Shoppers of the World Unite: (Red)'S Messaging and Morality in the Fight Against African Aids (Viewpoint Essay‪)‬

Introduction A philanthropic trend has emerged in which companies encourage people to buy products, promising to give a percentage of the profits to charities. Such "embedded giving" (Strom 2007) or "cause marketing" (Stole 2008) promotes consumerism, tying buying to benevolence. (Product)RED (hereafter (RED)) (1) is a fine example of this phenomenon. (RED) encourages people to purchase products that fund AIDS work in Africa. (RED) is a unique business model that uses cultural schemas and categories to link capitalism to a humanitarian effort, constructing it as a moral issue. (RED) is not simply advocating the purchase of products, it is also attempting to persuade us,2 as consumers, that we have the opportunity to save Africa without ever leaving the comfort of our homes or malls, without doing anything but shop. Because it gives such a simple solution, (RED) tries to convince us that not only do we have the opportunity to change the world, we also have an obligation to do so.