Up until now, I haven’t really paid much attention to the (Red) campaign. I mean, I think it’s a great thing, but it just seemed a little close to charity/white man saving Africa. But this week I got a hold of the Vanity Fair issue on Africa (guest edited by Bono!), and I came across a (Red) ad that just said “Meaning is the New Luxury” in black on a background of, wait for it, red. For any student of advertising and PR, this was basically like saying “Hi, blog about me.”
Because it’s true: we don’t buy products and services anymore because they work, we buy them because it makes us feel good about ourselves, our lifestyle. See: Persuaders, The. We know this. I just had never seen it spelled out so blatantly. It was kind of refreshing--no, really refreshing--after an entire magazine of tastefully-designed celebrity-endorsed socially-responsible product ads, including Kimora Lee Simmons for her own jewelry line, Natalie Maines and Terrance Howard for Gap(Red), David Beckham for Motorola(Red), and Eve for Mac Cosmetics... Totally unrelated, how did Jennifer Anniston’s people let her non-charity-related ad for bottled water appear in a magazine filthy with pictures of Brad Pitt talking politics with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in full Deep, Concerned Celebrity mode? Awkward.
Anyhoo. The next page declared “Be a good-looking Samaritan.” The page after that featured the (Red) manifesto, which I was all ready to read by this point:
Maybe this caught my eye because I spent most of yesterday afternoon researching social entrepreneurs: “(Red) is not a charity. It is simply a business model.” And now it hits me: it all goes back to transparency. Will I buy their products? Depends. I don’t like being a walking billboard for anything, so no to the Gap t-shirts. I would have bought a (Red) cellphone, though, if they’d been around when I renewed my contract.
As for the magazine itself, I was all ready to be critical about it, but it’s actually a really well-edited issue. I’d write more, but I’ve read Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay How to Write About Africa and it was so damn funny I’ll just demand you go read that instead.
Because it’s true: we don’t buy products and services anymore because they work, we buy them because it makes us feel good about ourselves, our lifestyle. See: Persuaders, The. We know this. I just had never seen it spelled out so blatantly. It was kind of refreshing--no, really refreshing--after an entire magazine of tastefully-designed celebrity-endorsed socially-responsible product ads, including Kimora Lee Simmons for her own jewelry line, Natalie Maines and Terrance Howard for Gap(Red), David Beckham for Motorola(Red), and Eve for Mac Cosmetics... Totally unrelated, how did Jennifer Anniston’s people let her non-charity-related ad for bottled water appear in a magazine filthy with pictures of Brad Pitt talking politics with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in full Deep, Concerned Celebrity mode? Awkward.
Anyhoo. The next page declared “Be a good-looking Samaritan.” The page after that featured the (Red) manifesto, which I was all ready to read by this point:
Maybe this caught my eye because I spent most of yesterday afternoon researching social entrepreneurs: “(Red) is not a charity. It is simply a business model.” And now it hits me: it all goes back to transparency. Will I buy their products? Depends. I don’t like being a walking billboard for anything, so no to the Gap t-shirts. I would have bought a (Red) cellphone, though, if they’d been around when I renewed my contract.
As for the magazine itself, I was all ready to be critical about it, but it’s actually a really well-edited issue. I’d write more, but I’ve read Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay How to Write About Africa and it was so damn funny I’ll just demand you go read that instead.
Comments