Cui?, Bono?

Advertising Age reports: “Costly Red Campaign Reaps Meager $18 Million.” Walking around New York City, I was impressed with the brand-development demonstrated by this $100 million campaign. Famous, beautiful people in Red Gap stuff, telling us to “Buy Red.” Fantastic simultaneous investment and expenditure of brand equity, utilizing not only Gap but Motorola and Apple — great brands building a new, greater brand for something even greaterly greater!

Okay, one slight problem.

Looking at the ads — on billboards, bus shelters, phone booths — I had no idea what they were for. What Red? Red what?

No message. No content.

In fact, even reading the Advertising Age article linked to above, you still have no idea what the point of this campaign was until five or so paragraphs down into the article! Evidently it’s something to do with AIDS. Or Africa. I still don’t know. Guess what: They — it — he — who? — doesn’t even tell you on the RED homepage.

It’s an arrogance thing, I think.

UPDATE: Now they do tell you.

Originally posted 2014-10-07 10:22:59. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Ron Coleman

4 Replies to “Cui?, Bono?

  1. Some people are glad that this didnt pan out, since they credit the scientists who have reviewed the HIV/AIDS theory a dozen times in the top mainstream journals over the years and rejected it as unfounded, soemthing the mainstream media rarely report on without disparaging the critics as “denialists”, eg the New Yorker this week.

    As I have written in my blog exhaustively over the poast two years there is every reason to believe they are right and the celebrities that push AIDS drugs onto Africans are quite wrong. How is this possible? Because mainstream ideas being very entrenched these days if they attract massive amounts of funding for research so even if the research disproves the theory (as happens constantly with AIDS) the idea remains in place, especially when it becomes tied in with gay politics, charity politics, celebrity politics, even ad politics as is happening with Red.

    Try my blog NewAIDSReview.com or Narnesworld.com or virusmyth.com for more info if you are interested in this story even after reading the New Yorker.

  2. From the RED homepage you linked:

    “When you buy (RED) from the world’s most iconic brands, they donate up to 50% of the proceeds to fight AIDS. We’re at a tipping point in the fight – by 2015, it’s possible for the world to end the transmission of HIV from moms to their babies.”

    Seems clear enough to me. Did they just add this?

  3. Ha! I just got caught by the Blog Post Promoter. I even checked the date of the article before responding, just not the *original* date.

    Oh well. Live and learn.

    And yes, (RED) probably added that text within the eight years or so. 😀

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