Sounds Good. Does Good.
Apple has finally decided to make a splash in the realm of “Doing well, by doing good” with its “Sounds Good. Does Good.” campaign. They have been criticized in the past for not going further with environmentally friendly practices but even that has changed recently with their greatly reducing the packaging on the # 1 music player in the world by 69%.
Big deal you think? Well consider that they sold 14 Million of these iPods in the past year alone. That’s over 4 Million pounds of trees saved. Let alone reduced shipping costs and less carbon in the atmosphere. Apple shareholders (including myself) hear the sweet music of KaChing while Steve can now sing Kumbaya with the Green Peace folks. Actually Apple has a long history of doing the right thing and you can read about it here:
But that is not what this post is about. Recently Apple joined forces with RED tm http://www.joinred.com/ which was partly established by Bono and showcased recently on Oprah with it’s US launch. RED tm is plugged in to an enormous and powerful resource base...the global consumer. It works something like this: Apple has released a new iPod nano that is exactly the same as the other iPods being sold, except that it is wrapped in a special red case. The other big difference is that $10 of each sale will be going to Bono's AIDS-awareness charity, RED tm which passes the funds on to The Global Fund, an organization that helps women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Hmmmm, let’s do the math. If Apple maintains the same sales volume (and we know it is going up) and sells only 10% of these, that $14,000,000 + dollars going to RED tm.
Now multiply this with other hot products such as RED tm Converse Sneakers, special RED tm American Express cards and RED tm Motorola SLVR phones and the numbers get real big.
Bono claims this is not a charity but a new business model. “You simply buy RED tm stuff, we get the money. We buy the pills and distribute them. They take the pills and stay alive...All you have to do is upgrade your choice [of purchase].”
Is this really a new business model or a great fundraising mechanism? Does it matter? If a significant amount of money is raised, that means the consumer wants this. If the consumer wants this, then that can only be good for shareholders. We promise you that we will be following this story closely over the next couple of years and will report on the bottom line results.
Friday, October 13, 2006
