Am I required to like pink? Although I am a breast cancer survivor, working at a cancer-related blog that will admittedly feature a whole lot of pink this month, personally I am not fond of the color pink. Much to the chagrin of family and friends, I am fond of black and white -- and of course the classic color of denim. It suits my personality. I began wearing black when my children were toddlers. Toddlers tend to hang on at knee and thigh level and toddlers are known for a tactile kinesthetic state of being that makes hands sticky with such things as peanut butter and jelly or finger paint. Black is very forgiving a color in that way. It's practical in sorting piles of clothing on laundry day. Black makes deciding what to wear in the morning a no-brainer. Function became my personal fashion as I stayed with black, and as trends come and go, some years I am in and some years I am out.
I am drawn to, and will support, companies that operate from a social responsibility of giving back to the community. However, I take a rather jaded view of the true intention of some companies bandwagon approach to the pink breast cancer awareness theme. Advertising Age has an interesting article titled Breast Cancer Awareness Strategy Doubles Sales of Campbell's Soup that highlights the company's projected profits by introducing the classic red and white can of condensed tomato and chicken noodle soup in a pink ribbon version. In a normal month, Campbell's sells the Kroger chain of grocery stores 3.5 million cans of these two soups. With the pink ribbon cans, the company has sold 7 million cans to the grocery chain and has been given special placement displays outside the soup aisle at Kroger.
Campbell's spokesman John Faulkner is quoted as saying, "We certainly think there is the possibility of greater sales since our typical soup consumers are women and breast cancer is a cause they're concerned about." Campbell's will donate 3.5 cents for every pink can of soup it sells, or $250,000 dollars to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. How much is 7 million cans of soup times 50 cents a can anyway?
I am merely using Campbell's soup as an example of the mind-dizzying number of companies who have gone pink in October. I like Campbell's soup, it reminds me of childhood and simpler times. I will continue to feature companies promoting pink products this month. Part of the sales goes to breast cancer organizations. But I am more impressed with some than others. Before you purchase a product that is promoting itself pink as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, ask how much of the purchase price is going directly to breast cancer charity.
When we get to a time when companies who promote a breast cancer awareness pink product donate ALL the profits from that product to breast cancer prevention research and a cure, I will go pink. Ms. Black-and-White will buy pink, wear pink and own pink.
41. Just a few responses. The use of pink was a great strategy for fund raising...I'm told by freinds who work for cancer awareness organizations that it is hard for other cancer funding groups to "compete." All major cancers have a color assigned to them these days - colon cancer was originally assigned brown - but that was changed for obvious reasons. But pink eclipses them all because it certainly does, in the mind of American Women, represent the feminine. The pink and blue thing came about in WWII, if my sources are correct. Before that time, there were no colors associated with gender - I don't like the color coding of genders as the psychological impact is to separate and focus on differences, which was certainly not the original conscious intent...but certainly a mind-set guided the separation. And henceforth pink has been disdained and even rabidly hated by many, many men as though it is an insult to their maleness. I've often wondered how popular green would be if green was given to girls and yellow to boys. The race thing...well, it wasn't about pink skin - but one can see how someone might think that. I like the color pink...well some pinks...I don't particularly like the shade used for breast cancer (in fact it annoys me). What bothers me about the use of pink is that - because of the whole gender thing - it makes it "feel" like breast cancer is exclusively female. Of course it's not. And the rather pervasive disdain of feminine things by many men, makes them even less willing to do their own breast exams, and harder to adjust to the reality of male breast cancer. So I guess I'm saying, I wish it had been some other color originally - but hat's off to those who started it all...it has been very effective.
As for Campbell's- corporations are mandated by law to make profits - which is the root of much evil in this country. And corporations are constantly looking for ways to make themselves look human friendly rather than some machine that exploits for profits. This is the perfect answer then. But $250K
when sales have doubled? For shame. I do believe iit makes soog sence to check out the charities being supported - there's a lot of shady things that happen in some...I'm not bothered by a connection to Choice. I would be bothered if I found out that the CEO was making millions, which the actual research funds were paltry.
Come on Campbell's - $250K is the least you can do...emphasis on "least."
Posted at 10:43AM on Oct 9th 2006 by Lynn Krause