Water for children
Ethos water, sold at Starbucks, has a tagline of “helping children get clean water.” I recently had a meeting at Starbucks, much to my chagrin, and decided to use the remaining $2.12 on my gift card to purchase some water. The cashier rang it up, and announced the total due, “$1.98, please”. I make a comment about the cost of the water and she responds with something to the tune of, “well, Ethos water will make a donation to help get clean water to children in developing countries.” This made me feel mildly better about the asinine price of a bottle of ‘natural spring water’ … on second thought, no it didn’t make me feel better.
I just spent $2 on water, and $.05 is being donated to help kids get clean water. Don’t tell me (as they do on their sticker) the reason your company was created was to get clean water to kids in need when you’re only investing a paltry 2.5% of the sale (I realize it’s a higher percentage for what ethos makes b/c Starbucks marks this up for retail likely by 50% or more).
The same thing irritates me about the whole “product (red)” campaign. I see ads all over the place that tell me that my money is going to help people in need when I buy something (red) … that I should feel good about myself because that $150 cell phone I just bought will provide $5 of food for someone in Africa. Take that $150, give $50 to help someone in need, and buy a used cellphone instead.
I realize there is a balance, and I’m not suggesting that we (wealthy people by the worlds standards) should stop buying superfluous things/toys. Rather, I want to make us aware that $.05 for a bottle of water is good, but getting a free glass of tap water and taking that $2 and giving it to help children get water is 40 times more than what you’d be “donating” by getting that bottle of water.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Good point. One of the guys who was behind Ethos was in JB’s class at Stanford, but I agree that your money is better spent by giving it to something vs. a product as mentioned where your $ is only a small portion of what’s donated. Unfortunately I think this kind of things goes well at a place like Starbucks, where it’s “cool” to drink their coffee and even “cooler” to buy something like this; it’s all about status vs. the actual reason it was even intended: doing good.