Can't Buy Me Love

$100 million. Estimated amount that Gap, Apple and Motorola have spent on marketing the RED Campaign, launched a year ago to benefit the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
$18 million. Amount the RED Campaign has raised worldwide
"Numbers" Time Magazine 19 March, 2007

One suspects that everyone involved would have been better off if Gap, Apple and Motorola had simply given the Global Fund $82 million, and then spent $18 million taking out advertisements to tell people how generous they were. Perhaps people in other countries are more familiar with the RED Campaign than I am. I seem to recall having heard of it, but I don't think that I could have connected it to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria if money rested on the answer. I most certainly don't recall Gap, Apple and Motorola being associated with the Fund. I don't remember these three companies spending last year waving their arms in the air, and shouting "Hey! Look at me and how supportive of disease control and prevention I'm being!" Perhaps, the cynical view of this is incorrect, and I wasn't meant to.

It could be that in today's media environment that last year's global health crises is as much ancient history as the Black Plague, and I've simply forgotten the posturing. Or, it could be that they invested heavily in media that I don't spend much time with, or in foreign markets that I'm not plugged in to. Or it could be that they honestly miscalculated the return that the Global Fund would realize on the investment. Yeah, yeah, I know. But here's hoping.