Via COF Professional Advisor Network from The Washington Post (Free Subscription Required) By Alicia C. Shepard, 10/26/2004
Look around. There's a quiet yellow wristband revolution going on. They are not bar ID bracelets, as one Arlington teacher surmised when he saw Penn State students wearing them at a football game.
...Some say it's this year's pink ribbon. But in reality, Nike and Armstrong have come up with an exceptionally effective and far-reaching fundraising strategy. In only five months, demand for these gender-neutral wristbands emblazoned with "LIVESTRONG" has exceeded any ambitious fundraiser's wildest hopes.When the Armstrong Foundation launched the "Wear Yellow, Live Strong" campaign on May 17, it had a simple goal: Sell 5 million bands for $1 each, and Nike would throw in $1 million. Then, use the $6 million for resources to help young people living with cancer. For full text article, click on headline above.
With $20 mil raised and counting, a good thing has been done. With bracelets selling for $36 on Ebay, and orders backlogged at the charity, you cannot say enough about the aching need of citizens to make a positive difference. Should we care that this charitable impulse is catalyzed by a fad marketing campaign by a company with a chiaroscuro reputation for labor practices and hard core marketing in the inner city? Yes we should! The need for community, for solidarity, is almost overwhelming. The milk of human kindness aches in the heart when unexpressed. Instead of wearing the Nike fad-marketing bracelets Kerry and Bush would do better to think one heck of a lot bigger. There is more to life than markets. The bracelets both affirm and deny the limits of commercialism. They are a bright yellow plastic contradiction, as if the Catholic Church were to market the Cross through special arrangement with Wakenhutt prisons.
Caritas and Community - we can do better than Nike, or any other mixed motive marketer, with or without the bracelets.
