Conscious Consumption: (Product)Red Results

According to Financial Times, after a first year of hype and hoopla (sure, even I joined in), the first Red-donated money has started flowing to Africa — $5.25 million has gone to Rwanda and $4 million to Swaziland — to treat HIV-positive Africans and to provide care for AIDS orphans. The fund has put 800,000 people in the developing world on antiretroviral drugs and is aiming to at least double that this year.


Eh. Not that I want to hate on a good cause. But this cash contribution seems a wee-bit short on true effectiveness when you consider product development, advertising, manufacturing, retail distribution, packaging, point-of-purchase displays... All the partners could have simply written a clean check to the cause and skipped the talking about it. Perhaps we'll give it some (more) time to build steam...