The Big Question: Does the RED Campaign Help Big Western Brands More Than Africa?

This article examines the strategy of using private sector marketing as a tool to influence and fund development. The article examines the RED campaign, an initiative to raise money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund). The campaign is based on Product RED, a brand that is licensed to companies such as The Gap, Converse and Giorgio Armani, whose products take on the Product RED logo and contribute a percentage of the profit to the Global Fund.

In this article the author responds to an article published in Ad Age, an American advertising trade magazine, which criticised the campaign, claiming that the amount of money spent on advertising outweighed the amount of money raised for Africa. The author rebuts this claim by stating that the campaign raised more money in the first 6 months than the Global Fund had received from the private sector over the past four years.

This article draws attention to the role that private sector marketing can play in development. The RED initiative uses marketing through the private sector to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic in Africa while promoting RED products at the same time. “RED was the attempt to draw into the wider coalition for Africa people who, if they didn't buy a RED iPod would just have bought one of another colour.” According to the author, Product RED has created a new model for fund-raising by engaging the private sector to create a sustainable stream of revenue for a charitable organisation.

The author concludes by stating some of the successes of the campaign, crediting the RED campaign, through its constant advertising and exposure of AIDS issues, with successfully contributing to political pressure to get governmental action at the international level. He cites the agreement of the United States Government to donate US$724 million to the Global Fund, over US$700 million more than it has donated in the past, as an example of how political pressure can result in government action.