Yesterday, AdAge struggled to make sense of Bono's stint as guest-editor at Vanity Fair> by taking a look back at some of his other pet projects, namely the (Product) Red campaign.
You know, the one where Christy Turlington, Penelope Cruz and Steven Spielberg showed how much they cared about Africa's AIDS epidemic by volunteering their services at various AIDS awareness centers donning red Gap sweatshirts and smiling for the camera.
And while it's certainly nice to have an excuse for shopping at the Gap besides "my credit card got rejected at Club Monaco," it would seem that the cot of Red's marketing campaign slightly outweighs the amount of money raised:
Estimated cost of Bono's Red campaign: $100 million
Estimated earnings from Bono's Red campaign: $18 million
Did we say "slightly?" We actually meant "drastically."
And, as critics have already pointed out, the money would seemingly have been far better spent on making a direct donation than on hocking red t-shirts (i.e. useless crap) with the tag-line, "Steven Spielberg's wearing one—why aren't you?" Anyhow, we hope the numbers for Bono's issue of Vanity Fair are somewhat more favorable. Because while Bono may want to see the Red campaign succeed, he certainly doesn't want Graydon Carter seeing red.
What a scam.
http://www.paybackisapicture.com
You know, I love Jossip, it's like Gawker circa 2002, but with that you have the same problems of not really paying any attention to your website. Please close the goddamn italics. I understand that Vanity Fair must be properly italicized, but everything after it? No.