Bono Launching
the Motorola (RED) phone

With the goal of fighting AIDS in Africa, the Product RED charity effort from the Global Fund has reportedly raised $11.3 million in contributions in the year that it launched - a surprisingly low figure given the number of brands and exposure it yielded from a multi-channel blitz, and especially in comparison with the $6.6. billion that the Global Fund has committed to 460 programs in 136 countries - writes PSFK.

Though the charity itself has spent less than a million dollars, the cause-marketing initiative harnessed brands such as GAP, Nike, American Express, Apple, and Georgio Armani, putting the marketing tally upto a much higher, though undisclosed amount.

PSFK remarks, "So we're left thinking: all the marketing activity behind RED made you aware of the brand, not the underlying message of plight in Africa. If the combined marketing activity raised only $11 million and no one has been left better educated about African concerns, wouldn't it have been better to have just redirected the ad budget straight into the charity?"

In a recent story, the Washington Post tackles cause marketing's paradoxical nature, and seems to theorize that perhaps consumers are just a little too confused to participate in such initiatives: "Cause marketing soothes the compunctions of a mass-consumption culture at the same time that it contributes to that excess. It allows us to be giving at the same time that we are selfish."