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Abstract
This article is inspired by a recent television commercial for Pampers (a brand of disposable diapers) which announces that by buying this brand of diapers ‘you can help the world's babies in need, because one pack of Pampers equals one life saving vaccine’. This commercial promotes the ‘One Pack = One Vaccine’ initiative between Pampers and UNICEF, a cause-related marketing (CRM) campaign that supplies a tetanus vaccine to a woman in the South with each purchase of Pampers in North America. This article critically examines the way that CRM (and the One Pack initiative in particular) links individual consumption choices to development while simultaneously delinking consumption from environmental degradation, health risks and global inequalities. Taking this argument further, it uses a feminist perspective to examine the ways in which the narratives of ‘first world women’ and ‘third world women’ are depicted and used in the One Pack initiative, to make certain North–South power dynamics invisible while highlighting others. This is accomplished through a discourse of an imagined community of global motherhood. Drawing on insights gained from key informant interviews and discourse analysis, it is argued that the One Pack initiative discourses constrain North–South connections to those based on capitalist and colonial power relations. This limits the potential of CRM to promote more engaged, responsible and just terms of connection between the North and South.
Este artículo está inspirado en el reciente comercial de televisión de Pampers (una marca de pañales descartables) que anuncia que comprando esta marca de pañales ‘puedes ayudar a los bebés necesitados del mundo, porque, un paquete de Pampers es igual a una vacuna que salva una vida’. Este comercial promociona la iniciativa ‘Un paquete = Una vacuna’ entre Pampers y UNICEF, una campaña de marketing vinculada a una causa (CRM, por sus siglas en inglés), que provee una vacuna de tétanos a una mujer en el Sur, con cada compra de Pampers en Norteamérica. En este artículo hago un análisis crítico de la forma en que las CRM (y en particular la iniciativa ‘Un Paquete’) relacionan las elecciones individuales de consumo con el desarrollo, al tiempo que lo desligan de la degradación medioambiental, los riesgos a la salud y las inequidades globales. Desarrollando más este argumento, utilizo una perspectiva feminista para estudiar las formas en que las narrativas sobre las mujeres del ‘primer mundo’ y del ‘tercer mundo’ son descriptas y utilizadas en la iniciativa ‘Un Paquete’, para hacer invisibles ciertas dinámicas de poder Norte-Sur, mientras se destacan otras. Esto se logra a través de un discurso de una comunidad imaginada de maternidad global. Basándome en el conocimiento obtenido por medio de entrevistas a informantes claves y el análisis del discurso, sostengo que los discursos de la iniciativa ‘Un Paquete’ limitan las conexiones Norte-Sur a aquellas relaciones de poder capitalista y colonial. Esto limita el potencial de las CRM para promover términos de conexión entre el Norte y el Sur que sean más comprometidos, responsables y justos.
Acknowledgements
Drafts of this article were presented at Sexing the Globe: Affairs at Home and A/broad, a conference at the Pennsylvania State University on 21 February 2009 and at the Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference, in Manchester, UK on 28 August 2009. The audience questions and comments at these events helped me greatly in developing my ideas further. I would also like to thank Diana Ojeda, Alex Hughes and three anonymous reviewers for their very insightful and helpful comments. Furthermore I would like to thank the Geographical Perspectives on Women speciality group of the AAG for their support through the Glenda Laws Paper Award.
Notes
1. I use the terms North and South throughout this article for lack of better terms, realizing that they are socially constructed and problematic in nature.
2. Another North American initiative was in effect between February and May 2009 where $0.07 was donated to the cause per package of diapers purchased (UNICEF Citation2009a).
3. Upon request I do not use the interview participants' names or job titles in this article.
4. The 2009 initiative resulted in 30 million more vaccines being donated (UNICEF Citation2009a).
5. As of 21 June 2009.
6. Examples of ‘mommybloggers’ invited to attend One Pack initiative events include: http://www.momspark.net and http://www.bostonmamas.com.
7. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for helping me frame my analysis of representations in this way.
8. http://www.unicefusa.org/donate/other-ways-to-give/partner-offers.html (accessed 26 November 2009.
9. For example: Product (RED)TM involves lending the Product (RED)TM brand to a variety of products (e.g. Apple i-pods) the sale of which triggers a donation by the parent companies equaling a certain percentage of the profits (different for each product) to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis (Ponte, Richey, and Baab Citation2009).
10. Posted on 31 March 2009 – discussion board comment on: http://momspark.net/pampers-one-pack-one-vaccine-campaign-giveaway/.
11. It is difficult to compare the price between different brands of disposable diapers because the quantity in each package varies per brand and prices vary per store. One mother blogger who went to the trouble of comparing the prices of the largest box of diapers in size 3 found that Pampers cost 21 cents per diaper, Huggies 27 cents, Luvs 18 cents and Kirkland (the Costco store brand) 17.4 cents. This means that by purchasing a package of 200 size 3 diapers in the Kirkland brand over the Pampers brand a consumer can potentially save $7.20, which if donated to UNICEF would translate into 144 MNT vaccines. Posted on: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/375319/a_moms_review_of_the_top_diaper_brands.html?cat = 25.
12. For example see ‘Brazil kicks up stink over British rubbish’ (Murakawa and Grudgings Citation2009)
13. For examples see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = OYfJfx220lo&feature = related and http://celebrity-babies.com/2008/01/13/salma-hayek-tea/.
14. These critics of UNICEF are displeased with what they see as UNICEF overtly promoting abortion around the world (e.g. http://www.lifeissues.org/UNICEF/unicef.htm; http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/oct/04101201.html).
15. UNICEF takes issue with the way in which international adoptions are conducted in Guatemala in an ex-judicial process they recommend only in-country adoptions (e.g. http://www.familieswithoutborders.com/FWBstudyGuatemala.pdf).
16. Comment by: Junglee786 (2008) on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = NAvjWVj12AU.
17. Posted 2 July 2008 by Becca Atkins-Stumbo on http://princessellaruth.blogspot.com/2008/07/pampers-unicef-and-derby-pie.html.
18. Comments by nwaka82 (2009) and ChulaKirby (2008) on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = OYfJfx220lo&feature = related.
19. Posted by Kallman, I. on 13 August 2008 on http://www.alphamom.com/mmb/2008/08/pampers_unicef_connect_moms_ar.php.
20. Comments by 177Cooper on 6 February 2009 on http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/comments?type = story&id = 6804291.
21. As quoted on 5 February 2009 on http://www.celebrity-gossip.net/celebrities/hollywood/salma-hayek-one-pack-one-vaccine-211185/.
22. Comments by Arrasando99 (2008) and Nahyacita (2009) on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = OYfJfx220lo&feature = related.
23. Despite these efforts to maintain a strict ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomy there are areas of the One Pack discourse where the boundaries are more leaky. For example, the ‘first world woman’ is considered white by most audience members despite her dark hair and the voiceover of Hayek's Mexican-American accent. The fact that she is perceived as such is likely related to the fact that she is affluent and depicted as the savior of traditional-looking ‘third world women’. Linking this to King's (Citation2006) argument that donating to charity is an important part of being a ‘proper’ American, and fact that the 2009 One Pack initiative is directed at an audience of Latina mothers in the US, could indicate that a subtle message embedded in the CRM discourse is that through helping ‘distant others’ non-white consumers can demonstrate that they themselves are no longer part of the category ‘other’. These slippages between ‘us’ and ‘them’ highlight the complex entanglements between race, class and gender that I plan to explore further in future work.
24. As quoted on 5 February 2009 on: http://www.celebrity-gossip.net/celebrities/hollywood/salma-hayek-one-pack-one-vaccine-211185/.
25. Comments by sophie264 (2008), edielicious (2008) and hilarybillery (2009) on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = OYfJfx220lo&feature = related.