Kathleen M. Kuehn
Compassionate Consumption: Branding Africa through Red

Abstract

This critical case study of Product RED interrogates the socio-cultural and political economic implications of cause related marketing (CRM) which uses the sale of commodity goods to raise money for a social cause. Through the lens of commodity fetishism this research reveals how RED’s brand-within-brand experience strategically positions Africa as a branded symbol and promotes individualism as a philanthropic value, mystifying the larger political economic issues of production and consumption embedded in commercially-driven philanthropy. This research argues that RED is consistent with the larger neo-liberal project that relies on an ethos of individualism and personal responsibility to address social reform which in the end renders a market-based approach to charity as paradoxical and problematic. Despite the campaign’s philanthropic goals, this research rejects RED as a counter-hegemonic solution to pressing social and political issues.