Starbucks, in partnership with RED, recently announced a plan to have musicians in 156 countries participate in a Global Sing-along, which produced this totally adorable video:
What does this have to do with the price of (coffee) beans? The All-You-Need-is-Love fest is part of a giant global plan to save the continent of Africa from dying of AIDS (and also maybe sell some coffee and reap the marketing benefits of associating their brand with the compassionate, virtuous, saving Africa image).
If you spend $15 at Starbucks, they’ll give you a CD with above song on it (supplies limited!), and donate a dollar to the Global Fund. It gets more convoluted from there: Go online to the Starbucks love website and draw a cutesy love card to trigger another donation from Starbucks to the Global Fund, this time of 5 cents. Finally, if you upload a video facing your computer camera and singing goofily along to the Beatles classic, Starbucks will toss the GF another nickel.
It’s almost enough to make you forget that if you bypassed Starbucks all together and just donated your $15 bucks to the Global Fund you’d be helping…15 times more.
6 Comments
a giant, unprotected love fest – just what the doc ordered!
Great post. My favorite part about RED is that when you go to the ‘Take Action’ section on their website, these are the “actions” available to you:
“Sign up”
“Friend us”
“Shop”
“Spread”
And then way down at the bottom: “Give directly to the Global Fund.”
Because ‘Friending’ them would be SO much more participatory – and effective! – than donating directly?
When do you think under Take Action they’ll provide things like:
Prevention starts with you. (Practice safe sex).
Get involved locally. (Provide database of HIV/AIDS orgs taking volunteers.)
Get educated about the issues (References here.)
Give money to groups doing good work (References here).
Get politically involved (Whole lotta references here).
You have to admit that my fellow danes has the perfect approach to this project at 2:04-2:06.
Danes will always be crazy…
Somethings wrong with the tag on this. I want to “share” it on FB but it just shows the general web address. This won’t market the product well.
This is why I call them “F***’in Bucks”. I can’t stand it. It’s right up there with their non Fair Trade “Africa for Africa” coffee that gives $1 from each pound to RED. That’s right, farmers exploited in Africa to save Africans with AIDS. Fair Trade may not be a panacea, but at least it’s far more accountable (I am very aware of the problems, but it’s a start).
It’s watered down action. Seems mainstream interest in development issues is very much about what is easy to do…so long as you don’t have to do more than click on a link, sign an e-petition, or friend a cause -then everyone’s an activist. What happened to the kind of protesting that hurts? Don’t think you can sell that kind…
Watch a concert, read a blog, follow an NGO, – it’s spectator activism – more spectacle than substance. Like rich kids in american suburbs sporting Che t-shirts.
I think this case here nicely summarizes what’s ineffective with the mainstream form of awareness of the third world: easy consumption of a nice-feeling while the real issues (fair trade coffee, agricultural policy, unfair competition, commodity prices, etc) are not fun enough to engage with.
It’s the infantalism of the Brave New World variety.
That being said above – my sympathies to the poor sods in Marketing that had to come up with something – anything – to do something “new and fresh” and “engaging with social media” around Starbucks. They are people too…
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by aidwatch: New post: The Starbucks and RED say All You Need is Love http://bit.ly/akRDtP...
[...] It’s a love fest! If you spend $15 at Starbucks, they’ll give you a CD with above song on it (supplies limited!), and donate a dollar to the Global Fund. It gets more convoluted from there: Go online to the Starbucks love website and draw a cutesy love card to trigger another donation from Starbucks to the Global Fund, this time of 5 cents. Finally, if you upload a video facing your computer camera and singing goofily along to the Beatles classic, Starbucks will toss the GF another nickel. [...]
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