Book
New book - Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World
Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte examine celebrity-driven 'compassionate consumption'
'Has there ever been a better reason to shop' asks an ad for the Product RED American Express card, telling members who use the card that buying 'cappuccinos or cashmere' will help to fight AIDS in Africa.
In Brand Aid, Lisa Ann Richey and DIIS senior researcher Stefano Ponte offer a deeply informed and stinging critique of 'compassionate consumption'. Campaigns like Product RED and its precursors, such as Lance Armstrong's Livestrong and the pink-ribbon project in support of breast cancer research, advance the expansion of consumption far more than they meet the needs of the people they ostensibly serve. At the same time, such campaigns sell both the suffering of Africans with AIDS (in the case of Product RED) and the power of the average consumer to ameliorate it through familiar and highly effective media representations.
Using Product RED as its focal point, this book explores how corporations like American Express, Armani, Gap, and Hallmark promote compassionate consumption to improve their ethical profile and value without significantly altering their business model, thereby protecting themselves from the threat to their bottom lines posed by a genuinely engaged consumer activism. Coupled with the phenomenon of celebrity activism and expertise as embodied by Bono, Richey and Ponte argue that this 'causumerism' represents a deeply troubling shift in relief efforts, effectively delinking the relationship between capitalist production and global poverty.
Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte (2011) Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).
Brand Aid on Facebook: join the conversation at http://tinyurl.com/4oxkbz7
Brand Aid on Twitter: @BrandAid_World
To order the book, click on one of the links below (links open direct pages to catalogue entries):
From Amazon.com
From Amazon.co.uk
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Product (RED) and the Reinvention of International Aid
1. Band Aid to Brand Aid: Celebrity Experts and Expert Celebrities
2. The Rock Man's Burden: Vanity, Value, and Virtual Salvation
3. Saving Africa: AIDS and the Rebranding of Aid
4. Hard Commerce: Corporate Social Responsibility for Distant Others
5. Doing Good by Shopping Well: The Rise of 'Causumer' Culture
Conclusion: Celebrities, Consumers, and Everyone Else
In Brand Aid, Lisa Ann Richey and DIIS senior researcher Stefano Ponte offer a deeply informed and stinging critique of 'compassionate consumption'. Campaigns like Product RED and its precursors, such as Lance Armstrong's Livestrong and the pink-ribbon project in support of breast cancer research, advance the expansion of consumption far more than they meet the needs of the people they ostensibly serve. At the same time, such campaigns sell both the suffering of Africans with AIDS (in the case of Product RED) and the power of the average consumer to ameliorate it through familiar and highly effective media representations.
Using Product RED as its focal point, this book explores how corporations like American Express, Armani, Gap, and Hallmark promote compassionate consumption to improve their ethical profile and value without significantly altering their business model, thereby protecting themselves from the threat to their bottom lines posed by a genuinely engaged consumer activism. Coupled with the phenomenon of celebrity activism and expertise as embodied by Bono, Richey and Ponte argue that this 'causumerism' represents a deeply troubling shift in relief efforts, effectively delinking the relationship between capitalist production and global poverty.
Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte (2011) Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).
Brand Aid on Facebook: join the conversation at http://tinyurl.com/4oxkbz7
Brand Aid on Twitter: @BrandAid_World
To order the book, click on one of the links below (links open direct pages to catalogue entries):
From Amazon.com
From Amazon.co.uk
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Product (RED) and the Reinvention of International Aid
1. Band Aid to Brand Aid: Celebrity Experts and Expert Celebrities
2. The Rock Man's Burden: Vanity, Value, and Virtual Salvation
3. Saving Africa: AIDS and the Rebranding of Aid
4. Hard Commerce: Corporate Social Responsibility for Distant Others
5. Doing Good by Shopping Well: The Rise of 'Causumer' Culture
Conclusion: Celebrities, Consumers, and Everyone Else
Topics
Brand aid
shopping well to save the world