Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

A few years back Time magazine posed this profound question on its cover: “Can Bono save the world?” Personally, I was skeptical, but when Bono started sharing platforms with some of the world’s most powerful men — and one woman, Oprah Winfrey — some believed the answer may indeed be in affirmative.

So after more than a decade of hob-nobbing with world leaders, endless hours kissing up to Industry fat cats, and an eternity spent flogging their wares, the man must’ve indeed collected a fortune. Not since the 19th century has so much hope been vested in the capacity of one White Man to save the benighted lot of Africa; his gift must indeed be substantial.

Advertising Age reports:

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.

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.

So in other words, the (RED) brand is merely the marketing gimmick that I always said it was; the marketing outlays by Gap, Apple and Motorola alone have been estimated a about $100 million. While the campaign has succeeded in making profits for some of the most predatory transnational businesses, it has failed to deliver for its putative beneficiaries — the African indigent.

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 answer perhaps lies here:

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.”

Ad Age then raise this important question.

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?…

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.”

Mark Rosenman, a longtime activist in the nonprofit sector and a public-service professor at the Union Institute & University in Cincinnati, 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.”

Buy (Less) Crap

It appears I am not the only one who resents the campaign’s appeal to conspicuous consumption, a San Francisco group of designers and artists have issued their own slogan: ”Shopping is not a solution. Buy (less). Give more.”

BUY(LESS)CRAP! encourages you instead to give directly to the Global Fund. One of their posters — which looks like a Gap ad, but the brand name instead is Crap – has a naked woman posing behind the caption (RED)ICU(LESS).

While they are creative, funny and well-intentioned, I take exception to the remedy they are offering. Their prescription in the end is just as likely to fail as Bono’s. Charity and personal sacrifice can only go so far; the problems we face are political. Africa is poor not for the dearth of resources or skills, it is a deeply unjust economic order that is impeding its development. Africa is a potentially rich country; it is the centuries of colonial rule and the present neoliberal order that contribute to its continued underdevelopment (Check out Walter Rodney’s brilliant book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa).

The condition in many African states is dire, and in the short term financial support could be useful. But in order for it to realize its full potential, the best that campaigners in the West can do is to work towards abolishing the deeply inquitous economic order and the institutions that enforce it, starting with the G8.

In the meanwhile, Buy (Less) Crap!