Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Friday, December 25, 2015
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
All I want for Christmas
Thought at this festive time I'd post an extract from my son's letter to Santa...lego and world peace...what more could a person ask.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2008
Save the world, buy nappies
If you have a small child, nappies can become an obsession. This is fuelled by marketers who draw you in with promises of super absorption and all-night comfort for your little darling. However, the marketing has taken a creepier, yet seemingly benign, turn.
While recently perusing the nappy aisle, I noticed that now, when you buy nappies, you can, it seems, simultaneously save the lives of other children. A brand of nappies, which will remain nameless in case they sue me, promises that they will donate 2,5p (35 South African cents) to charity to provide a pregnant woman in the developing world with a tetanus vaccine. To be fair, the company has managed to sell at least 7,4-million of the nappy packets and millions of vaccines have been administered as a result.
I am glad lives have been saved, but the more I think about this campaign, the more it just does not add up.
The average pack of nappies that makes this promise, in the UK, costs about £6, with some as high as £8,50. On the conservative sale price of £6, the amount going to charity is, therefore, less than half a per cent of the cost. If we assume that the company makes a modest 20% profit on the product (and it probably makes more), it is donating 2% of the profit. And how would we ever know whether it has increased the cost of the nappies by 2,5p to cover this?
As a result of this particular campaign, website traffic for the product in question increased by 40%, along with profits. The company has also managed to divert attention from the fact that its product, disposable nappies, is a major threat to the environment. The average child will use 5 000 nappies over its nappy-wearing life. This equates to 130 bin-bags full of nappies. In the UK, three-billion nappies a year are thrown away – the vast majority are not biodegradable (and if I am honest, I am no angel in this regard).
So all things considered, although this campaign was helpful to some in need, it is hard not to treat it cynically, given the enormous profits involved. I doubt the company felt the sting of giving to others one bit as a result of this campaign.
Companies are becoming increasingly aware of the business opportunities afforded by shoppers’ desires to be ethical. At Christmas, I bought charity Christmas cards. On opening them, I noticed that only 10% of the cost went to charity. The cards were 20% more expensive than ‘noncharity’ cards. In other words, the charity component was carried by the consumer, plus a bit of additional profit on the side for the company.
This smacks of a sinister form of marketing that uses good will as a way of reeling in business. The nappies campaign appeals to parental emotion. It tugs at the heart strings when you think of other babies in need, when you are spending on yours. Buying ‘charity’ nappies eases the guilt. The mental comfort comes in thinking you have helped, and those with corporate power have assisted too.
However, if you placed £2,50 into the correct charity box that would have bought 100 vaccines instantly. Or better still, a $10-million anonymous donation given by the nappy manufacturer’s parent company (which generated $76-billion is sales in the last fiscal year) would have done the job much more effectively.
The company involved, and the charity administering the vaccines, would probably argue that the publicity generated by the campaign was vital in raising awareness of the unknown scourge of tetanus. Far be it from me to pooh-pooh all corporate social responsibility. But although the old adage says, ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’. I think the corporate gift horse could do a whole lot better and be a lot more transparent.
This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 22 February 2008 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.
While recently perusing the nappy aisle, I noticed that now, when you buy nappies, you can, it seems, simultaneously save the lives of other children. A brand of nappies, which will remain nameless in case they sue me, promises that they will donate 2,5p (35 South African cents) to charity to provide a pregnant woman in the developing world with a tetanus vaccine. To be fair, the company has managed to sell at least 7,4-million of the nappy packets and millions of vaccines have been administered as a result.
I am glad lives have been saved, but the more I think about this campaign, the more it just does not add up.
The average pack of nappies that makes this promise, in the UK, costs about £6, with some as high as £8,50. On the conservative sale price of £6, the amount going to charity is, therefore, less than half a per cent of the cost. If we assume that the company makes a modest 20% profit on the product (and it probably makes more), it is donating 2% of the profit. And how would we ever know whether it has increased the cost of the nappies by 2,5p to cover this?
As a result of this particular campaign, website traffic for the product in question increased by 40%, along with profits. The company has also managed to divert attention from the fact that its product, disposable nappies, is a major threat to the environment. The average child will use 5 000 nappies over its nappy-wearing life. This equates to 130 bin-bags full of nappies. In the UK, three-billion nappies a year are thrown away – the vast majority are not biodegradable (and if I am honest, I am no angel in this regard).
So all things considered, although this campaign was helpful to some in need, it is hard not to treat it cynically, given the enormous profits involved. I doubt the company felt the sting of giving to others one bit as a result of this campaign.
Companies are becoming increasingly aware of the business opportunities afforded by shoppers’ desires to be ethical. At Christmas, I bought charity Christmas cards. On opening them, I noticed that only 10% of the cost went to charity. The cards were 20% more expensive than ‘noncharity’ cards. In other words, the charity component was carried by the consumer, plus a bit of additional profit on the side for the company.
This smacks of a sinister form of marketing that uses good will as a way of reeling in business. The nappies campaign appeals to parental emotion. It tugs at the heart strings when you think of other babies in need, when you are spending on yours. Buying ‘charity’ nappies eases the guilt. The mental comfort comes in thinking you have helped, and those with corporate power have assisted too.
However, if you placed £2,50 into the correct charity box that would have bought 100 vaccines instantly. Or better still, a $10-million anonymous donation given by the nappy manufacturer’s parent company (which generated $76-billion is sales in the last fiscal year) would have done the job much more effectively.
The company involved, and the charity administering the vaccines, would probably argue that the publicity generated by the campaign was vital in raising awareness of the unknown scourge of tetanus. Far be it from me to pooh-pooh all corporate social responsibility. But although the old adage says, ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’. I think the corporate gift horse could do a whole lot better and be a lot more transparent.
This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 22 February 2008 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
Ba Humbug to Christmas cynics
For 12 months now, I have been trying to think of something interesting to say about Christmas. This has proved no straightforward task. Currently, like at the end of most years, I feel exhausted and am struggling to say something out of the ordinary on any subject, let alone remember all the witty things I thought up about Christmas in March. On top of this, Christmas is much the same each year, making it almost impossible to say anything original about it.
One option would be to spend the rest of this article complaining about Christmas, cataloguing all the things that make the silly season excruciating.
But we are all familiar with the list, including overbearing family members, cold stringy turkey, uncontrollable shopping, incessant Christmas jingles and, of course, flatulence-inducing Brussels sprouts. But that would be too easy and the last thing I would want to be is one of those people who pretend that they hate Christmas but really love it because they can spend a few weeks rattling on about how much they hate it.
A second option would be to get serious about the subject and throw myself into the debate about whether Christmas is politically offensive to people from non-Christian faiths. Better still, I could become a campaigner for a secular world carrying out acts of sabotage on Christmas trees in shopping malls. Or, perhaps, I could swing to the other extreme and become a Christmas freak decorating the garden with a 30-ft model of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and other paraphernalia. Public responses to such actions would give me lots to write about. But, sadly, I have bigger fish to fry, not to mention a turkey to baste. Besides, I feel unmoved by the political-correctness discussion about Christmas, whether from pro-Christmas zealots or those who find it disconcerting. I am tired of people going out of their way to be offended.
Then again I could abandon any concern about the meaning of Christmas and throw myself headlong into the commercialism of it. Christmas would make the perfect time to write about new products on the market from Robosapiens to buying goats for friends that then get donated to poor people in Africa. I could even make a list of all the things I want from Father Christmas. But I don’t need anything more. So this year I will say what I don’t want. So what I don’t want for Christmas this year is any more bombs a-dropping, the subtlety of Robert Mugabe, Jacob Zuma’s legal bill, a voucher for a polonium-laced sushi bar in London, and poultry of any description in pear trees or any other foliage.
That said, I fear that complaining about Christmas, exploring its political significance or shopping myself silly will not move me any closer towards finding an attention-grabbing angle on Christmas. However, when I shared my woes with my wife, she reminded me of a simple fact: people like Christmas precisely because it is the same. Christmas provides continuity from one year to the next. It is a constant across one’s entire life. As WJ Cameron said, “There has been only one Christmas – the rest are anniversaries”.
So I guess those of us who celebrate Christmas are stuck in an unending tinsel-laced time loop, for better or for worse.
To deal with this, I have decided, drawing on the immortal words of Monty Python, that, although we might all be individuals, I am not. So bring out the reindeer, sleighs bells, mistletoe, carol singers, babies in mangers, donkeys, lowing cattle, school nativity plays, credit cards, wise men with weird gifts, Christmas pudding with hazardous coins in it, terrified turkeys and, of course, as many Santas with polyester beards a person can find, because, if you cannot beat them, join them.
This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 15 December 2006 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.
One option would be to spend the rest of this article complaining about Christmas, cataloguing all the things that make the silly season excruciating.
But we are all familiar with the list, including overbearing family members, cold stringy turkey, uncontrollable shopping, incessant Christmas jingles and, of course, flatulence-inducing Brussels sprouts. But that would be too easy and the last thing I would want to be is one of those people who pretend that they hate Christmas but really love it because they can spend a few weeks rattling on about how much they hate it.
A second option would be to get serious about the subject and throw myself into the debate about whether Christmas is politically offensive to people from non-Christian faiths. Better still, I could become a campaigner for a secular world carrying out acts of sabotage on Christmas trees in shopping malls. Or, perhaps, I could swing to the other extreme and become a Christmas freak decorating the garden with a 30-ft model of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and other paraphernalia. Public responses to such actions would give me lots to write about. But, sadly, I have bigger fish to fry, not to mention a turkey to baste. Besides, I feel unmoved by the political-correctness discussion about Christmas, whether from pro-Christmas zealots or those who find it disconcerting. I am tired of people going out of their way to be offended.
Then again I could abandon any concern about the meaning of Christmas and throw myself headlong into the commercialism of it. Christmas would make the perfect time to write about new products on the market from Robosapiens to buying goats for friends that then get donated to poor people in Africa. I could even make a list of all the things I want from Father Christmas. But I don’t need anything more. So this year I will say what I don’t want. So what I don’t want for Christmas this year is any more bombs a-dropping, the subtlety of Robert Mugabe, Jacob Zuma’s legal bill, a voucher for a polonium-laced sushi bar in London, and poultry of any description in pear trees or any other foliage.
That said, I fear that complaining about Christmas, exploring its political significance or shopping myself silly will not move me any closer towards finding an attention-grabbing angle on Christmas. However, when I shared my woes with my wife, she reminded me of a simple fact: people like Christmas precisely because it is the same. Christmas provides continuity from one year to the next. It is a constant across one’s entire life. As WJ Cameron said, “There has been only one Christmas – the rest are anniversaries”.
So I guess those of us who celebrate Christmas are stuck in an unending tinsel-laced time loop, for better or for worse.
To deal with this, I have decided, drawing on the immortal words of Monty Python, that, although we might all be individuals, I am not. So bring out the reindeer, sleighs bells, mistletoe, carol singers, babies in mangers, donkeys, lowing cattle, school nativity plays, credit cards, wise men with weird gifts, Christmas pudding with hazardous coins in it, terrified turkeys and, of course, as many Santas with polyester beards a person can find, because, if you cannot beat them, join them.
This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 15 December 2006 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.
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