Business and charity promotions

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Heath
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Business and charity promotions

Post by Heath »

A friend of mine just posted to FB a link to this story:
UNICEF recently teamed up with clothing designer Giorgio Armani for the latest campaign in the UNICEF Tap Project, which has been striving to increase access to clean water for children worldwide since 2007.

For this latest scheme, they have created a mobile website app (you don’t have to download anything) that can tell when your phone is not being used. For every 10 minutes you leave your phone alone, Armani will provide a day of clean drinking water to a child in need.
I wrote this comment, but then decided not to post it there. I didn't want to rain on her parade with my negativity. So I thought I'd post it here where I don't mind doing such things. ;)
Heath wrote:I don't know... I get it, but I also sort of hate these things.

Why can't Armani just give "a day of drinking water" to as many children in need as they can afford to? Why make a publicity stunt out of it? Do they have someone in a back room monitoring this site sitting on crates of bottled water waiting to be sent to a needy kid in a 3rd world country but ONLY if you don't touch your phone? "Uh oh, you answered your email! I guess all this fresh clean water just has to stay here instead of going to a needy kid. Now, don't you feel bad about yourself?" Or conversely, "You didn't touch your phone so by doing absolutely nothing you helped a needy kid. Now don't you feel so great about yourself and all the good you're doing?"

I mean, I get the whole "awareness" thing and that hopefully driving people to the UNICEF site will encourage individual donations. I have no problem with that. Charity is great and the promotion of charitable causes is great. But the manipulation angle, the "it's up to you if I help people, so if they don't get my help it's your fault" aspect, just doesn't sit well with me. I think it diminishes the real giving of charity instead of celebrating it.
My wife and I had a big conversation about this sort of thing a few weeks back (I don't recall what the charity, business, or promotion was, but it was along the same lines - you do something that is not a sacrifice and has no bearing on your life and we'll give money to a charity in return so you feel good about yourself and we get some good press). She does not share my opinion and thinks it's great when companies do this sort of thing. Am I the only one that sees it this way? Personally, I'd think a lot more of Armani if they just gave as much as they could to UNICEF rather than giving an amount dependent on what other people do and making a big spectacle out of it.
I would agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

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paradise
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Re: Business and charity promotions

Post by paradise »

I agree that's kind of slimeball territory.

We do a lot of charity events. At any one time i am working on something. We donate a bunch of product for "goodybags" for charity events, never asking for anything in return. It's not "spend this much at the store and we'll send you 100 goodybags". We also do artist sketch events with all the money going to Hero Initiative. Every FCBD we do it at one or both stores, and 100% goes to HERO. We provide artists with backing boards and markers and use a ticket system to collect the money, so that both us and HERO know exactly how much is collected. We are doing a YMCA event in May using a similar model. One does charity because they want to give back for having success, not to promote an agenda.

BTW, speaking from experience, doing it this way benefits us much more. People that come for the charity events see the store, and many feel like buying stuff because they see the store do the event. Many become customers for years because of these visits. I know that when we put those events together. But I don't rely on it as a source of business.
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Heath
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Re: Business and charity promotions

Post by Heath »

And those kind of things are great! If you want to give something, then just GIVE it! Why make it dependent on some meaningless task that someone else has to perform? I just don't get that.
I would agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

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Re: Business and charity promotions

Post by greg »

This is a very good discussion and I don't want to derail it, but the key to what you're asking is right here...
Heath wrote:... by doing absolutely nothing you helped a needy kid. Now don't you feel so great about yourself and all the good you're doing?
Prayer.

People think they've actually done something by praying.
There's no tangible evidence. There's no proof at all.
There's no indication that more people praying = better results.

But people THINK they've done something and they feel good about themselves.
If someone "believes" prayer works, then who can convince them they didn't really do anything?
I get that. People don't like evidence. They like what they like.

But then there's the publicity aspect of praying.
It's posted on the internet like it's a badge of honor to tell someone they did nothing... specifically for them.
Have they done well? Aren't they being "good Christians" by posting about all that prayer?
Let's check the Bible...
If Facebook existed 2,000 years ago, then Jesus would have been talking about Facebook in Matthew 6:5-6.

Until you solve this mindset for millions of "public prayer" people, you'll never solve it for commercial businesses and a charity that helps thousands with actual bottles of water.
Heath wrote:If you want to give something, then just GIVE it! Why make it dependent on some meaningless task that someone else has to perform? I just don't get that.
Exactly. :thumb:


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