Pink Ribbon, Inc. - What you need to know about Cause Marketing

      This week Hannah chose to watch Pink Ribbon, Inc. A 2011 film put out with support from Breast Cancer Action, a group that has stood up in vocal protest of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure (SGKRftC) charity.
      This film was actually pretty interesting although Breast Cancer Action seem to have lost sight of their goal. A pure assumption of mine is that Breast Cancer Action, also known as BCAction would be most concerned with finding a cure for breast cancer or at least a reliable way of preventing it. However, as you can see from their wikipedia page their actions are more to put down SGKRftC and their Pink Ribbon campaign than anything else.

     This documentary makes some excellent points about cause marketing, which more people should be aware of in my opinion. Cause marketing is where companies or corporations will join forces with a charitable organization. The company will generally give a portion of profits to the charity and will be able to use trademarks and logos on products. This does two things for the companies; First it effectively markets their product in that people will be more likely to choose a product that supports a charity that they also support. Second, it also associates a positive idea with the company and what they might stand for. On the other hand, many people often forget that the charity is also benefiting handsomely in such an exchange. The charities often receive millions of dollars that they might not otherwise. They also piggyback on corporations' advertising, essentially receiving free publicity that would otherwise be extremely expensive.

     This brings us to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Arguably, this is one of the most successful charities in history. They have raised awareness of Breast Cancer in an extremely effective way and have encouraged millions of women to get screened for Breast Cancer. Since it's founding in 1982 they have given over 1.5 billion dollars to research, advocacy, education and other things. It is continually rated as one of the best breast cancer charities. This is especially interesting considering how many breast cancer organizations are on the list of worst charities as rated by the Center for Investigative Reporting. In my opinion, SGKRftC has done more for breast cancer than any charity I can name. I certainly had not heard of any of these other charities.
    BCAction and this documentary would have us stop supporting SGKRftC because some of the companies they ally themselves with also sell products that contain carcinogens. In addition, this film also suggests that we stop buying products from companies regardless of whether they contain carcinogens. Yoplait, for example, is dragged through the mud for their campaign "Save Lids to Save Lives" where they would donate 10 cents for every yogurt lid sent in. BCAction wants us to stop buying Yoplait products because their dairy products at times included milk from cows that had been given rBGH. This is despite numerous studies that have failed to show a link between rBGH and any kind of cancer. These studies are even done by groups such as the American Cancer Society, lest anyone believe, based upon what the documentary propagated, that corporations fund the research in such a way as to prevent their products from being besmirched.

    I think this is an important documentary for people to see so that they can understand what cause marketing is and how it has an effect on their behavior. Other than that, this documentary is one you can skip.


If you like you can view the full documentary on Netflix or on YouTube here: