Running on pink fumes

Pinktober is coming to an end, but the pink marketing machines are still rolling.

In my Sunday paper, I noticed that Proctor and Gamble included their multi-page pink coupon insert. It appears that P&G partnered with the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

I visited the P&G and NBCF websites, and found no information about any monetary donations.  This smells like a pink promotion opportunity. One of the items is a pink Swiffer sweeper.  Walmart is probably the largest customer of P&G products, and they have store displays of the pink Swiffer accompanied with a Walmart employee that is a breast cancer survivor.  On these displays is the website Cleaning for a Reason.    According to their website “Breast Cancer Awareness Month creates a natural opportunity for Cleaning for a Reason to raise awareness of their mission to ease the burden of household chores for women.”

Allotta money was spent on the production of these coupon inserts and store displays.  I’m sad to see that there is no monetary donation included in this. Especially since this pink promotion involves Walmart and P&G – two gigantic companies.

Yoplait yogurt is once again running their lid promotion to benefit Komen.   Apparently, you can save your lids to save lives. Who knew? Peel-off your spoogy-yogurt-covered lid and place it into an envelope for mailing.  Some poor intern has to open these envelopes and count these lids.  While I doubt this actually happens, I hope that this poor intern is wearing rubber gloves.

According to their website: General Mills will donate 10 cents to Susan G. Komen^® for each lid received (and also for each code entered from select Yoplait products) by 6/30/14. Maximum total donation of up to $1,500,000

The NPQ had a good article titled The Economics of Pinkwashing at the NFL: Straw on the Camel’s Back?    This was an enlightening read about how much money is actually given to the American Cancer Society from all of the pink NFL merchandise.  “for every $100 spent on the pink stuff sold through the NFL’s breast cancer initiative, the American Cancer Society only receives $11.25″   Boooooo. Shame.

I visited the Charity Navigator website.  There are 27 organizations that are registered with Breast Cancer in their name or mission.  Of these 27, Eleven are ranked highest at 4 star and four are ranked as a zero star.  Too many organization are using pink to raise money.  It is my pleasure to call them out.

Here is what a breast cancer survivor thinks about pinkwashing.

BTW – November is Diabetes Awareness month.  I wonder what color is associated with that?