Seminar & Book Launch:
Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World

The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) invites to a seminar and book launch: Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World in Copenhagen, 13 May 2011.

‘Has there ever been a better reason to shop?’ asks an ad for the Product RED American Express card, telling members who use the card that buying ‘cappuccinos or cashmere’ will help to fight AIDS in Africa.

In Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World (U of Minnesota Press, 2011), Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte offer an informed and stinging critique of ‘compassionate consumption’. Campaigns like Product RED and its precursors, such as Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong and the pink-ribbon project in support of breast cancer research, advance the expansion of consumption far more than they meet the needs of the people they ostensibly serve. At the same time, such campaigns sell both the suffering of Africans with AIDS (in the case of Product RED) and the power of the average consumer to ameliorate it through familiar and highly effective media representations.

Book co-author Lisa Ann Richey is professor of International Development Studies at Roskilde University and she is on the Ørecomm team.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use online registration form no later than Thursday, 12 May 2011 at 12.00 noon. For more information and registration, see the DIIS page here.