Costly Red Campaign Reaps Meager $18 Million

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Miringeltje

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http://adage.com/article?article_id=115287

Bono & Co. Spend up to $100 Million on Marketing, Incur Watchdogs' Wrath
By Mya Frazier

Published: March 05, 2007

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- It's been a year since the first Red T-shirts hit Gap shelves in London, and a parade of celebrity-splashed events has
The collective marketing outlay by Gap, Apple and Motorola for the Red campaign has been enormous, with some estimates as high as $100 million.
followed: Steven Spielberg smiling down from billboards in San Francisco; Christy Turlington striking a yoga pose in a New Yorker ad; Bono cruising Chicago's Michigan Avenue with Oprah Winfrey, eagerly snapping up Red products; Chris Rock appearing in Motorola TV spots ("Use Red, nobody's dead"); and the Red room at the Grammy Awards. So you'd expect the money raised to be, well, big, right? Maybe $50 million, or even $100 million.

Just $18 million
Try again: The tally raised worldwide is $18 million.

The disproportionate ratio between the marketing outlay and the money raised is drawing concern among nonprofit watchdogs, cause-marketing experts and even executives in the ad business. It threatens to spur a backlash, not just against the Red campaign -- which ambitiously set out to change the cause-marketing model by allowing partners to profit from charity -- but also for the brands involved.

Enormous outlay
By any measure, the buzz has been extraordinary and the collective marketing outlay by Gap, Apple and Motorola has been enormous, with some estimates as high as $100 million. Gap alone spent $7.8 million of its $58 million outlay on Red during last year's fourth quarter, according to Nielsen Media Research's Nielsen Adviews.

But contributions don't seem to be living up to the hype. Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the recipient of money raised by Red, told The Boston Globe in December, "We may be over the $100 million mark by the end of Christmas."

Rajesh Anandan, the Global Fund's head of private-sector partnerships, said Mr. Feachem was misquoted, and defended the efforts by Red to increase the Global Fund's private-sector donations, which totaled just $5 million from 2002 to 2005. (The U.S. Congress just approved a $724 million pledge to the Global Fund, on top of $1.9 billion already given and $650 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)

'Hugely frontloaded'
"Red has done as much as we could have hoped for in the short time it has been up and running," he said, adding: "The launch cost of this kind of campaign is going to be hugely frontloaded. It's a very costly exercise."

Julie Cordua, VP-marketing at Red and a former Motorola marketing exec and director-buzz marketing at Helio, said the outlay by the program's partners must be understood within the context of the campaign's goal: sustainability. "It's not a charity program of them writing a one-time check. It has to make good business sense for the company so the money will continue to flow to the Global Fund over time." She added that since many of Red's partners haven't closed their books yet on 2006, more funds likely will be added to the $18 million.

But is the rise of philanthropic fashionistas decked out in Red T-shirts and iPods really the best way to save a child dying of AIDS in Africa?

Parody mocks Bono
The campaign's inherent appeal to conspicuous consumption has spurred a parody by a group of San Francisco designers and artists, who take issue with Bono's rallying cry. "Shopping is not a solution. Buy less. Give more," is the message at buylesscrap.org, which encourages people to give directly to the Global Fund.

"The Red campaign proposes consumption as the cure to the world's evils," said Ben Davis, creative director at Word Pictures Ideas, co-creator of the site. "Can't we just focus on the real solution -- giving money?"

Trent Stamp, president of Charity Navigator, which rates the spending practices of 5,000 nonprofits, said he's concerned about the campaign's impact on the next generation. "The Red campaign can be a good start or it can be a colossal waste of money, and it all depends on whether this edgy, innovative campaign inspires young people to be better citizens or just gives them an excuse to feel good about themselves while they buy an overpriced item they don't really need."

Fears of nonprofits
Mark Rosenman, a longtime activist in the nonprofit sector and a public-service professor at the Union Institute & University in Cincinnati, said the disparity between the marketing outlay and the money raised by Red is illustrative of some of the biggest fears of nonprofits in the U.S.

"There is a broadening concern that business is taking on the patina of philanthropy and crowding out philanthropic activity and even substituting for it," he said. "It benefits the for-profit partners much more than the charitable causes."
 
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I think it definitely needs more time. Something like this needs time to see if it's going to work.
 
bonocomet said:
I think it definitely needs more time. Something like this needs time to see if it's going to work.

double agree :applaud:

And I can tell you that the people at (RED) are working on new ways to create ways that people can help (RED) in their own community.

More to come in the near future. ;)
 
Miringeltje said:


"There is a broadening concern that business is taking on the patina of philanthropy and crowding out philanthropic activity and even substituting for it," he said. "It benefits the for-profit partners much more than the charitable causes."

For me, this is far greater a concern than the ratio of marketing campaign to money made at this point. I'm sure they saw it coming, just look at Edun's numbers. But what he's saying here is pretty important, IMO.
 
Just another example of how out of touch the filthy rich are with the general public and real life, no matter how much they may talk of charity.:tsk:
 
Im ashamed this came from my state..eek now I sound like the Dixie chicks :lmao:

on a serious note.. they knew full ahead that the money they were putting into the campaign would be far greater than the profits achieved in the 1st year.. it just takes time..and about the purchasing products you dont need.. that is way out of context.. its being a smarter shopper..you can still give charitably but you have something that you can use to show for it and advertise the campaign even more! like the campaign has stated from the beginning in a way....why go out and buy a tshirt made in sweat shops and cheaper when you can choose a (RED) product that does so much more?!
 
Sad to see that RED is not off to a stronger start, although I agree that this is more media sensationalizing. Things like this do take time to get up and running. And the risk with something like RED is that the products are tied to the companies selling them...I know that Gap, for example, has been having sales issues for awhile now. This is not because of RED, but RED products are going to be affected by it.

I'm not a fan of the argument that charity from consumerism is somehow tainted or bad. First of all, there is the realism factor - yes, maybe in a perfect world everyone would donate enough money to meet the world's needs and not buy more than they strictly needed. Let's be honest, though - consumerism ain't goin' nowhere and, that being the case, people may as well capitalize on that for worthwhile causes. I'm also a little offended by the idea that money going towards antiretroviral drugs, food for children, or malaria nets should be cut because it came from someone buying a tee shirt that 'they didn't really need'. Can you imagine the absurdity of telling a dying person "Yeah, I'm sorry, we were going to give you medication to treat your HIV, but it turns out the money came from somebody who bought a tee shirt when they already had enough tee shirts! You'll be glad to know we refused to use that 'bad' money for your medication".

Sorry for the rant. I get a little feisty when it comes to this topic. So many lives are lost so pointlessly every day in Africa...maybe RED isn't perfect, but it's providing several million dollars that wouldn't have been available for this issue otherwise.
 
Even so, look at the awareness that has gotten across because of a t-shirt. And I'm in agreement with some of the comments above. It definantely needs more time and that fact that it isn't as widely available as some people may like could be a contributing factor in this too. I know a lot of places were either sold out or hadn't even heard of it.

I don't see this is bad in any way either. Atleast someone is getting off their bums and doing something. If only more would take the hint now.
 
It's sad to see that there are always people trying to put a good concept down.
I have always felt that the idea behind (Red) is based on bringing social responsibility to large companies. This is where the big money is.
Just the amount of awareness raised by this campaign is worth enough to make it a success, and a success is every life saved.
I think people need to give it some time, such big business concepts don't always deliver that quickly.
And there have been different reports about the amounts of money donated to the global fund through (Red), so I would be a little suspicious about this article.
Though some of the arguments certainly deserve some consideration.
 
Another factor to consider is that the RED cellphone is going to cost people more than another phone. For example, my cell phone contract is up for an upgrade, and I usually get whatever deal they have to offer for a new 2 year contract, and it's usually free for shipping or less than 20 bucks with the deal. The RED phone might be a hundred bucks. Now which one are most people going to choose? And you may go 'oh but look at all the good that hundred bucks would do!' but the thing that most celebrities don't realize is that an awful lot of average people DO NOT HAVE extra money to do that with. I know I don't! I not only have no extra money, I literally go in the hole EVERY month and have many, many bills that are a month or more behind including my mortgage. So I am going to get the cheap phone instead? You betcha.
 
Well the point of Product RED, is for people who are going to spend a certain amount of money on something anyways, they can choose the RED product and a donation is made. They can also choose not to get the RED product, no donation made. Same amount of money spent...

Sure there will always be cheaper products out there ... but there are still always going to be people who choose to buy ipods, razr phones, armani glasses.. etc...
 
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If it's all the same amount of money, I'd choose the RED one. But for a hundred bucks difference, I can't. And I can't afford Ipods, Armani glasses or Edun clothes.
 
Considering on how much crap most people usually spend their money, I think it's fair to say that buying RED products would be quite a good investment.
 
dietcokeofevil said:
BONO IS UNFOCUSED. Period.

He needs to say no more often
:scratch:
Whom should he say no to?
I honestly believe that most of the things he has come up with in recent years were his ideas.


I am afraid this topic is about to turn into another Bono bashing thread again.:(
 
Since Bono and all other rich celebrities are totally out of touch with real life people in the US they expect to buy this stuff, maybe they should consult a real person who has to live a real life and then they can tell them what would work and what wouldn't. I am serious.
 
U2Kitten said:
If it's all the same amount of money, I'd choose the RED one. But for a hundred bucks difference, I can't.

I've seen (RED) phones (for Sprint contracts) as low as $30. :shrug: If yours is $100, that's a problem with the service dealer, not (RED). Also, the free phones are the shitty ones; the (RED) phone is a good phone.

It's like the popular dog-training method, NILIF (Nothing In Life Is Free). If you can't afford it, don't buy it. Send $5 to Heifer Int'l or the Global Fund instead. There are plenty of aid orgs and programs already set up that don't involve buying expensive novelties (which is the good point the article brought up at the end). You can send a goat to someone in TZ for less than a (RED) bag from Gap. There's plenty of opportunities out there, you just have to find the one that works for you.
 
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U2Kitten said:
Since Bono and all other rich celebrities are totally out of touch with real life people in the US they expect to buy this stuff, maybe they should consult a real person who has to live a real life and then they can tell them what would work and what wouldn't. I am serious.
What makes you think that your particular life is an indicator of other people's "real life" (whatever that is).
I cannot relate to your life. Please stop being so righteous.
This thread is a welcome opportunity for people who have a. no respect for the things Bono has done and b. try to blame him for their own misery.
Apart from that, I think RED is after all a simple concept:
Before RED, the company was making profits and not donating.
Now the company is making profits AND donating.
It's basically a win win situation.
 
U2Kitten said:
Since Bono and all other rich celebrities are totally out of touch with real life people in the US they expect to buy this stuff, maybe they should consult a real person who has to live a real life and then they can tell them what would work and what wouldn't. I am serious.

And who in your 'opinion' is donned with the honour of being "a real person who has a real life"?!? :huh: Coz plenty of Plebans, who live in the US and the UK, have bought the (RED) cellphone and other (RED) products and if any of the (RED)products were available here, I would buy them too! So what does that make us?!? I mean, it's unfortunate that you can't afford to buy any of the (RED) products, but that doesn't mean that those of us who can, aren't any less 'real' than yourself!! :tsk:
 
First of all, I am not bashing him. I am saying that he has an Achiles heel or two.

He's been juggling too many projects for some time now. The next wave of U2 backlash has already begun, and a growing number of people are getting annoyed with him and the celebrity cause bandwagon.

He is definitely sincere, but a lot of folks jump in with him for the photo opp. The public is growing wise to it. His own image is beginning to suffer for it.
 
dietcokeofevil said:
First of all, I am not bashing him. I am saying that he has an Achiles heel or two.

He's been juggling too many projects for some time now. The next wave of U2 backlash has already begun, and a growing number of people are getting annoyed with him and the celebrity cause bandwagon.

He is definitely sincere, but a lot of folks jump in with him for the photo opp. The public is growing wise to it. His own image is beginning to suffer for it.

Yeah, I agree. He moves from org to org faster than I go through toilet paper! Any single one of them could use full time manpower from a celeb like Bono, but he has to juggle U2, being Bono, and DATA, One, Edun, (RED)..... It does unfortunately seem that when he momentarily turns his attention from one to another, the first one looses steam and people no longer pay attention. DATA was a BIG deal on-campus here when I was a student. People were really interested in it and being part of it. Four years has gone by and now very few of the current students even know what it is. I think he allows himself and his time to be exploited to a certain extent and I do wish he'd be more focused.
 
(RED) also has those little trade bead safety pins for a dollar

I don't know enough about business to judge whether or not it's a good business model, this whole RED thing. I bought one t shirt just to support the cause and because I thought it was pretty, but I don't feel compelled to buy anything that I can't afford and I always try my best not to do that. That's probably all I'll ever buy of the RED products. It's always up to the consumer to make the final and ultimate decision, no one can force you to do anything. Like Liesje said, there are plenty of affordable options for charitable giving of all types.
 
Liesje said:


Yeah, I agree. He moves from org to org faster than I go through toilet paper! Any single one of them could use full time manpower from a celeb like Bono, but he has to juggle U2, being Bono, and DATA, One, Edun, (RED)..... It does unfortunately seem that when he momentarily turns his attention from one to another, the first one looses steam and people no longer pay attention. DATA was a BIG deal on-campus here when I was a student. People were really interested in it and being part of it. Four years has gone by and now very few of the current students even know what it is. I think he allows himself and his time to be exploited to a certain extent and I do wish he'd be more focused.
Sorry, but Bono is one of the most focused people I have ever come across.
He is convincingly serious in his campaigning efforts.
It's not that he talkes about global warming on monday, human rights on tuesday and fair trade on wednesday.
He certainly has his principles and he's going his way.
Even if we may not agree with some things he is doing, but Bono has said in the past that he would do anything to get the message across.
All he has done in recent years serves one single purpose. He's just trying to reach out to different social areas.
And watching last weekend's NAACP awards it has become obvious again that the organisations he helped found are still a big deal and still expanding.

But I also believe that these organisations have to function without Bono's name being attached to them.
 
last unicorn said:

He is convincingly serious in his campaigning efforts.
It's not that he talkes about global warming on monday, human rights on tuesday and fair trade on wednesday.
He certainly has his principles and he's going his way.
Even if we may not agree with some things he is doing, but Bono has said in the past that he would do anything to get the message across.
All he has done in recent years serves one single purpose. He's just trying to reach out to different social areas.

:up: I completely agree

And I also believe that these organisations have to function without Bono's name being attached to them.

I agree as well, but I think that unfortunately, a lot of them are not. They are functioning in the sense that they are still doing great work without Bono's full time help, but while people WILL listen when he's around, they will just as quickly quit listening when he's not. It's not a problem with him, it's a problem with the majority of the western population. I don't know if it's apathy, cynicism, desensitization or what, but it seems like no one really cares unless Bono is physically in front of them. I see this a lot from my family and friends. :(
 
Liesje said:


I've seen (RED) phones (for Sprint contracts) as low as $30. :shrug: If yours is $100, that's a problem with the service dealer, not (RED). Also, the free phones are the shitty ones; the (RED) phone is a good phone.

It's like the popular dog-training method, NILIF (Nothing In Life Is Free). If you can't afford it, don't buy it. Send $5 to Heifer Int'l or the Global Fund instead. There are plenty of aid orgs and programs already set up that don't involve buying expensive novelties (which is the good point the article brought up at the end). You can send a goat to someone in TZ for less than a (RED) bag from Gap. There's plenty of opportunities out there, you just have to find the one that works for you.

for me, I bought the RED razr from sprint as soon as it was released and I only paid 69 bucks. Where the hell is $100 coming from??? It was never that much in the first place. :eyebrow:

IMO.. this thread is about to go down hill cuz of 'the people' who just love to bash bono and all that he does whenever someone starts up a thread that involves a critical view of what bono is doing/things he's involved in etc.. Why can't we have a well-balanced discussion about the topic at hand instead of the same ole crap over and over again..:huh:
 
Liesje said:

I agree as well, but I think that unfortunately, a lot of them are not. They are functioning in the sense that they are still doing great work without Bono's full time help, but while people WILL listen when he's around, they will just as quickly quit listening when he's not. It's not a problem with him, it's a problem with the majority of the western population. I don't know if it's apathy, cynicism, desensitization or what, but it seems like no one really cares unless Bono is physically in front of them. I see this a lot from my family and friends. :(
Yes. I remember hearing Bobby Shriver say in an interview that they are trying to push Product RED far enough so it won't need Bono's name attached to it any more.
I hope it works.
Bono does a great job in making things public, promoting and pushing them into public awareness, but someday this stuff has to function without him. He cannot handle everything.
 
last unicorn said:

Yes. I remember hearing Bobby Shriver say in an interview that they are trying to push Product RED far enough so it won't need Bono's name attached to it any more.
I hope it works.
Bono does a great job in making things public, promoting and pushing them into public awareness, but someday this stuff has to function without him. He cannot handle everything.

I completely agree with you. Having RED and other campaigns function without Bono is going to be tough but it can be done. At least with RED they have the right people in there running it, namely Bobby Shriver who will be able to carry on and succeed with it. I certainly have faith in it. It truely is a great thing that they are doing. So much better than what our gov't is doing currently.
 
Liesje said:


:up: I completely agree



I agree as well, but I think that unfortunately, a lot of them are not. They are functioning in the sense that they are still doing great work without Bono's full time help, but while people WILL listen when he's around, they will just as quickly quit listening when he's not. It's not a problem with him, it's a problem with the majority of the western population. I don't know if it's apathy, cynicism, desensitization or what, but it seems like no one really cares unless Bono is physically in front of them. I see this a lot from my family and friends. :(

I think you hit the nail on the head there Liesje. It's the completely double-mindedness of the Western world and the U.S. especially. If a celebrity or any well-known person attaches their name to anything it gets people talking and most times jumping on board because of that reason. For example, a lot of my friends and family think that RED was started completely by Bono and is his company. I've tried to explain that he's one of the founders, but as far as I know the original idea wasn't his. Clearly, he agreed with it and wanted to be involved. That's awesome, people see him promoting it. They see all the products, and they go out and buy them. Then they turn it into (I'm only referring to people I know of in this instance) a name-dropping thing. This is Bono's RED iPod. Two minutes later they're bashing him and calling him a hypocrite only out for himself (um, right because he's making a lot of money off RED :huh:). If I try talking to someone about RED and don't mention Bono they could care less. However, once I mention he's one of the supporters they take the opportunity to go out and buy something or to think about in the future, and then take that opportunity to run Bono into the mud at the same time. Maybe some people should take a look in the mirror and call themselves a hypocrite before calling someone else one. What?:ohmy:
 
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