Bono targets HIV in Africa with licensing deals
The fifth-floor restaurant at the Harvey Nichols store in London's Knightsbridge is pulsating. Arriving guests run a flashing, shouting gantlet of paparazzi. Inside, the scene is straight out of "The Devil Wears Prada" -- impossibly slim women clutching cocktails and men with expensively distressed hair bearing champagne flutes. Actor Pierce Brosnan can be glimpsed in the crowd. The party leads the London Evening Standard's social diary column the next day. It all seems a long way from Africa.
The gathering launched a small line of African-made clothing owned by Bono, the ubiquitous campaigning rock star. Helping Africa is a long-standing preoccupation for Bono, which is why he has recruited far bigger companies and brands than his own to the cause. Product Red, announced a year ago at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, is seeking a commercial solution to the humanitarian disaster of AIDS in Africa.
In its first year, Red has provided ammunition for both optimists and those skeptical that the rich can consume their way to a better world for the poor. But after a stuttering British start, Red's U.S. incarnation jumped out of the gates. The first Red-donated money has started flowing to Africa -- $5.25 million has gone to Rwanda and $4 million to Swaziland -- to treat HIV-positive Africans and to provide care for AIDS orphans. The fund has put 800,000 people in the developing world on antiretroviral drugs and is aiming to at least double that this year.
Red works simply. Its trademark, a pair of red parentheses symbolizing the embrace of solidarity, is licensed to partner companies that use it on specific products. In return, the partners donate some of the revenue or profit to the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- launched in 2002 to combat the diseases in the developing world -- and pay a fee to Red to cover marketing and administration. Red is the color of emergency and alarm, fitting for the humanitarian disaster of more than 2 million African deaths a year from AIDS.
By last year's launch, Red had deals with Gap Inc., Giorgio Armani, American Express Co., Converse Inc. (owned by Nike Inc.) and Motorola Inc. Since then, it has added Apple Inc., which launched a Red iPod Nano in October.
Red is a limited-liability company owned by Bono and Bobby Shriver, the chief executive. Shriver, a Californian, is a nephew of President Kennedy. His mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founded the Special Olympics. His sister, Maria, is a former NBC News anchor and is married to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- A Red bandwagon Jan 29, 2006
- Bono Backs Tax Cuts, Incentives to Aid Economy Dec 05, 1991
- Inspi(red) idea, unexplo(red) power Oct 26, 2006
