The National association of Women Business Owners, NAWBO, sent out a recent poll asking their readers of ‘Smart Brief’, this question;
‘Do you buy any of the pink products that go on sale each year for national Breast Cancer Awareness month?’
Here are the results:
• 57.61% Said NO
• 31.52% Said A FEW
• 10.87% Said YES A Lot
www.nawbo.org has over 70,000 members and many more read their on line ‘brief’.
My question is why not?
I was shocked to see these results? If I was to buy a product and saw they had a special packaging that gave even .05 to breast cancer charities, I would buy it. Why wouldn’t I?
Do women think that a ‘pink’ product that supports breast cancer awareness never goes to the charities? Do they think it is just a marketing come-on? There is even a name, ‘Pink Washing’. Breast cancer 25 years ago was not talked about except a hushed whisper. It was considered a woman’s cancer. When women were diagnosed with breast cancer in the not so distant past, their husbands were told about their wife’s disease. Breast cancer awareness has come a long way from then and we are all better for it!
Recently Kentucky Fried Chicken and Komen for the Cure www.komen.org came under attack with their partnership. Five cents was donated for every family size bucket that was bought during a period of time. Yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken is not a health food and is counter intuitive to healthy eating and cancer prevention, with-out question. The reality is many people eat KFC often and why not garner a donation from folks that may not otherwise donate to Komen? Why not give people who eat KFC and know they shouldn’t a bit less guilt? $4.2 million was raised.
My company, www.haralee.com, supports breast cancer research and gives a portion of every sale to breast cancer charity. During the month of October we give more. We don’t have to have been a socially conscious company but we choose to reward the purchasing power of our customers that shop with us. We want our customers to feel good about their purchase on many levels and supporting breast cancer research is one way it becomes a win-win situation.