BlogHer - Pink Ribbon, Inc. - The Bad Business Of Buying For A Good Cause - Comments

pink baubles don't do it for me

laurie — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 11:13:58 -0500

Thanks for this post!

I have referenced it in today's blog, since you say it better than I could.

laurie
www.notjustaboutcancer.blogspot.com

You're welcome - but, it was linking with one purpose in mind...

Liz Thompson — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 12:01:13 -0500

...to bring attention to and give an example of "good things" bloggers have been doing to bring breast cancer awareness to light...which I so miserably failed to do - thank you for elaborating on Blogger Boobie-thon and please accept my apologies for any misunderstandings.

Personally, I hope that donating one's time and effort for a good cause (like yours) never goes out of style!
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For more from Liz Thompson, read:
C.E. Fashion & Shopping
This Full House
The Imperfect Parent

Pink Ribbons -- not for me

tish — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 19:08:20 -0500

This is a topic I've long had an opinion about -- whether it's breast cancer or some other malady like AIDS or whatever. Symbols like pink ribbons, yogurt tops, etc. are thought up by marketing folks. I know, I am one. And I don't think people realize that they are playing into a marketing effort for a product and their money would be better spent in a donation directly to a research organization. Cause Marketing -- that's what marketers call this kind of promotion where a company stands behind a charity, seeking to become more widely recognized because of the charity. Did you ever notice that some promotions do not say exactly what they are giving to the charity? Some just say "a percentage" of sales will be given. I find that a bit like bait and switch.

I am a breast cancer survivor and I don't need to wear a ribbon to tell people. I just encourage friends to get regular mammograms.I give my contributions directly to the organizations that I think are doing the most good.

Now that said, let me also add that charities do benefit from these things to some degree -- some more than others. And it's still up in the air if the company gains greater value from the promotion. Many companies are philanthropic without all the fanfare, just because it's a good thing to do. Mininal recognition, no advertising budget to promote it and the money goes directly to the organization. That's what I'd prefer to see. tish

Travels with Tish -- Girlfriends' Getaway Guide

girlfriendsgetaway.wordpress.com

Since we were referenced above...

shutterblog — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 22:50:07 -0500

I'd just like to note since we are linked in this entry - our annual Blogger Boobie-Thon is in no way commercial, affiliated with commercial sites, nor does it profit from any donations made. All of our hosting and bandwidth is donated, as are our volunteer hours. We operate in a pledge-only capacity and every year the first $359 goes directly from the donor to a blogger-related charity (this year Children's Hospital Boston) -- the remaining funds to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. We've raised over $26K since 2002 and this October 1st-7th will be our 5th annual event. If we were merely trying to be 'fashionable', we wouldn't donate a combined hundreds of hours out of our lives every year. Thank you for the link.

-Robyn
shutterblog.com

This is such a heated debate, right now...

Liz Thompson — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 09:18:26 -0500

...yes, there are plenty of other productive ways we could donate our money (and time) however, unfortunately, deciding on exactly how and who we choose to support is totally on us.

Companies are in the business of "making money," no argument there. I'm more concerned with the "in your face" marketing tactics some corporations choose to follow and slapping a pink ribbon on everything from expensive jewelry to bottled water (Linens & Things had them displayed smack, dab in the middle of the main aisle) and hoping that perhaps a woman would sooner buy it, than not, is just plain wrong.

As for the rest of the world's ills, there are just too many to consider a clear-cut solution or decision on who's right and who's wrong.

Thank you all for continuing this discussion.

[P.S. - Mammograms do NOT cure breast cancer, but I can't help to think of all of the loved ones I have lost, or the fact that early detection may have saved their lives! Same goes for diabetes, heart disease, AIDS, and too many other diseases that have slammed the people I hold dear to my heart. It's hard to watch and even harder to understand why anyone would want to make a buck off of it!]
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For more from Liz Thompson, read:
C.E. Fashion & Shopping
This Full House
The Imperfect Parent

Red is the new pink

Maria Niles — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:14:25 -0500

This type of marketing is being applied to heart disease with the "little red dress" campaign and a growing number of products being sold in red to support the cause.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/hearttruth/index.htm

(trying the groovy new link feature)

It's all about thinking

Jamaila — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 18:05:16 -0500

It's all about thinking about what you're buying. If you can put dollars that you'd already be spending on something to a little bit further use, go for it. If you're buying solely to 'support the campaign', don't buy. Donate directly instead, to make the most of your money.

I still want the pink KitchenAid artisan stand mixer, though.

Jamaila

Ancestral Pile

Shopping for a cure

kperfetto — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:20:11 -0500

I'd rather see money go toward education and prevention than adorning one's blouse with a cute ribbon. Neither is stressed enough. (There are still women who believe that a yearly mammogram prevents breast cancer. It doesn't. It just finds it earlier.)

Interesting campaign but it puts the emphasis in the wrong spot

debra roby — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:15:51 -0500

Yes, one in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Meanwhile the health statistics show:

Health Statistics for Women:

â€¢ One in 30 women die from breast cancer; while 1
in 3 die from cardiovascular disease.
â€¢ Heart disease and heart attacks claim the lives of
more women than men each year.
â€¢ Sixty-four percent of women who suddenly died
from heart disease had no previous signs.
â€¢ Heart disease poses a greater threat to women than
all forms of cancer combined.

Yes, because of the publicity of things like the Pink Ribbon campaigns, women are more concerned about breast cancer than heart disease. We will bug our friends and family members to get a mammo, but never ask if they've gotten a lipid profile.

The campaign strikes me as opportunistic... and I don't buy in.

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

Hmmm... not convinced

smartl — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 16:38:24 -0500

I personally don't have a problem with it. It's up to us as consumers to be wise about where we spend our dollars. We can't blame corporations for cashing in if we make poor choices; we can only blame ourselves for that. You know, that whole "voting with your wallet" thing. If you want them to stop selling charity merchandise, stop buying the goods.

Businesses partner with charities for campaigns where "a portion of the proceeds is donated to charity" because they know that customers feel better about their purchases and sometimes spend more when the money went to a good cause than if it simply went straight to the bottom line. Charities partner with businesses because they obtain more donations that way. There is a benefit for each side of the partnership.

There is a way to deal with this as a consumer and prevent businesses from profiting off a charity: buy from companies sponsoring a charity ONLY if you're making a purchase you would have made anyway. Then you can feel warm and fuzzy about it, guilt-free. But if you make a purchase specifically because a portion of the proceeds are going to charity, know that the OTHER portion of the sale is going straight to the corporate profit pool. If it's the charity you want to help, and not the corporation, then it would be more effective to donate directly to the charity and eliminate the corporate "middle man" who is profiting from sales through the partnership with the charity. This also includes pink ribbon branded items, such as tshirts or hats with the pink ribbon symbol on it. The clothing manufacturer is profiting from that unless they donated the clothes to the charity. If you want the highest possible percentage of your cash to go straight to the cause, do without the shirt and make a cash donation.

Interesting

JennaHatfield — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:32:42 -0500

One woman in eight either has or will develop breast cancer in her lifetime.

That's the same statistic (1 in 8) of babies born premature.

Anyway, thanks for the thought provoking post.

Family Living; Hatfield Style - Our Family Blog
The Chronicles of MunchkinLand - My adoption blog.
Jenna

Pink Ribbon, Inc. - The Bad Business Of Buying For A Good Cause

Liz Thompson — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:00:58 -0500

[img_assist|fid=1744|thumb=1|alt=3mpinkribbon]
My husband and I purchased a new mattress set (after 16 years...it was time) and that means two things: new sheets and pillows (trust me on this one...okay) and a trip to Linen & Things!

I got 4 new Queen-sized pillows made by Wamsutta (at $10.00 a pop) saved 20% with their in-store coupon, which made a donation to the Komen Foundation and left feeling good about my purchase.

At least, I think I did.

Companies like Fuji Film, Visa, Yankee Candle and the makers of M&M's urge consumers to "think pink," when making their purchases - especially in October!

As if I needed an excuse to eat candy - Halloween is just around the corner! - October is breast cancer awareness month and websites are seeing pink, including the Style Files at Style for Free.

Whether it's message shirts, wrist bands or - dare I say it? - boob-a-thons, getting involved in health campaigns has become very...fashionable. But, there's a rather large contention of bloggers who don't see "buying goods that do good" as all that great - especially the "pink ribbon campaign" of breast cancer awareness - other than making for really big business.

In her thought-provoking post - "Crunch for the Cure" - Twisty lets us know exactly how she feels, as she reads Samantha King's "Pink Ribbons, Inc."

What a page-turner. It concerns a subject I enjoy finding despicable, the â€˜market-driven industry for [breast cancer] survivorshipâ€™. [It may or may not interest you to know, if youâ€™re just joining us, that my fascination for this topic is not merely academic; I was diagnosed exactly a year ago with stage 3 breast cancer.]

And wonders, along with dozens of her readers who've already commented, "What will happen to global consumerism if breast cancer is ever really cured?"

Thanks to the cancer industrial complex, now everyone can participate in marketing cheap crap to consumers, maintaining a â€œtyranny of cheerfulness,â€ and preserving the blue-eyed American family fantasy with its sentimentalized white nurturing mother centerpiece. Itâ€™s as easy as buying a bag of junk food.

Or, four Queen-sized pillows, apparently.

The Charity Blog Network further informs us on King's assertion, "that some corporate-sponsored breast cancer fundraising has become such "market-driven industy" that it focuses less on research and unfortunately places more importance on profit:"

Breast cancer will afflict as many as one in nine women in Canada and kill one in 27 of them. King's book, which will be published in August, "Pink Ribbons Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy" maintains that when the pink ribbon campaign became the insignia of the breast cancer cause, corporations starting cashing in.

I happen to agree with CBN in believing that, "again, this comes down to you, the ones who actually give to these causes," in finding out, "exactly where and how much of your donation dollars are going to [the] cause you support."

According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Better Business Bureau standards require charities to spend at least 50% of all contributions on their stated causes:

More than 80% of all donations to the National Breast Cancer Foundation benefit free mammograms to needy women, educational programs and cancer research projects.

Weighing in on the other side of the "sink the pink" debate, I believe that the Pink Princess makes a very good point:

Not many people know the power of one color, and how many peopleâ€™s lives it has affected. Yoplait Save Lids to Lives campaign is only one of the thousands of fundraisers geared towards Breast Cancer Awareness. So next time you see a woman wearing a pink ribbon know that this color may have affected her or someone she knows. So many women in the world are proud to wear the color pink. It is a celebration of our womanhood and joining together to help one another. When I think of the color pink, I can think of all the womenâ€™s lives this simple color has saved.

And that ain't even half-bad.

Charities have become big business - Pink Ribbon, Inc. has made it painfully clear - but, then again, giving the gift of hope to those in need is perhaps...business with a purpose.

[Disturbing factoid: This year in America, more than 211,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 43,300 die. One woman in eight either has or will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. In addition, 1,600 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 400 will die this year. If detected early, the five-year survival rate exceeds 95%. Mammograms are among the best early detection methods, yet 13 million U.S. women 40 years of age or older have never had a mammogram.]

For more blogging on women's health, we're building a list of recommended links at Blogging Our Health: Breast Cancer and Beyond. We invite you to add your link!
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Contributing Editor Elizabeth Thompson also writes for the eZine, "The Imperfect Parent."

[World's Largest Pink Ribbon - courtesy of 3M]