED) products have gone over $100 million in profit. The
companies are keeping part of that.
So it's been a win-win for companies and cause?
SHRIVER: Yeah. I'm a little nervous about that phrase, win-win. I know it's shorthand, and I
even say it myself sometimes, but I think people get sort of nervous because nobody ever
really believes there is such a thing as a win-win. Do you know what I mean? It's true that
companies are making money (from their participation) but that's an idea that needs to be
defended. (RED) is not a charity. There's this thinking out there that if you're a charity, you
have to fly in the back of the bus and go to church three times a week.
It's not the perception that we're here to make money, to demand performance, to work hard — you
know what I'm saying? That kind of thinking is new in philanthropy. We at (RED) are people
who are trying to do pro-social things while holding our colleagues to what I would call
private sector standards. That's a new idea.
The companies that joined us as partners made a hard decision because they knew, and it
has been borne out, that they would be criticized. And we also knew that if you were to do
a poll on the issues that Americans care about, AIDS in Africa at the time would come in
almost last. We weren't (Hurricane) Katrina. It wasn't, "Hi, we're going to do T-shirts for
Katrina. It wasn't that."
What was your reaction to the piece earlier this year in Ad Age that said companies were
spending far more money on marketing — some $100 million — than on eradicating AIDS
in Africa?
SHRIVER: It's a fundamentally inaccurate point. That marketing money is being spent all
the time. How many ads have you seen for a cell phone in today's paper? That marketing
money is being spent any day, regardless—whether the phone is red or black. What (RED)
does is take the money a company is already spending on marketing and turn that money
— and that ad — (RED). That's all we're doing.
Another assertion in Ad Age was that if
people buy the (RED) T-shirt, then they won't contribute money to charity. That's like
saying you bought ten bottles of Paul Newman salad dressing this year, so now you're not
going to give money to a cancer charity. One has nothing to do with the other. People are
smarter than that. You bought the salad dressing because you wanted to have salad
dressing on your salad.
What about criticism that companies may partner with (RED) to patch over their
reputations for being a sweatshop, and so forth?
SHRIVER: We really feel that we're at war, you know, because getting this money out of
governments and companies to fight AIDS is hard work. At any moment they could take it
from you. And we have seen people dying as our critics have, and when you've seen that
and you realize the money can go at any moment, I don't really think too much about
whether a company is taking advantage of me.
You're giving me 50 percent of your
profits? Nice to meet you. Congratulations. Have a nice day. And you're going to run all
that advertising that says there's an issue called AIDS in Africa? God bless you.
(c) Contribute Magazine Inc., 2007