Calling Out a Faux Cause Marketing Pinkwasher

One of the infuriating things about the pink ribbon, emblematic of the fight against breast cancer, is that no one owns it in the United States. Consequently you get really silly things like pink sex toys and pink-labeled watermelon and pick pocketknives and more insidious stuff like these collectible ornaments that were advertised in Sunday's Courier Journal newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky that are a clear and unambiguous case of pinkwashing.

Shouldn’t we just get rid of the mess and the chaos and just assign ownership of the pink ribbon to one charity and be done with it, much the way the trademark to the pink ribbon in Canada is owned by the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation?

In a word, no.

Here’s why:

It’s very clear to me that the pink ribbon brand is much bigger because no one entity owns it than it would be if one entity did.

Consider the case of the Android operating system which is in more smart phones than Apple’s OS or RIM’s OS, mostly because Google gives licenses away for free. As a result you can get an Android phone from all the handset makers except Apple and RIM.

But what would happen if Apple or RIM or Google had a smart phone monopoly? Plainly fewer people would have smart phones and they’d be much more expensive.

For the pink ribbon, the test of this supposition comes from Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Komen owns several trademarks of its version of the pink ribbon. Now Komen is a very powerful brand, but which version of the pink ribbon do you see more often, Komen’s, which cants to the right and looks like a person running, or the one where the ribbon’s tails descend straight down?

OK, so the pink ribbon brand is bigger because it’s open source, but what’s the payoff for me or for the population in general?

Imagine for a second that we could go back in time to the Susan G. Komen organization in the 1980s… when the pink ribbon was first being used to signify the fight against breast cancer… and make a very persuasive case to Nancy Brinker to trademark the pink ribbon.

When you got back to 2011, I think you’d find that Komen was a smaller breast cancer charity. And, I think you’d find that fewer Federal research dollars were being spent on breast cancer research.

So we gotta grin and bear faux cause marketing like this which offers no money to any cause and blatantly misleads us with its pink ribbon.

Given that, the only satisfaction in cases like this comes from calling out pinkwashers like the Bradford Exchange.

Tip of the Hat to Kate B. in Louisville for the lead!

Comments

Batting Your Eyelashes at Prescription Drug Cause Marketing

I’m a little chary about making sweeping pronouncements, but I believe I've just seen the first cause marketing promotion in the U.S. involving a prescription drug. The drug is from Allergan and it’s called Latisse , “the first and only FDA-approved prescription treatment for inadequate or not enough eyelashes.” The medical name for this condition is hypotrichosis. Latisse is lifestyle drug the way Viagra or Propecia are. That is, no one’s going to die (except, perhaps, of embarrassment) if their erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or thin eyelashes go untreated. Which means the positioning for a product like Latisse is a little tricky. Allergan could have gone with the sexy route as with Viagra or Cialis and showed lovely women batting their new longer, thicker, darker eyelashes. But I’ll bet that approach didn’t test well with women. (I’m reminded of a joke about the Cialis ads from a comedian whose name I can’t recall. He said, “Hey if my erection lasts longer than ...

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to ...

Chili’s and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

I was in Chili’s today and I ordered their “Triple-Dipper,” a three appetizer combo. While I waited for the food, I noticed another kind of combo. Chili’s is doing a full-featured cause-related marketing campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. There was a four-sided laminated table tent outlining the campaign on the table. When the waitress brought the drinks she slapped down Chili’s trademark square paper beverage coasters and on them was a call to action for an element of the campaign called ‘Create-A-Pepper,’ a kind of paper icon campaign. The wait staff was all attired in black shirts co-branded with Chili’s and St. Jude. The Create-A-Pepper paper icon could be found in a stack behind the hostess area. The Peppers are outlines of Chili’s iconic logo meant to be colored. I paid $1 for mine, but they would have taken $5, $10, or more. The crayons, too, were co-branded with the ‘Create-A-Pepper’ and St. Jude’s logos. There’s also creatapepper.com, a microsite, but again wi...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog