Race For The Cure

Thinking Pink Hasn't Helped Find Causes of Breast Cancer

With all the money spent on research, breast cancer experts are disappointed with lack of answers.

Seems like a pretty good racket.

What's worse, is that with all their money, all the pink things all around - The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation finds that they need to sue other organizations using, "For the Cure," (to the story) and the Pink Ribbon. To be sure, they're suing a meat producer in that case... but they don't stop there. They sue, or threaten lawsuits over ANYONE using the terms 'for the cure' or use pink in their work.

"It is startling to us that Komen thinks they own pink," says Mary Ann Tighe, who tangled with the breast-cancer charity over the color for her "Kites for a Cure" lung-cancer fund-raiser. "We cannot allow ourselves to be bullied to no purpose."

Trademark battles often garner huge amounts of legal wrangling - and for good cause - fonts, logo designs and other branding minutia can be the life or death of a major brand. But in non-profits? Apparently their branding is just as important - and important enough to use donated funds to spend on lawyers and to keep Timmy from getting a new lung -- instead, say, look for that 'cure'?

After a little more digging I found Dr. Samantha King's book "Pink Ribbon Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy.' It's an exposé of the pervasive corporate branding opportunity that the pink ribbon affords.

Corporations love breast cancer because breast cancer is "safe", carrying none of what marketers euphemistically call the "lifestyle issues" of serious diseases -

Lung cancer will kill triple the number of people that breast cancer does. Ovarian, cervical and prostate cancer will kill about 20,000 more individuals than breast cancer. And alcoholism, addiction and depression will this year continue to kill not just via the overt channels of overdose and suicide, but in their brutal toll on overall health. ~Mary Elizabeth Williams

It just seems that that icky old AIDS, lung cancer, or even heart disease don't look good on packages of Ice Cream. Heart disease, which just so happens, kills six times more women than breast cancer... See, it's not as marketable since those other diseases are seen to be self-inflicted.

So it's sexy, and I mean, beyond the breast part.

It's 'not anyone's fault' for getting breast cancer -- not like lung cancer you damned smokers! You and your 15 minute breaks every ten minutes! Meh!!

And Pink has meshed very nicely with the corporate world’s discovery during the mid-1980s of cause-related marketing. Research had proved that, given the same cost and quality, more than half of consumers would switch from a particular store or brand to one associated with a good cause. Simple as that.

Consider Campbell’s soup, for example. In 2006, Advertising Age reported on a Campbell’s soup cause-related marketing success story – “turning its iconic soup can on its ear by replacing the traditional red-and-white with pink-and-white, and adding a pink ribbon for Breast Cancer Awareness Month”. The result? Campbell’s sales for their pink-clad varieties doubled that month, and even motivated store managers to display the soups outside the soup aisle. Campbell donated 3.5 cents per pink can to its breast cancer charity in exchange for its doubled order. But the financial payoff was huge for the company, even after the breast cancer donation was deducted.

Who needs a cure? We've got an engine for sales.

And, after how many marches, and 20 years of who-knows-how-much pink soup, shoes, signs, ribbons and tubs of KFC -- where's the cure?

In the spirit of complaining, but then offering a solution, I'm sharing Samantha King's thoughts from her book, Pink Ribbons Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy. She suggests that when buying pink endorsed products to ask...

1. How much money actually goes to the cause? If very little. it’s best to give directly to organizations whose work you support rather than filtering it through a large corporation.

2. Where will the money end up? Information about this is usually hard to find and often vague; if you can’t tell, don’t buy the product.

3. What types of programs will benefit? If we want to see real innovation in the breast cancer research agenda, we should target our generosity to those organizations that focus on the causes of the disease and how to prevent them.

Hey, I'm all for saving boobs -- but suing anyone for using a slogan or pink, with dollars better spent in the laboratory, and corporate tag-alongs coming round for the boost in sales - not necessarily a boost in Cure -- well, that's enough to start asking questions about, isn't it?