It's not about the bike...or the car, or the clothes...
Had a GREAT day today. Of course, this came after an entire weekend of really bad pain, but oh well. I'll take the small victories when they come.
Anyways, I've been mulling over today's post for a few weeks now, ever since I stumbled upon THIS LINK HERE. Before proceeding with what I have to say, please take the time to peruse this little article. What I'm about to say here depends on having read this.
Why? Because basically I'm going to deconstruct this absolute capitalistic tripe into its bare components. And like everything I post of this nature, it ain't gonna be pretty.
Ok. So you read the article at the link. It's quite a nice story at the beginning, isn't it? Mousy little female employee who has endured untold hardships as a cancer "survivor" suddenly draws on her tragic experience with what is assumed to be early stage breast cancer to overcome her natural shyness to bring down the house at the meeting of corporate executives. "I don't care where the money comes from-let's just cure the damn disease," she says. It's enough to give you a warm fuzzy.
There are many things wrong with this article in addition to this naive and utterly concocted story about the quiet woman who can only muster the strength to speak out when it concerns (gasp!) breast cancer! The first, obviously, is the language being used to manipulate the emotions of the audience. Calling her a "survivor," inserting this unspoken notion of bravery juxtaposed with past suffering on behalf of said "survivor"...all serve the express purpose of making the audience buy into the idea that we should never question corporate donations BEFORE you even read the argument contained in the rest of the article. Which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. This WAS written by a marketing consultant, you know. One can hardly fault her for using their tactics, even though this is supposed to be a well thought-out piece.
So, yes. Anyone with half a brain will pick up within the first sentence that this is a biased piece written as a means to convince corporate executives that it's good for business to associate themselves with a cause. We get that, but for fun let's go through it anyways.
First of all, the statistics that are quoted in the article are pretty meaningless unless you happen to be in that .004% of the population that happens to be a CEO of a major company that has a lot of money to divert into the non-profit sector. And even then they really don't mean anything. This is what I like to call bad application of research or, more pointedly, A WASTE OF MY TIME. But having worked in the corporate sector for quite a while, let me be the first to tell you that business people just love statistics. They don't mean anything, but people love quoting them anyways. So good job on the article, Ms. Fogel! The only thing missing are some quotes from the Successories line of office art...you know, things like "There is no 'i' in team." You managed to get "ROI" in there...throw in a "synergy" and "best practices" and you've got yourself the perfect article on business bullshit. So keep practicing...I'm sure you'll get it in time.
There is one statistic, however, that I found rather interesting. You state, "In fact, 65% of Americans would switch to a brand associated with a good cause-price and quality being equal." Price and quality being EQUAL. Hmmm. Do you mean like M&M's or Post-its(tm)?
But this is one of the cruxes of the problem. One of the reasons that very few in this country are philanthropic is because we're all too busy being self-centered consumers. Stop shopping for useless crap that you don't need and instead buy a homeless guy dinner. Or instead of getting that 15th bottle of nail polish or video game or whatever your vice is, how about you donate the money you would have spent on something you don't need to the charity of your choice? The problem that this article illustrates is the problem inherent in today's capitalism and that's this: people don't think about where there money is going. Slap the name "Komen" on any given product and people suddenly think that they're making the world a better place.
The problem is also magnified by the fact that people don't question charities. Now I'm not trying to pick on Komen, but it's the charity that I've researched the most. 11.5 cents of every dollar given to them goes to "research," and I hate to break it to you but that research is NOT for a cure. It's for research that recombines existing therapies, it's for new forms of chemotherapy, and it's for new medications to help alleviate the symptoms of treatment. Occasionally you get something that breaks from chemotherapy, like a monoclonal antibody or something like Zevalin, which is a targeted therapy based on a radioactive isotope. But it's few and far between and again...NOT CURES. I understand that slapping the word "cure" on everything is supposed to keep people all positive and such so that they'll keep on contributing more money, but the unfortunate side effect of that is that now the public thinks that we're on the cusp of some major break-through.
Now here's where my bias comes in: I do not think there will be a cure for cancer...well, I won't say never, but not anytime in the next twenty years. Take a course in evolutionary biology to understand why I've come to that conclusion. So while we all work on finding a cure, we ought to be focusing on some other things. Cancer is NOT just something that happens. It's a disease of civilization so it might be a good idea to begin questioning certain things about our civilization so that maybe we can try preventing it while we formulate chemicals in a lab somewhere.
So, with that bias in mind, of course I question the notion of cause-related marketing. Half of the reason we're in this fix culturally is because of this incessant need to HAVE more, BUY more...to take a quote from Big Agribusiness, it's "get big or get out." We can't just be happy with the Honda Civic. No, we need to have the huge gas-guzzling Navigatorin order to furnish our sense of self-worth. Who we are suddenly becomes representative of what we HAVE, to the point where now what we have is more important than what we do.
And with this, I'd like to introduce to you the latest gimmick in cause-related marketing: the useless trinket. You've seen these before: pink ribbon pendants, cancer-awareness teddy bears, and yes...those rubbery yellow bracelets. You know the ones...cost about $1, stretch over your hand, and have the words, "Live Strong" engraved in them.
Yes, I'm going there. I'm going to pick on Lance Armstrong and Nike here for a minute.
I don't know how many of you read Playboy magazine, but on occasion I do. I actually find it to be a really interesting read, especially the interviews. This month's interview was with Lance Armstrong. In the interview, Lance was talking about how the yellow bracelet was all Nike's idea. Ok, so far so good. The bracelets would be made by Nike and the proceeds would go to the Lance Armstrong foundation.
The proceeds? Hmmm. Let's do some math. According to the Lance Armstrong Foundation press release dated March 22, 2005, FORTY MILLION people have bought these bracelets. Since they all cost $1 each, that is FORTY MILLION DOLLARS.
Wow. Lance must be so happy! I mean, let's say the bracelets cost...what, how much can something like that cost? Pay some designers, pay someone to program the CNC machinery to make the mold, run it across an automated assembly line...I'm willing to bet the thing cost mere pennies to manufacture. But for the sake of argument let's say that they cost a whopping 50 cents. So, half of each bracelet goes to manufacturing costs. It's much less than that in reality, but for this scenario I'm going to be generous.
So, here's our math problem: if half of the cost of each bracelet goes towards manufacturing, how much money was actually raised in selling forty million bracelets at a dollar each? If you guessed $20 million, then congratulations! Maybe you should be taking calculus.
So what does Lance have to say about all of this in Playboy?
He says that he thought Nike was crazy when they said they would make five million bracelets. "But they did, and they made a million-dollar donation, too."
Um...wait. Does that mean that Nike only donated one million dollars? And five million? What about the forty million?
Well, according to the most recent press release, Nike had apparently set a goal of raising $5 million, and then donated an additional $1 million on top of it.
So, $40 million minus $6 million equals what...$34 million. Using our fifty cents per item example, we'll say that (cough) $17 million went towards manufacturing costs. Where, pray-tell, is the rest of that $17 million?
Why, in Nike's pockets, of course! After all, they need that money to pay their employees in third world countries a fair wage. Right?
Sorry, that was a low blow. Nike, I apologize.
But let's get back to this article I was writing about, the one that says, "In a capitalistic society, shareholders have a right to expect a positive ROI on their investments, just as the public has a right to increased transparency in corporate giving programs." In other words, Nike has every right to expect to turn a profit from their "generous" donation to a non-profit association. And you, as the consumer, are paying Nike for the privilege of being able to donate some of your money to a charity. Of course, in exchange for that privilege you get a cheap little bracelet, a bracelet that supposedly tells the world a little bit about you. Kind of like how that BMW tells the world what kind of status you have as an individual.
This is the insidiousness of cause-related marketing. While it does give SOME to charity, it serves no other purpose than to use this as a means to get you to buy another useless trinket or other product that you might not normally buy. It reinforces you into the mold of "consumer," and the fact that part of the money you spend buying this stuff goes towards something supposedly good alleviates you from feeling buyer's remorse. Which, of course, is really good for repeat business.
And yes, this whole set-up DOES pump some money into non-profits. As the article points out, "On the receiving end, nonprofits benefit with the ability to maintain or grow programs and services that are vital to the wellbeing of millions of citizens."
Great. But imagine how much money we could raise if we just eliminated the corporate middle-man! Instead of being a consumer-centric society, where we spend all of our time and money trying to out-do the Jones' down the street, what if we were a philanthropic-centric society? What if our self-worth were defined NOT by what brand of clothing we wore but instead by how much we were able to help our fellow brothers and sisters in life? What if those forty million people who bought "Live Strong" bracelets had foregone purchasing the item and instead just donated their dollar to the foundation?
Of course, the article can't even comprehend that. Or rather, it does but ignores this idea with a not-so-subtle threat involving the idea that gee, if corporations weren't so benevolent then we'd all better be prepared to pay more taxes! Which is utter hogwash. The money to help people is already out there. It's in the form of the twenty Ralph Lauren polo shirts hanging in your closet, or the fifteen different Estee Lauder lipsticks in your bathroom, or the ten cartons of pink-ribbon yogurt that you bought in the name of the cause but had to throw out because you just didn't get around to eating all of it. We don't need to raise taxes to raise more money for non-profits! We as consumers just need to re-distribute the funds a bit better.
And that means we need to stop falling for these kind of manipulative tactics. It's not just a matter of Think Before you Pink. It's a matter of using your head every time you make a purchase. The true "cure" for breast cancer--and any other kind of cancer--is not going to come from corporate sponsorship simply because corporatations reserve the right to claim any portion of the "proceeds" as part of their overhead costs. 11.5 cents of every dollar you give to Komen goes towards research. Is that enough for you?
If it is, fine. Buy all of the pink and white M&M's you can eat. If it's not, then my suggestion is not to buy more M&M's.
My suggestion is to donate directly. The sooner we can remove corporate conflicts of interest from cancer research campaigns, the more money we can raise and, I daresay, the more honest the world will become when discussing breast cancer. As long as things like breast cancer remain in the hands of cause-related marketing, I guarantee that you will never hear anything other than light and fluffy stories about women in pink t-shirts walking their way for awareness. Or about how a once mousy woman used her trying and traumatic experience with breast cancer to reinvent herself into the strong and sure survivor that she is today.
Because, you know...when it comes to cause-related marketing, we're all survivors. Right? After all, if they talked about those of us destined to die from this, they'd never sell a thing.
Anyways, I've been mulling over today's post for a few weeks now, ever since I stumbled upon THIS LINK HERE. Before proceeding with what I have to say, please take the time to peruse this little article. What I'm about to say here depends on having read this.
Why? Because basically I'm going to deconstruct this absolute capitalistic tripe into its bare components. And like everything I post of this nature, it ain't gonna be pretty.
Ok. So you read the article at the link. It's quite a nice story at the beginning, isn't it? Mousy little female employee who has endured untold hardships as a cancer "survivor" suddenly draws on her tragic experience with what is assumed to be early stage breast cancer to overcome her natural shyness to bring down the house at the meeting of corporate executives. "I don't care where the money comes from-let's just cure the damn disease," she says. It's enough to give you a warm fuzzy.
There are many things wrong with this article in addition to this naive and utterly concocted story about the quiet woman who can only muster the strength to speak out when it concerns (gasp!) breast cancer! The first, obviously, is the language being used to manipulate the emotions of the audience. Calling her a "survivor," inserting this unspoken notion of bravery juxtaposed with past suffering on behalf of said "survivor"...all serve the express purpose of making the audience buy into the idea that we should never question corporate donations BEFORE you even read the argument contained in the rest of the article. Which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. This WAS written by a marketing consultant, you know. One can hardly fault her for using their tactics, even though this is supposed to be a well thought-out piece.
So, yes. Anyone with half a brain will pick up within the first sentence that this is a biased piece written as a means to convince corporate executives that it's good for business to associate themselves with a cause. We get that, but for fun let's go through it anyways.
First of all, the statistics that are quoted in the article are pretty meaningless unless you happen to be in that .004% of the population that happens to be a CEO of a major company that has a lot of money to divert into the non-profit sector. And even then they really don't mean anything. This is what I like to call bad application of research or, more pointedly, A WASTE OF MY TIME. But having worked in the corporate sector for quite a while, let me be the first to tell you that business people just love statistics. They don't mean anything, but people love quoting them anyways. So good job on the article, Ms. Fogel! The only thing missing are some quotes from the Successories line of office art...you know, things like "There is no 'i' in team." You managed to get "ROI" in there...throw in a "synergy" and "best practices" and you've got yourself the perfect article on business bullshit. So keep practicing...I'm sure you'll get it in time.
There is one statistic, however, that I found rather interesting. You state, "In fact, 65% of Americans would switch to a brand associated with a good cause-price and quality being equal." Price and quality being EQUAL. Hmmm. Do you mean like M&M's or Post-its(tm)?
But this is one of the cruxes of the problem. One of the reasons that very few in this country are philanthropic is because we're all too busy being self-centered consumers. Stop shopping for useless crap that you don't need and instead buy a homeless guy dinner. Or instead of getting that 15th bottle of nail polish or video game or whatever your vice is, how about you donate the money you would have spent on something you don't need to the charity of your choice? The problem that this article illustrates is the problem inherent in today's capitalism and that's this: people don't think about where there money is going. Slap the name "Komen" on any given product and people suddenly think that they're making the world a better place.
The problem is also magnified by the fact that people don't question charities. Now I'm not trying to pick on Komen, but it's the charity that I've researched the most. 11.5 cents of every dollar given to them goes to "research," and I hate to break it to you but that research is NOT for a cure. It's for research that recombines existing therapies, it's for new forms of chemotherapy, and it's for new medications to help alleviate the symptoms of treatment. Occasionally you get something that breaks from chemotherapy, like a monoclonal antibody or something like Zevalin, which is a targeted therapy based on a radioactive isotope. But it's few and far between and again...NOT CURES. I understand that slapping the word "cure" on everything is supposed to keep people all positive and such so that they'll keep on contributing more money, but the unfortunate side effect of that is that now the public thinks that we're on the cusp of some major break-through.
Now here's where my bias comes in: I do not think there will be a cure for cancer...well, I won't say never, but not anytime in the next twenty years. Take a course in evolutionary biology to understand why I've come to that conclusion. So while we all work on finding a cure, we ought to be focusing on some other things. Cancer is NOT just something that happens. It's a disease of civilization so it might be a good idea to begin questioning certain things about our civilization so that maybe we can try preventing it while we formulate chemicals in a lab somewhere.
So, with that bias in mind, of course I question the notion of cause-related marketing. Half of the reason we're in this fix culturally is because of this incessant need to HAVE more, BUY more...to take a quote from Big Agribusiness, it's "get big or get out." We can't just be happy with the Honda Civic. No, we need to have the huge gas-guzzling Navigatorin order to furnish our sense of self-worth. Who we are suddenly becomes representative of what we HAVE, to the point where now what we have is more important than what we do.
And with this, I'd like to introduce to you the latest gimmick in cause-related marketing: the useless trinket. You've seen these before: pink ribbon pendants, cancer-awareness teddy bears, and yes...those rubbery yellow bracelets. You know the ones...cost about $1, stretch over your hand, and have the words, "Live Strong" engraved in them.
Yes, I'm going there. I'm going to pick on Lance Armstrong and Nike here for a minute.
I don't know how many of you read Playboy magazine, but on occasion I do. I actually find it to be a really interesting read, especially the interviews. This month's interview was with Lance Armstrong. In the interview, Lance was talking about how the yellow bracelet was all Nike's idea. Ok, so far so good. The bracelets would be made by Nike and the proceeds would go to the Lance Armstrong foundation.
The proceeds? Hmmm. Let's do some math. According to the Lance Armstrong Foundation press release dated March 22, 2005, FORTY MILLION people have bought these bracelets. Since they all cost $1 each, that is FORTY MILLION DOLLARS.
Wow. Lance must be so happy! I mean, let's say the bracelets cost...what, how much can something like that cost? Pay some designers, pay someone to program the CNC machinery to make the mold, run it across an automated assembly line...I'm willing to bet the thing cost mere pennies to manufacture. But for the sake of argument let's say that they cost a whopping 50 cents. So, half of each bracelet goes to manufacturing costs. It's much less than that in reality, but for this scenario I'm going to be generous.
So, here's our math problem: if half of the cost of each bracelet goes towards manufacturing, how much money was actually raised in selling forty million bracelets at a dollar each? If you guessed $20 million, then congratulations! Maybe you should be taking calculus.
So what does Lance have to say about all of this in Playboy?
He says that he thought Nike was crazy when they said they would make five million bracelets. "But they did, and they made a million-dollar donation, too."
Um...wait. Does that mean that Nike only donated one million dollars? And five million? What about the forty million?
Well, according to the most recent press release, Nike had apparently set a goal of raising $5 million, and then donated an additional $1 million on top of it.
So, $40 million minus $6 million equals what...$34 million. Using our fifty cents per item example, we'll say that (cough) $17 million went towards manufacturing costs. Where, pray-tell, is the rest of that $17 million?
Why, in Nike's pockets, of course! After all, they need that money to pay their employees in third world countries a fair wage. Right?
Sorry, that was a low blow. Nike, I apologize.
But let's get back to this article I was writing about, the one that says, "In a capitalistic society, shareholders have a right to expect a positive ROI on their investments, just as the public has a right to increased transparency in corporate giving programs." In other words, Nike has every right to expect to turn a profit from their "generous" donation to a non-profit association. And you, as the consumer, are paying Nike for the privilege of being able to donate some of your money to a charity. Of course, in exchange for that privilege you get a cheap little bracelet, a bracelet that supposedly tells the world a little bit about you. Kind of like how that BMW tells the world what kind of status you have as an individual.
This is the insidiousness of cause-related marketing. While it does give SOME to charity, it serves no other purpose than to use this as a means to get you to buy another useless trinket or other product that you might not normally buy. It reinforces you into the mold of "consumer," and the fact that part of the money you spend buying this stuff goes towards something supposedly good alleviates you from feeling buyer's remorse. Which, of course, is really good for repeat business.
And yes, this whole set-up DOES pump some money into non-profits. As the article points out, "On the receiving end, nonprofits benefit with the ability to maintain or grow programs and services that are vital to the wellbeing of millions of citizens."
Great. But imagine how much money we could raise if we just eliminated the corporate middle-man! Instead of being a consumer-centric society, where we spend all of our time and money trying to out-do the Jones' down the street, what if we were a philanthropic-centric society? What if our self-worth were defined NOT by what brand of clothing we wore but instead by how much we were able to help our fellow brothers and sisters in life? What if those forty million people who bought "Live Strong" bracelets had foregone purchasing the item and instead just donated their dollar to the foundation?
Of course, the article can't even comprehend that. Or rather, it does but ignores this idea with a not-so-subtle threat involving the idea that gee, if corporations weren't so benevolent then we'd all better be prepared to pay more taxes! Which is utter hogwash. The money to help people is already out there. It's in the form of the twenty Ralph Lauren polo shirts hanging in your closet, or the fifteen different Estee Lauder lipsticks in your bathroom, or the ten cartons of pink-ribbon yogurt that you bought in the name of the cause but had to throw out because you just didn't get around to eating all of it. We don't need to raise taxes to raise more money for non-profits! We as consumers just need to re-distribute the funds a bit better.
And that means we need to stop falling for these kind of manipulative tactics. It's not just a matter of Think Before you Pink. It's a matter of using your head every time you make a purchase. The true "cure" for breast cancer--and any other kind of cancer--is not going to come from corporate sponsorship simply because corporatations reserve the right to claim any portion of the "proceeds" as part of their overhead costs. 11.5 cents of every dollar you give to Komen goes towards research. Is that enough for you?
If it is, fine. Buy all of the pink and white M&M's you can eat. If it's not, then my suggestion is not to buy more M&M's.
My suggestion is to donate directly. The sooner we can remove corporate conflicts of interest from cancer research campaigns, the more money we can raise and, I daresay, the more honest the world will become when discussing breast cancer. As long as things like breast cancer remain in the hands of cause-related marketing, I guarantee that you will never hear anything other than light and fluffy stories about women in pink t-shirts walking their way for awareness. Or about how a once mousy woman used her trying and traumatic experience with breast cancer to reinvent herself into the strong and sure survivor that she is today.
Because, you know...when it comes to cause-related marketing, we're all survivors. Right? After all, if they talked about those of us destined to die from this, they'd never sell a thing.