February 19, 2007

After Huge Marketing Effort, RED Only Delivers $11.3M

by Piers Fawkes

200702191327The RED charity brand from the Global Fund has reported that they have raised a total of $11.3 million in contributions in the year that it has launched. A tiny fraction of the $6.6 billion funds the Global Fund has committed to 460 programs in 136 countries. 2006 witnessed a huge marketing push which leveraged partners including Nike, GAP and American Express. The charity itself spent less than a million dollars, the LA Times reports but we assume that the advertising spend by the partners must have been massive. We tried our best to find out what the total marketing budget associated with the RED campaign was for 2006 but we couldn’t find a figure.

So we’re left thinking: all the marketing activity behind RED made you aware of the brand, not the underlying message of plight in Africa. If the combined marketing activity raised only $11 million and no one has been left better educated about African concerns, wouldn’t it have been better to have just redirected the ad budget straight into the charity?

Article categories: Advertising & Branding, Ethical Consumerism, Finance & Money

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